In the long history of Apple MacBooks,
there is finally a touchscreen. That fact may or may not sit well with
the ghost of Steve Jobs, Apple's founder and late CEO who once said it’s “ergonomically terrible” to touch a laptop screen.
The redesigned 13-inch MacBook Pro is, of course, not a traditional
touchscreen device. The big, brilliant 2,560 x 1,600 Retina display is
not gesture or touch-ready. Instead, there’s a strip of touchscreen
technology below it, on the keyboard.
The OLED-based Touch Bar
replaces the traditional row of function keys, a fact that may disturb
some users, but only if they're somehow trying to convince themselves
that they still use function keys. To be fair, there are other important
features in that row that now share real estate with a smorgasbord of
ever-changing Touch Bar options.
You see, that's the core benefit of trading in a row of fixed
function keys for touch: The screen can be anything and, in the case of
the Touch Bar, it pretty much is.
The Touch Bar on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is more than just a sexy
— if relatively tiny — new touch screen. It’s an important strategic
shift in the future of Apple’s pro-level laptop line.
Design language
As I noted in my review of the "regular" 13-inch MacBook Pro
(with no Touch Bar), this is a smaller (11.97 x 8.36 inch), lighter (3
pounds) and thinner (0.59 inch) MacBook Pro, and part of that trimming
process involved shedding almost all legacy ports (save the 3.5mm audio
jack). The decision to include only four USB-C ports (the entry-level
model has just two) caused so much angst and controversy that Apple
finally decided to offer pro users a life-saver: steep discounts on USB-C accessories and cables.
Both the entry-level MacBook Pro and the Touch Bar Model have two USB-C ports on one side.
But the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar adds another two USB-C ports on the other side.
Removing all those ports was certainly a risky move for Apple, but, in
truth, the most you could fault them for is maybe leaping a little too
far into the future. Apple is not the only company adopting USB-C. It's a
standard, after all, and just like USB spelled the end of the line for
parallel and serial ports, USB-C will eventually be the port to rule all
ports, and those peripherals you're clinging to will someday, in the
not too distant future, be deemed too slow or feature-poor to keep you
competitive.
Is “Dongle Hell” a real thing? In the short term, yes. In the long term, a single multipurpose port will always be the winner.
As for how the ports function right now, they do just fine. As
promised, I can charge the MacBook through any of the four ports, and I
do appreciate the convenience of not having to shift around the laptop
to find the one port that can charge the computer. Will i miss the MagSafe plug that can easily slip the bonds of its magnetic tether without dragging the computer with it? Sure. Is it cause to rise up? No.
I've also seen reports that the Thunderbolt 3 speeds promised on all
four ports actually varies on one side or the other of the MacBook Pro. I
did an anecdotal test, transferring the same 1.3GB video file from an
external USB-3 external hard drive (yes, I used a USB-to-USB-C dongle)
to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The transfer took almost exactly 30 seconds
every time.
Apple did provide me with a Thunderbolt 3 cable and a
USB-C-to-Thunderbolt adapter. So I found the nearest 21-inch Thunderbolt
display and hooked it up. My desktop expanded to the large screen
almost immediately. As I type this, an HD video is currently playing in
the background through iMovie. No issues on the performance front, I’d
say.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro can easily drive another screen.
Of course, you will need a dongle.
To understand more about the design, giant trackpad (46% larger than
the trackpad on the last MacBook pro) and Butterfly (second generation)
keyboard, read my entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro review.
The excellent keyboard and trackpad work exactly the same on both
aluminum-clad devices. There is also a relatively small performance bump
on the this 13-inch model thanks to a dual-core 2.9GHz Intel Core i5
CPU, as opposed to the 2.0GHz Core i5 on the entry-level model. I could
see the improvment in the Geekbench scores, but didn't notice it much in
day-to-day use. Interestingly, the MacBook Pro’s GeekBench scores did
beat a 2.81GHz Core i7’s single and multi-core scores. 3,658 (single)
and 7,240 (multi) versus 3,795 and 7,693.
Both laptops, by the way, got hot in almost the exact same way: along
the rear edge of the base, nearest the hinge. This surprised me a bit
since Apple said they had fully redesigned the thermals in all their
MacBook Pros. I just think there’s no getting around all the heat these
components will produce in a now even tinier space.
The MacBook Pro 15-inch has a much bigger track pad.
Of course, it is a much bigger system.
I did get to spend a little time with the larger, heavier
(four-pound) and more powerful MacBook Pro 15-inch. The laptop has a
larger Retina display, which accommodates more pixels (2,880 x 1,800).
While its keyboard and Touch Bar are the exact same size as the 13-inch
model, the trackpad is insanely big (7.25 inches measured diagonally vs.
6.25 inches on its 13-inch little brother). The speakers are a lot
larger, too.
