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Apple MacBook Pro 13 and 15

The rate at which Apple refreshes its hardware has come under burn in recent weeks. While we've noted that the visitor'south laptops are generally reasonably new, in that location are some sometime MacBook Pros in demand of a refresh and the Mac Pro desktop is now nearly three years' onetime.

A new study from Bloomberg claims that Apple volition refresh its unabridged MacBook Pro line this fall, with a new blueprint and a number of new features. The company is supposedly working on a new programmable strip of OLED-based function keys that can exist switched to perform unlike functions depending on which application you're using. Apple's goal is to simplify shortcuts and allow it to reprogram hardware buttons to add capabilities with software updates, rather than refreshing internal hardware.

Other changes supposedly include a thinner body (only non a tapered one like the MacBook Air), a smaller footprint with shallow curves around the edges of the device, a slightly larger trackpad, and integrated Touch on ID support. Some systems will reportedly offering GPUs based on AMD's Polaris architecture, while the lower-toll models volition use Intel'southward integrated graphics. USB Type-C is also rumored to be on the way and Thunderbolt 3 is logically expected, though whether Apple tree will use USB Type-C for it is a matter of contend. Previously, the company used DisplayPort to provide Thunderbolt capability.

Nosotros haven't seen the mobile SKUs for Polaris all the same, but it's generally assumed that they'll resemble the desktop fries AMD has only launched. At present, simply i MacBook Pro uses an AMD GPU, the R9 M370X. That flake is a 640:forty:16 configuration with an 800MHz core clock and a 128-bit memory jitney. A mobile variant of the RX 460 could make a potent upgrade for that particular bit. It's an 896:56:16 GPU with 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB and 112GB/s of memory bandwidth, up from 72GB/southward.

Polaris10-Die

AMD's larger Polaris GPU (pictured to a higher place) powers desktop chips, while the smaller Polaris eleven is likely intended for mobile.

Mobile chips typically have to operate at lower TDPs than desktop processors, which might require AMD to tweak the RX 460's power envelope. But we'd still expect Polaris to offering essentially better functioning compared to the old GCN one.0 / Cape verde GPU that Apple has relied on to anchor its acme-finish hardware. AMD would undoubtedly relish the halo win, but the impact on its bottom line is likely to be small unless Apple tree breaks with its own history of offer a limited number of GPU-equipped SKUs.

MacvsiPad

Paradigm past Bloomberg

Apple may be turning dorsum to the Mac line every bit a way to bolster flagging revenue from the iPad, as Bloomberg notes. While the iPad outstripped the Mac in 2012 and 2013, total revenue from the tablet business has been declining for years, despite Apple's attempts to renew information technology with new variants of the iPad and the iPad Pro. Ane common criticism of the iPad Pro has been that Apple didn't make the software changes necessary to plough the tablet into a serious productivity system. That kind of adaptation takes fourth dimension, and it's articulate that the iPad Pro isn't offsetting the full general decline in tablet sales.

Apple isn't expected to unveil this new hardware at its September seven iPhone event, but the new systems will likely debut this fall, peradventure alongside Intel's Kaby Lake 14nm refresh.