Today Apple announced an update to the MacBook Pro lineup, 10 months after the last update. Albeit just a spec bump, there’s two major takeaways from this product: an incredible increase in performance, and yet another improvement to the butterfly keyboard.
The Keyboard
Seeing as it’s the most controversial part of the current generation MacBook Pro, which first shipped in 2016, let’s start with the new keyboard. The design has been slightly tweaked again - Apple says that it is using “new materials” in the switch mechanism that should significantly reduce the occurrence of double and missed key presses. This new keyboard is found on both the 15-inch and 13-inch 2019 MacBook Pro models, but Apple remained quiet on whether it would use these new materials on the other MacBooks currently on sale, such as the 2018 MacBook Air. I suspect we will have to wait for the Air to receive a 2019 or 2020 refresh before this happens. Apple are also keeping quiet about what these new materials are other than to say it “substantially reduces” the issue of double or missed key presses. We will have to wait until iFixit tear one of these apart to know for sure. Interestingly, this is not a fourth-generation butterfly keyboard, rather a revision to the third-generation keyboard found on the 2018 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. This is similar to what happened when the 2017 MacBook Pro shipped with an update to the second-generation butterfly keyboard.
2018 MacBook Pro and Air customers that bring in their keyboards for repair will actually have their keyboards replaced with ones that have these new materials, according to Apple. Again, similar to what happened when the second-generation keyboard got an update a couple of years ago.
Speaking of keyboard repairs, Apple also announced an update to its keyboard repair extension program today. All MacBooks equipped with butterfly keyboards - almost every MacBook since the 2015 MacBook - will now be eligible for the program. This means both the 2018 MacBook Pro and Air are now eligible, along with these new 2019 models. Apple is not extending how long that program lasts — it’s still 4 years after the first retail sale of the unit. As we’ve discussed on The Blue Ink Show, the MacBook Air has been far from exempt from the issues that plague the butterfly keyboard and it’s good to see it getting extended repair coverage.
Will this revision be the one that finally fixes the butterfly keyboard? We asked the same question last Summer and today we’ve effectively received confirmation that it didn’t work. Only time will tell, but it looks like the next major design to MacBook Pro is destined for at least 2020, not 2019 as some thought.
Performance
Moving away from keyboards, and onto something the MacBook Pro does very well - power. From Apple’s press release:
Apple updated MacBook Pro with faster 8th- and 9th-generation Intel Core processors, bringing eight cores to MacBook Pro for the first time. MacBook Pro now delivers two times faster performance than a quad-core MacBook Pro and 40 percent more performance than a 6-core MacBook Pro, making it the fastest Mac notebook ever. These new processors, combined with powerful graphics, the brilliant and colorful Retina display, super-fast SSDs, the Apple T2 Security Chip, all-day battery life and macOS, make MacBook Pro the world’s best pro notebook.
These 2019 MacBook Pro models are around twice as fast in performance compared to the outgoing 2018 models. The 15-inch MacBook Pro now features faster 6- and 8-core Intel Core processors, delivering Turbo Boost speeds up to 5.0 GHz, while the 13-inch MacBook Pro features faster quad-core processors with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.7 GHz.
Pricing remains unchanged and the new MacBook Pro is available to order from Apple today. If anything it is good to see Apple consistently updating MacBook Pro on an yearly basis, but I would not be surprised if this is the final revision to the current design, especially if the rumours of a 16-inch MacBook Pro are true.
:))