The 15-inch MacBook pro includes a 2.6GHz, quad-core Core i7 CPU and
discrete graphics, the AMD Radeon Pro 450. The 41,620 Geekbench Computer
Benchmark number is eye-popping (the MacBook Pro 13 with Intel Iris
Graphics 550 scores 30,628). While it's a number that will be music to
the ears of most Mac-devoted video, design and audio professionals, Microsoft's new Surface Book with Performance Base featuring Nvidia's GeForce GTX 965M scored 63,964 on the same test.
The marvelous Touch Bar
The biggest difference between the two 13-inch systems I reviewed and
what I want to focus on the most here (admit it, it’s what you care
most about, too) is the Touch Bar, an excellent piece of engineering and
design that is both intuitive and useful, but not as essential as Apple
would like you believe.
The Touch Bar is multi-touch display with 2,170 x 60 resolution that
runs almost the full width of the keyboard. It’s bright enough for
virtually any light situation. I could easily read it indoors and out in
bright sunlight. Covered in glass, the Touch Bar is a pleasure to,
well, touch, and thanks to the matte finish, my fingers glide over it.
The best way to understand the difference is to run your finger across
your standard smartphone screen. The glossy surface will always cause a
bit of drag. There’s virtually zero drag on the Touch Bar.
On the far right of the bar is a shiny black physical button (it’s
covered in sapphire glass). It doubles as power, which you'll use rarely
(you can now tun on the system simply by opening it up) and a Touch ID,
which you'll likely use often. For symmetry, there’s a black square on
the far left, but it serves no purpose.
In repose, the Touch Bar features the buttons most generally useful
to the system: “Esc” on the far left, as it should be. The center is
dark and on the right side is brightness, volume, mute and a colorful
Siri button, which, just like the now ever-present Siri button in macOS,
launches the voice assistant to let you speak a command. The 13-inch
MacBook’s three microphones were able to hear me even when I spoke just
above a whisper.
Yes, Siri is a part of the new Touch Bar
I did not have to shout for Siri to hear me.
Using the buttons on the right gives you a clear sense of how the
Touch Bar will work in general. Instead of tapping a physical brightness
button repeatedly to raise or lower screen brightness, you tap the
brightness button once, which then transforms the whole bar: Everything
disappears and in its place is a slider. As you slide the control on the
Touch Bar, the screen brightness smoothly adjusts. Volume control works
the same way. Owing to its flexibility, there's another Touch Bar
option that does let you tap over and over again to make the screen
brighter and system volume louder.
One of the nicest surprises of Touch Bar, even at this early stage,
is how many core Apple apps work with it, and not in small useless ways,
but in smart, essential ways, often surfacing the subset of features
you use most often.
Of the 18 items on my dock, the Touch Bar works with 15 of them.
Finder, for instance, lets you quickly view, share, tag a file or delete
a file; each action represented with an icon, most match the options
you see on screen (although the Touch Bar’s quick view “eye” is notably
absent from the screen).
Email makes the most of the new Touch Bar with functions like reply and send, as well as word suggestions and access to emojis.
In Safari, open tabs appear as tiny thumbnails on the Touch Bar. You can also use the area to add another tab.
To manage the relatively limited amount of Touch Bar real estate,
Apple chose to nest some features, So the file sorting options are
hidden under a grid icon. Select that and you can access all the file
organization options available on the big screen.
There are sexier app interactions than those you’ll encounter in, say, Contacts and System Preferences.
Final Cut, for instance, lets you scrub through a movie on the bar:
the filmstrip appears on the tiny screen and you use your finger to
quickly move back and forth through the footage. I had already tried out
the filmstrip on one of Apple’s demo systems at the launch event, so I
decided to instead download iMovie to see if it replicated some of that
functionality. While it does not offer a similar scrubbing feature, I
can splice my film by selecting — seriously — a razor blade icon on the
Touch Bar.
Apple’s Photos app may do the best job of illustrating the fun, power and mutability of the Touch Bar.
Photos serves up a tiny thumbnail strip on the Touch Bar that you can scroll through with a swipe.
Want to to edit your photos through the Touch Bar? Not a problem.
When I first opened Photos, the Touch Bar didn't change at all. However,
when I expanded the app to full-screen, the Touch Bar transformed.
There are buttons for favorite, rotate or edit. The latter is actually
an entry-point to a set of much deeper photo controls. Next to those
controls is the colorful thumbnail slide. Your images are there on the
Touch Bar, but are too small to see clearly. Even so, I found that using
the thumbnails slider bar was a great way to quickly scan through and
find photos. I just watched the large screen while sliding my finger on
the bar below.
The Edit tools are a good example of how the Touch Bar may nest
controls two or more levels deep. After selecting the Edit tool under
Photos, you still have to choose which tool to use. Once you get to a
tool like Light, you're presented with a slider. I found myself watching
the big screen as my finger slid back and forth across the Touch Bar
slider. There were some inconsistencies. I could not, for instance, find
a "Reset" in the photo editing tools, though a few did offer an "Undo"
option.
