CUPERTINO, CALIF. — Apple unveiled a redesigned MacBook Pro, which incorporates smartphone-like touch-screen features into the keyboard and carries a higher price – $1,800.
Apple has been furiously updating its smartphones every year, but it has been years since customers saw much more than basic refreshes of the company’s highest-end laptop. At its event here Thursday, Apple spent considerable time showing off its newest innovation for its new MacBook Pro. The company called it the “touch bar,” which replaces the long-standing function keys at the top of the keyboard with a small touch-screen strip.
The touch bar changes depending on the program that is running on the computer. It offers quick typing suggestions in a word processor, emojis in a texting program, or volume and play buttons in a music program. It also offers “touch id,” allowing the computer to be unlocked with a fingerprint.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro without the touch bar costs $1,500. The new feature brings that price up to $1,800. The 15-inch screen starts at $2,000. Previously the MacBook Pro line started at $1,300.
The rising price of Apple’s notebooks is unusual in the consumer electronics world, where products such as big-screen TVs and computers become cheaper over time. But Apple has been making a bid to become an upscale retailer, something some analysts long ago thought was difficult to do in mass-produced hardware computers.
Apple said the new MacBook Pro has a 67 percent brighter screen, a faster processor and is lighter – 4 pounds for the 15-inch notebook. Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said the weight is “almost unheard of” for a high-performance professional notebook. Orders are now being taken online.
The Apple event comes just a day after Microsoft introduced two new expensive computers – the Surface Book laptop and the Surface Studio desktop. Microsoft took aim at its rival by noting that the Surface Book was three times faster than Apple’s best 13-inch MacBook Pro. On Thursday, Apple had its chance to hit back.
Apple kicked off its announcements with a somewhat unexpected subject: Apple TV. The company did not announce a new version of its set-top box, but it described some new apps that could make the device more appealing to consumers. Apple chief executive Tim Cook said that Minecraft, the popular building game owned by Microsoft, will hit Apple TV by the end of the year.
Twitter’s Ryan Troy, the company’s global lead for TV devices, also took to the stage to show off the new Apple TV Twitter app, which is being held up as a prime example of interactive viewing apps.
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