MacBook Pro

Latest news, tips, reviews, and rumors about all things MacBook Pro.

Battery Buddy Makes Charging Your MacBook More Fun
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Battery Buddy Makes Charging Your MacBook More Fun

Jeff Butts ·

Let’s face it, the default battery indicator on MacBooks is pretty boring. If you want to liven it up a bit, consider the terminally cute (and free) app Battery Buddy by Neil Sardesai. This indicator shows your MacBook’s battery charge using cute smiley faces. Fully charged, the indicator smiles at you, but he grows less happy and more sad as your battery drains. When you plug in, your little battery buddy gets a charging icon next to him.

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It Costs Another US$20 to Get Fast Charging For The New 14-Inch MacBook Pro

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple has mentioned faster charging when launching a variety of devices recently, including the new 14-inch MacBook Pro, However, as iMore pointed out, getting the feature will cost a little bit extra on top of the standard configuration.

Thankfully, the 96W power adapter is available as a $20 upgrade when you are configuring your 14-inch MacBook Pro, but it still seems odd that Apple would bother with the 67W power adapter at all since it doesn’t provide the full experience that its new laptop is capable of. The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros feature the new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors, Apple’s latest pro-level chips that take the M1 to new heights. The new laptops feature a mini-LED display, MagSafe charging, a new keyboard with function keys, and the return of many ports.

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The MacBook Pro May Not Get a Cellular Model Until 2024

Andrew Orr ·

For now, photographers and other people in the field will have to tether their MacBook Pro to their iPhone to actually upload their content.

Apple’s 5G laptop strategy right now is to tell you to buy an iPhone. The math is pretty simple: Qualcomm’s modems, which Apple has a deal to use at least through 2022, are a big cost on Apple’s ledger both financially and politically. Sure, Apple could price Qualcomm-packing laptops so it makes a profit, but the company doesn’t want to be even more dependent on its longtime frenemy as a supplier.

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Stolen MacBook Pro Schematics Indicate More Ports and MagSafe's Return

Charlotte Henry ·

Schematics stolen from Apple supplier Quanta Computer outline plans for future MacBook Pro models, expected later this year. MacRumors took a look and saw that the documents that feature the logic board indicate the return of MagSafe and… EXTRA PORTS.

On the right side of the machine, there’s a visible HDMI port, accompanied by a USB-C/Thunderbolt port and followed by an SD Card reader. The left side features two additional USB-C/Thunderbolt ports and a ‌MagSafe‌ charging slot, for a total of three USB-C/Thunderbolt ports instead of four as we have today… The codename for the Mac is “J316,” which suggests that the logic board that we’ve seen is for the 16-inch MacBook Pro. There’s also a “J314” model that likely correlates to the 14-inch MacBook Pro that Apple is also rumored to be working on. Both machines are expected to feature the new ports, ‌MagSafe‌ charging option, and upgraded Apple silicon chips.

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Future MacBooks Could Offer Multiple Haptic Areas, Patent Suggests

Charlotte Henry ·

Upcoming MacBooks could incorporate multiple discrete haptic areas. That’s according to a new patent, spotted by Patently Apple.

Apple’s granted patent generally relates to electronic devices with one or more input areas that also function to provide spatially localized haptics via the Taptic Engine. “Spatially localized” haptics (or haptic output) generally refers to any haptic signal, e.g., haptic output, that is tactilely perceptible to a person touching a particular active region of the electronic device, but imperceptible outside that region. The surface area over which a single haptic output is perceptible is referred to as a “discrete haptic region.” There may be any number of discrete haptic regions in an input area of a laptop computing device. The discrete haptic regions may be separated from each other, or they may overlap. Either way, they remain discrete haptic regions each associated with an individual haptic actuator. An “input area” is a structure or surface configured to accept a user input.