Some of the apps let you customize the Touch Bar by opening an
options menu on the big screen and then dragging and dropping function
icons from the desktop to the Touch Bar. Yes, it looks as cool as it
sounds. Photos, unfortunately, is one of the relative few apps that does
not let you edit the Touch Bar.
Maps is one of Touch Bar's more impressive integrations.
Touching the Touch Bar while watching the screen is not as odd as it seems.
I’m still not certain if, by surfacing some features, the Touch Bar
is saving me time or, by forcing me to go a level or more deep, is
actually costing me time.
Time gained or lost aside, this raises an important reality of the
Touch Bar. There is, depending on application and circumstance,
sometimes important or useful information on the Touch Bar (for example,
the right word suggestion in a writing app, or a suggested contact for
an email). The problem is that, quite often, I’m looking past the Touch
Bar and at the screen. I can, in other words, ignore the Touch Bar
without meaning to.
I've actually been writing this review in Pages on the 13-inch
MacBook Pro, but I only occasionally glance at the Touch Bar (where’s
it’s suggesting I write “time” and “table” instead of “touch”) and
almost never tap for the word suggestions. I did do it a bit more often
in Mail, perhaps because “Reply” and “Send” are right there on the Touch
Bar (as icons, not words).
One app where the Touch Bar really shines is in Messages. It’s the
place where you access the widest array of full-color emoji. They look
amazing and are entertaining to scroll through. The list starts with
Frequently Used, but to the left of that is the category selector where
you can find Food, Sports, Animals and more. It’s probably the easiest
way I've ever scanned to find the perfect emoji for my current emotional state.
Apple built the Touch Bar as an open platform, one that any third
party can program to (but not for web apps since there’s no HTML or Web
API). There’s also no guarantee that companies like Google will ever
write to it. In my tests, Chrome, obviously, has no interaction with the
Touch Bar. I somehow doubt that Chrome will ever work with it, but its
also clear that many other third-party developers will be happy to tap
into the visual touch panel with the ability to accept up to 10 fingers
of input at a time. Adobe has already committed to a Touch Bar-ready
Photoshop by the end of this year and Touch Bar abilities are also
coming to Microsoft Office, Pixelmator, 1Password and Live Home 3D.
If you don't like the Touch Bar (really? why?) you can always go into
Settings and force it into the "Expanded Control Strip" mode, which
puts an expanded version of your key controls across the entire width of
the bar and doesn't let any of your apps alter it. It's basically like
bringing back the fixed Function Keys, just touch-ier.
Touch ID
While Touch Bar is showy, useful and fun, I have to say I was
especially pleased that biometric technology finally made its way to the
MacBook Pro. The Touch ID button on the right side works exactly the
same as it does on the iPhone and iPad. To register a finger, you follow
the on-screen instructions. It took me about as long as it does on the
iPhone, which is to say not long at all.
I registered two fingers and had no trouble unlocking the laptop with
one of them each time. The Touch Bar helpfully reminds me where to
place my finger to unlock the computer with the words “Unlock with Touch
ID” and an arrow pointing right next to the Touch ID sensor. Touch ID
can also be used with Apple Pay.
Other 13-inch MacBook Pro features worth noting are the speakers, which
are loud and crystal clear, and the battery life, which consistently
gets me through an entire day of computing. 10 hours is a fair estimate.
The speakers on the new MacBook Pro can best be described as powerful (for their size).
Nope, that logo does not light up. Apple says you waste less screen light this way.
Apple will never wins awards for affordability. This 256GB of
storage, 8GB of RAM, Core i5 system starts at $1,799 — $300 more than
the entry-level, traditional function-key sporting MacBook Pro. There
are cheaper Windows 10 systems out there that offer better specs and
full touchscreens. A 13-inch Core i7 HP Spectre x360, for instance,
lists for $1,149.99 (the Mac offers slightly better graphics, an Intel
HD Graphics 550 as opposed to the 520). If, however, you are a Mac fan,
this is an excellent upgrade with a fascinating and highly extensible
new Touch Bar.
By building a touchscreen into the keyboard of its pro-level laptop,
Apple has successfully dragged laptop line into the touch age, without
violating one of Apple Founder Steve Job's core principles. It’s really
quite a trick.
Apple 13-in MacBook Pro
The Good
Gorgeous design • Lighter, thinner, smaller than last MacBook Pro • Touch Bar will win you over • Another great showcase for macOS • Excellent Butterfly keyboard
The Bad
This is a pricey 13-inch device • Information on Touch Bar too easy to miss
The Bottom Line
Apple’s redesigned 13-inch MacBook Pro is an excellent portable with
power, utility and a one-of-a-kind Touch Bar that will make you the
center of attention.
Apple
President Barack Obama
