Items tagged with MacBook Pro
Earlier this week, Apple announced a number of updates to its MacBook family including a new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, a slightly revised MacBook Air, and the axing of the 12-inch MacBook. Today, the teardown experts over at iFixit got their hands on the new base 13-inch MacBook Pro and were able to confirm a number of changes that set the device apart from its predecessor. Externally, the biggest change is the arrival of the Touch Bar, which means that the entire MacBook Pro family now includes the touch-sensitive OLED panel. Internally, the Touch Bar is driven by the T2 security chip. Apple also increased the size of the battery ever so slightly, rising from 54.5 WHr on...
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After letting its entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro languish for the past two years without any major updates, Apple is finally "making it rain". Just in time for Back to School season, the base 13-inch MacBook Pro is gaining a number of features previously reserved for its more expensive siblings. Standard equipment now includes a True Tone display, the T2 security chip and the Touch Bar (which includes Touch ID). The last addition might be sad news for those Apple fans that hate the Touch Bar (admittedly, it's more of a gimmick than actually being useful) and love the traditional function keys on the top row. Apple has also updated the internal hardware, as the previous "old hat" 7th generation...
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Rumors were swirling in February of this year from noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that Apple would be launching a new display this year along with a new 16-inch MacBook Pro. The display launch happened, but the 16-inch MacBook Pro was absent from the event that did bring some updated Macs. A new rumor is going around that Apple is launching a 16-inch MacBook Pro this year, and this new information is based on an industry report from IHS Market. The report claims that Apple will launch a 16-inch MacBook Pro that has a screen resolution of 3072 x 1920, up from the 2880 x 1800 resolution screen offered in the 15-inch MacBook. The same updated keyboard and newer 9th gen Intel processors are expected...
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Recalls due to battery issues are nothing new in the laptop world. Bad batteries have overheated and caused fires multiple times over the years in different notebook brands, as well as cellphones of course. This week, Apple issued a recall on certain MacBook Pro laptops due to a fire risk associated with the battery. The machines were specific versions of the 15-inch MacBook Pro from the mid-2015 era. The company notes on its support site that, "Apple has determined that, in a limited number of older generation 15-inch MacBook Pro units, the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk." Apple is taking the fire risk seriously and is advising anyone who owns a machine covered by the...
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Owners of previous-generation 15-inch MacBook Pros may have cause for concern. Apple has recalled some older models of the machine due to potential battery fire risks. Consumers will be able to get their battery replaced for free, however. The batteries in the affected Macbook Pros may overheat and create a fire hazard. The machines were sold between September 2015 and November 2017 and users will need to check their device's serial number to determine whether or not their machine is eligible for a battery replacement. The affected model is the “MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)”. If the device is eligible, Apple suggests that users stop using the device immediately....
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Touchscreen devices have become common since the first iPhone launched years ago. Physical buttons are going away on smartphones, in cars, and on laptop computers. The lack of physical buttons means that sometimes the most basic fixes for problems can get overlooked. Case in point is a photographer's trouble with his high-end MacBook Pro. Photographer Greg Benz started to have issues with his $7,000 MacBook Pro notebook computer. The problem was that the screen was black no matter what he did, and he took the machine, which was under warranty, to Apple for help. Apple, like Benz, thought the screen was defective and set about making repairs to try and fix the machine. The repairs were extensive,...
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It's that time again; time for Apple's yearly update to its MacBook Pro family of notebooks. The company has just rolled out its 2019 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops which come with up to the latest 9th generation mobile Intel Core processors (at least for the latter model). As the red-headed stepchild of the MacBook Pro family, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is getting faster 8th generation Core processors. In the base system, you'll find a quad-core 2.4GHz Core i5 processor (4.1GHz boost), which is up slightly from last year's model. You can optionally select a quad-core Core i7 processor that boosts up to 4.7GHz ($300 option). The 15-inch MacBook Pro, however, gets the...
