Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today released some interesting details about the future MacBook Pro. Kuo describes this as the first major redesign of the laptop in five years and will represent a significant upgrade even from the latest MacBook Pro from 16 inches from 2019. The new MacBook Pro will be 14 and 16 inches in size and will have Apple ARM silicone instead of Intel CPUs.
However, Kuo shares some much more surprising information, namely that the touch bar will have disappeared in favor of physical function keys, the MagSafe charging connector returns along with more integrated IO ports which means that most users will not need to buy additional dongles according to for Kuo …
The new chassis design features square sides on the top and bottom halves of the machine, joining the flat-edge design trend started with the iPad Pro 2018 and adopted in the 2020 iPhone 12 series. (The new MacBook Pro series, of course, will feature Apple ARM CPUs, but Kuo does not share details on how the chip will perform in terms of performance in today’s report.)
The Touch Bar has apparently been completely removed, with the new MacBook Pro simply offering a physical line of function keys. This is interesting in light of the fact that the simple 13-inch MacBook Pro M1 launched last fall and came with a Touch Bar, although all early M1 Macs featured identical hardware designs compared to the previous generation.
Apple announced Touch Bar as the future of the Mac input method when the MacBook Pro 2016 was unveiled, but the feature never caught on or reached its potential. Many Mac users simply want physical keys that they can feel with their fingers without looking at the touch screen. Five years since its launch, it seems that Apple is listening to this feedback and the Touch Bar will be eliminated from the MacBook line.
Kuo does not specify exactly which IO ports will be offered. Current MacBook Pro models feature four Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, two on each side. For context, the pre-2016 models offered and SD card slot, HDMI and USB-A ports. USB-C ports are technically superior and can carry data over a much larger bandwidth, but the fact that the current MacBook Pro has USB-C exclusively means that users need to buy and load a variety of dongles. Things like the SD card slot are much more elegant being integrated.
A major advantage of the fully USB-C design is that customers can connect to power and charge their MacBook Pro with any port on either side of the machine. Kuo says that a MagSafe power connector is returning, but does not mention whether it means that the ability to charge on the left or right will be lost. Note that the report explicitly specifies that the MagSafe return occurs through a magnetic power connector like the old MacBooks, and not through any inductive wireless charging system like the “MagSafe” on the iPhone 12
In short, it looks like Apple will be meeting the demands of customers who miss – or perhaps still use – the MacBook Pro 2015 with the return of more traditional IO ports, physical function keys and MagSafe for power. This traditional feature set will be wrapped in a completely new external design and, of course, the machines will be powered by incredibly fast ARM chips designed by Apple. The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro is expected to launch in the third quarter of 2021.
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