HiGame

The rate at which Apple refreshes its hardware has come under fire in recent weeks. While we’ve noted that the company’s laptops are mostly reasonably new, there are some old MacBook Pros in need of a refresh and the Mac Pro desktop is now nearly three years’ old.
A new report from Bloomberg claims that Apple will refresh its entire MacBook Pro line this fall, with a new design and a number of new features. The company is supposedly working on a new programmable strip of OLED-based function keys that can be switched to perform different 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 (but not 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 ID support. Some systems will reportedly offer GPUs based on AMD’s Polaris architecture, while the lower-cost models will use Intel’s integrated graphics. USB Type-C is also rumored to be on the way and Thunderbolt 3 is logically expected, though whether Apple will use USB Type-C for it is a matter of debate. Previously, the company used DisplayPort to provide Thunderbolt capability.


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