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MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and a TV app for Apple TV: Everything Apple just announced

The new versions of the MacBook Pro have an innovative new input touch strip, the Touch Bar.

Lori Grunin Senior Editor / Advice
I've been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handed out buying advice for what seems like forever; I'm currently absorbed by computers and gaming hardware, but previously spent many years concentrating on cameras. I've also volunteered with a cat rescue for over 15 years doing adoptions, designing marketing materials, managing volunteers and, of course, photographing cats.
Expertise Photography, PCs and laptops, gaming and gaming accessories
Lori Grunin
3 min read
Watch this: Apple's Touch Bar or Microsoft's Dial? One outshines the other

It seems like only yesterday that Apple hosted its iPhone 7 circus, and now we're back for the company's MacBook 2016 launch, a much smaller event at the company's headquarters.

The event started with a video highlighting the accessibility features of Apple's products, and announced a new site to highlight all the accessibile aspects of them -- an interesting low-key departure for the company. That was followed by the usual yada-yada recap of recent announcements and products: the iPhone 7 is terrific, its camera is incredible, iOS 10 is awesome and so on. There was a lot of "awesome."

Then we started with the real interesting news, starting with Apple TV software: Apple considers apps the future of TV, and talked about its Unified TV Experience. More importantly, Minecraft is coming by the end of the year! Next stop: interactive and social. So you'll be able to view videos and posts from social media sites, like Twitter, related to the video you're watching.

All the action at Apple's Hello Again event

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A new TV app (really, that's its name) offers unified search across all your Apple devices and your iTunes catalog to, for example, show you the videos you were in the middle off (What's Next, Watch Now). And, of course, the single sign-on capability we've been waiting for.

Tim Cook then moved on to the Mac, with a recap of MacOS Sierra and noting that it's the 25th anniversary of the first Apple notebook and listed all the ways in which Apple redefined the laptop.

The new MacBook Pro is "absolutely incredible." Of course. It has an improved Retina display and the customizable Touch Bar we've been hearing about for a while, which replaces the function keys with a context-sensitive touch strip that can also extend an application's interface controls. It's really cool -- think color picker and waveform display on the keyboard. To me, it seems to make multitouch obsolete. They have an all-aluminum design in silver and Space Gray (though they're the "new gold standard"). A new Apple T1 chip drives the new Touch ID sensor, which. in addition to everything else, supports user switching. And there's still a headphone jack.

The 13-inch MacBook and 15-inch models are thinner (does anyone really care?) and weigh 3 and 4 pounds, respectively (OK, that's good). A new trackpad is larger with an updated Force Touch mechanism; the keyboard is the same as that of the 12-inch MacBook. There are four Thunderbolt 3 ports for USB-C charging -- no more older USB versions or MagSafe adapter. They can drive higher-resolution monitors , like the LG Ultrafine 5K display that Apple unveiled, which replaces the company's own external display. They offer up to 10 hours of battery life.

Apple MacBook Pro swaps outdated function keys for Touch Bar

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The cheapest version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro ($1,500) does not have the Touch Bar and only two Thunderbolt ports; the better 13-inch model with all the cool new features is $1,800. The 15-inch starts at $2,400 (ouch!). The Tool Bar-equipped models start shipping in about two to three weeks. And the 13-inch MacBook Air still exists.

We're all done for now. For the whole story, you can read the archive of our live blog or see all our stories from the event.

Apple 2016 MacBook Pro pricing lineup

MacBook Pro 13-inch (2016)
2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz, 256GB onboard SSD, 8GB RAM $1,499£1,449AU$2,199

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 13-inch
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz, 256GB onboard SSD, 8GB RAM $1,799£1,749AU$2,699
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz, 512GB onboard SSD, 8GB RAM $1,999£1,949AU$2,999

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 15-inch
2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz, 256GB onboard SSD, 16GB RAM $2,399£2,349AU$3,599
2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, 512GB onboard SSD, 16GB RAM $2,799£2,699AU$4,249