Apple is planning a radical overhaul of the MacBook Pro, and we're beginning to get a pretty clear idea of what it will look like.
Mark Gurman, a Bloomberg reporter with an extremely good track-record on scoops and news about upcoming Apple products, has published a new report detailing what his sources are claiming will be in the next premium laptop from Apple.
There's little in the report that is new — but it confirms certain theories that we've been hearing for months now.
For example, Gurman reports that the next MacBook will be getting a second screen that will sit above the keyboard in a thin strip below the main one. News of this screen first broke back in May, via reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, and it will be one of the most extreme changes Apple has made to its laptops in years. It can be used for shortcuts and buttons that would have otherwise have to be displayed on the main screen, or accessed via complex keyboard shortcuts — simplifying things for the user.
Gurman also says that the new MacBook Pro will have Touch ID, the fingerprint-reading tech used in iPhones to let users unlock their devices with their fingerprint. The new device will also reportedly be thinner than its predecessor, and come with USB-C ports — although it's unclear whether these will replace the traditional magnetic charging port on the MacBook Pro (as Apple has done with the new, smaller MacBook line), or will merely supplement it.
Apple's MacBook Pro line has remained largely unchanged for years, receiving only periodic boosts to processing power and memory. Gurman doesn't give a date for the new MacBook Pro's announcement, though he does say it probably won't be on September 7, when Apple is rumoured to be announcing the iPhone 7. And don't expect any confirmation or comment from Apple on any of this — as a rule, it never comments on rumours and speculation about unannounced products.
