MacBook Pro: The biggest and baddest Mac laptops

A Bloomberg piece based on interviews with Mac insiders at Apple has revealed how the designs of both the 12-inch MacBook and 2016 MacBook Pro were compromised by marketing decisions winning out over engineering ones.

It was a marketing desire to hit the crucial holiday season that led to a design which compromised battery life in the new MacBook Pro, claimed one source …

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LG has confirmed that the 5K UltraFine monitor Apple recommends for use with the new MacBook Pro models has been delayed. A company representative told us that LG does not yet have a confirmed date for availability.

LG originally said ‘early December,’ while Apple was more cautious on its website, simply stating ‘December.’ As we noted last week, Apple is already leaving things rather late to allow people to take advantage of its introductory pricing …

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In the wake of recent MacBook Pro battery life controversies, Apple has added two notable job listings to its website this week: Battery Algorithm Analysis Engineer and System Power and Control Architect. The new job listings seek employees to develop algorithms that will improve battery life and power management, while another mentions a “budding electrical test lab” Apple is growing internally for batteries.

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Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio both received recent updates that implement support for the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro. The professional non-linear editor is popular among videographers for its immersive color correction features.

While Apple’s flagship Final Cut Pro X received Touch Bar support back in October, DaVinci Resolve’s December 14th update brings one of the most impressive Touch Bar support implementations that I’ve seen thus far.
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When Apple exited the display business and announced that it was partnering with LG for two new 4K and 5K UltraFine displays aimed specifically at owners of the new MacBook Pro machines, it promised that the 5K model would be available in December. LG went further and said ‘early December.’

Apple also showed introductory pricing valid only this month, reverting to full price in January.

As of today – officially mid-December – you can order the 4K model direct from Apple for the introductory price of $524, albeit with a lead-time of 5-6 weeks. But the ‘Add to Bag’ button on the 5K model remains greyed-out, its status shown as ‘Currently unavailable’ …

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With continued concern about the battery life of the 2016 MacBook Pro models, ArsTechnica has written a short piece outlining some of the obvious and less obvious reasons many users are experiencing as little as half the usage time claimed by Apple.

There have been anecdotal reports of battery life being improved by the 10.12.2 update (hands-on video), but the site reports that Apple ‘told us repeatedly and emphatically that it had taken no specific steps to improve MacBook Pro battery life in this update.’ There is, the piece suggests, a likely explanation for these reports …
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A poll of 9to5Mac readers has found that experiences of both battery life and accuracy of estimates with the new MacBook Pro models are very mixed. The largest group – a full third of those taking part – reported that they were seeing no more than half Apple’s claimed battery life, at five hours or less …

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Ahead of CES, LG has revealed two new monitors with a couple of features that are bound to attract the attention of prosumers and gamers alike.

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Following widespread complaints that the remaining battery life estimate was wildly inaccurate on the new MacBook Pro models, Apple acted swiftly to resolve the issue. Unfortunately, that action was not to fix the estimate, but rather to remove it altogether. As John Gruber put it, ‘this is like being late for work and fixing it by breaking your watch.’

I do appreciate the challenge Apple faces with providing accurate battery-life estimates with the 2016 MacBook Pro. I’ve heard from multiple sources that the Skylake CPUs used in the new machines are extremely responsive in the way they ramp Turbo Boost up and down to provide the optimum balance of power and energy-efficiency for each given task.

That means that the amount of battery power being consumed can vary dramatically within the course of just a few seconds. Given that macOS seemingly estimates battery life on a second-by-second basis, the combination of the two things is clearly going to result in the kind of wild fluctuations and inaccurate estimates we’ve seen.

But it’s surely not beyond the wit of Apple’s software engineers to change the way the estimate is calculated … ?

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macOS 10.12.2 was released to the public earlier today, and in this post we’ll take a hands-on look at some of the release’s most notable features.

First and foremost, everyone should update to macOS 10.12.2 for the stability features alone, especially if you’re a new MacBook Pro user. But there are a couple of additional new features that users may be happy to find as well.
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Apple’s new macOS Sierra update removes the time remaining estimate from the battery status indicator on MacBooks, but there’s still another way to check for Apple’s estimate without installing third-party software.

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Following a flurry of media coverage highlighting battery life complaints for Apple’s 2016 MacBook Pros, we’ve learned an internal investigation by the company has determined there isn’t a hardware flaw to address with the new machines. Instead, Apple is today removing inaccurate “time remaining” battery life estimates from macOS, a move that it hopes will address concerns among users.

There has been a lot of confusion over battery life estimates on the new 2016 MacBook Pros. Some were reporting estimates lower than expected via the macOS battery life status menu which offered an on the fly prediction of remaining juice, but there was a clear misunderstanding about how the feature worked. 

Apple didn’t have a ton of public information about how the battery life estimations were calculated, but we’ve talked to those in the know to get the scoop on why they’ve decided to remove it entirely following the MacBook Pro battery life concerns.

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Adobe demoed a new version of Photoshop that works with the MacBook Pro’s new dynamic Touch Bar back at Apple’s event in October, and starting today customers can update to gain the new feature. Project Felix which was shown off at Adobe Max last month is also now available in beta.

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The new MacBook Pro has caused countless controversies over the last few weeks, from its lack of legacy I/O ports to graphics issues and battery life concerns, and Microsoft says this is leading to more Mac users than ever switching to Surface PCs and laptops.

In a yearly review on the Windows blog, the company said that more people are switching from Mac to Surface than ever before with Mac customers disappointed by Apple’s new MacBook Pro and enticed by Surface innovations.

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The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has been available for a few weeks now … and the inevitable has finally happened. Graham Parks has made a nifty little Mac app to play piano on the Touch Bar display that is available to download. It puts a polyphonic keyboard in the center of the Touch Bar which you can then tap on and play notes.

The free app is obviously meant as a bit of fun but amusingly includes a few settings to add some depth to the experience. Video demo after the jump …

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I tested my MacBook Pro using a stringent version of Apple’s own iTunes movie playback test that the company uses in its official battery tests. I found that under more stringent conditions, the 13-inch MacBook Pro will last a hair over 8 hours, but likely less in more realistic scenarios.

Have a look at the test results in our hands-on video, along with a walkthrough on how to perform an accurate iTunes movie playback test on your MacBook Pro.

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The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has been out for a few weeks so you’ve probably seen the early reviews and know all the initial takes. The USB ports changed, the Touch Bar may be gimmicky, and some pros are feeling left out.

My own machine (base 15-inch with upgraded 1TB SSD) arrived three weeks ago as my new work computer, giving me plenty of real-world use with it. My main observation from time spent using the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is that early impressions don’t necessarily last.

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There are growing complaints about the new MacBook Pro models delivering battery life well below Apple’s claimed ten hours. While manufacturer claims are often based on unrealistic scenarios, a number of owners on both Apple’s support communities and Reddit are reporting numbers in the 3-6 hours range.

I’ve got my 15″ MBP a few days ago and I’m pretty disappointed by its battery life. If I do nothing but very light web browsing in Safari and brightness around 50% I can get it to about 6 hours. But not even close to the 10 hours promised.

The position is complicated by GPU use and the difference between estimates and actual life …

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