An update to Apple’s MacBook Pro lineup that brings a thinner construction, Retina displays and Intel Ivy Bridge chips will be revealed at the company’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, reports Bloomberg. This report follows a report this morning that claims much the same by 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman.
The new MacBook Pro machines—note the plural by Bloomberg, as opposed to the earlier report from Gurman, which specifically reports a 15-inch MacBook—are said to feature ‘high-definition’ screens like the iPhone and iPad. This would confirm suspicions that many have had about Retina-level panels coming to the Mac. The NVIDIA GeForce GT650M may be the graphics card powering this display.
Bloomberg adds a slimmed-down profile and Ivy Bridge chips provided by Intel as coming in the new laptops.
Gurman’s post goes into more detail regarding the features of the 15-inch MacBook Pro, claiming that it will pack a redesigned keyboard that places the power button where it exists on the MacBook Air and will feature USB 3.0.
The ports include two Thunderbolt-sized connectors, an SD card slot, three USB ports, a charging cable, a headphone jack and an audio-in cable. The mockup below is from the 9to5Mac article.
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The Retina display sounds reasonable, as we laid out in our piece back in February, although developer Marco Arment raises a good point, in that many web resources will be woefully under-resolved for display on the panel, and will look kind of crappy.
The thinner, presumably lighter, construction, will be a nice improvement if that’s what ends up happening. The USB 3.0 connector will bring greater compatibility for fast, cheap hard drives in the future, as Thunderbolt peripherals are still very sparse.
Announcing the MacBook(s) at WWDC would be an interesting move, although not unprecedented. Apple has introduced new Macs at the conference before and it probably needs to do some shuffling around of its release schedule now that the iPhone and iPod, and perhaps a 7″-ish iPad, are a late-year item.
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