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Apple just can’t seem to get it right when it comes to the keyboards on its MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro family of laptops. Even though the company is currently on the third-generation of its “butterfly key” keyboard design, customers are still complaining of premature failures. With that being said, the process of replacing a defective keyboard is not a simple one, and requires removing the whole top panel of the notebook (which includes the integrated battery). Not only is it time extensive – currently requiring a few business days for the machine to be shipped off-site, repaired, and then sent back – but it is an expensive repair (for Apple) as it’s...
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Back in January, we reported on an issue that is starting to afflict recent MacBook Pro laptops (2016 and 2017 models). The problem is labeled "flexgate" and refers to the stage light effect that appears at the bottom of the display after typical, everyday use. This is caused by a flex cable (which connects the display panel to the display controller) that eventually is damaged from stretching when the display lid is opened and closed. To make matters worse, the flex cable isn’t a separate component; it’s built into the display panel. So, if the flex cable fails, you have to replace the entire display panel at a cost of $600 or more. At the time of our initial report, Apple...
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Tell me if you've heard this one before -- Apple is developing its own Mac processors in an effort to bring more hardware design in-house and to avoid Intel's oft-delayed product roadmaps. That rumor is once again making the rounds, and this time it's coming from Intel employees. A new report from Axios is suggests that Intel officials have privately confirmed to it that Apple will begin making the shift to its own ARM processors starting in 2020. Intel has a lot to lose if/when Apple begins shifting from Core and Xeon processors to its own designs, as Apple is one of its biggest customers. Couple that with the fact that Apple is also rumored to be working on its own...
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When it comes to Apple rumors, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is often the go-to person with highly accurate reads on the the company's future product plans. Kuo has recently published a research note that talks about what he predicts we will see from Apple in 2019. One of the products will underscore Apple's return to into the display monitor arena that the company vacated back in 2016 when it stopped offering its Thunderbolt display. Kuo says that Apple will launch a 31.6-inch 6K resolution screen for 2019 with a mini LED-like backlight. Apple's Phil Schiller also noted that Cupertino was at work on a new display back in 2017, stating that Apple would be doing a "pro display" along with the then-new...
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Throttlegate, batterygate, bendgate... flexgate? It looks as though MacBook Pro owners have yet another hardware failure to watch out for as their devices age. No, we're not talking about keyboards that are crippled by tiny specs of dust; we're talking about the flex cable that is used to connect the 13-inch or 15-inch display panel to the display controller on the motherboard of 2016 and newer MacBook Pro devices. The latest hardware failure has been dubbed “flexgate,” and users who experience it will often see a "stage light effect" at the bottom of the display. A website was erected to chronicle the problem, and the teardown specialists over at iFixit took a...
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The MacBook Pro has seen some interesting upgrades this year. Apple refreshed both the 13-inch and 15-inch models in July with newer hardware, then last week it added an AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPU option for users who need more graphics firepower. How much more firepower are we talking about? Some new benchmark data help answer that question. Customers have two discrete Vega GPU upgrade options for the MacBook Pro: Radeon Pro Vega 16 and Radeon Pro Vega 20. Before the mid-November refresh, the highest end graphics option was a Radeon Pro 560X GPU based on AMD's previous generation Polaris architecture. A reader at MacRumors shared some benchmark results with the site that he had obtained on a 15-inch...
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Two of Apple's most popular products over the past year could be subject to some rather nasty malfunctions according to the company. Apple has initiated replacement programs for both the 13-inch MacBook Pro (without Touch Bar) and the iPhone X, which was recently discontinued. In the case of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple warns that a "limited number" of systems with 128GB or 256GB SSDs could experience data loss and complete failure of the drive. Needless to say, this is a serious issue, especially if customers don't have a recently completed Time Machine backup. The company says that MacBook Pro models affected by this issue were sold between June 2017 and June 2018. Apple has a support...
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