The Touch Bar is supported by Pro Apps (Logic Pro, Fina Cut Pro, Motion...), so it is a Pro feature.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Announces Updated 13-inch MacBook Pro With New M2 Chip
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Unlikely. The people who want it will only be going for the touch bar (kids maybe) and the “pro” name. If people fall for it they are pretty silly
Please see attached. I currently own an Intel MacBook Pro 13". Was very happy to see this M2 announcement. But I just did the M2 Air and new M2 13" side by side comparison on the Apple website. Why in the world would I buy the Pro (between these two machines)? They are almost identical, and there are a couple of very notable items on the Air that are BETTER. (Screen size, 1080p FaceTime camera, weight). OK I give up Touch Bar, and....anything else? What I'm most interested in is performance, and it looks identical as long as you upgrade to the 10-Core GPU. So it's just a pricing thing?
Attachments
Last edited:
The MBP 13 became redundant the moment Apple put the M1 in the MBA 13. There was little if any justification to get the MBP unless you were crazy for the TouchBar. Now the new MBA with M2 makes the MBP 13 with M2 even more pointless.
They should have just dropped the MBP 13 altogether. It’s now just a curiosity—a genuine WTF.
They should have just dropped the MBP 13 altogether. It’s now just a curiosity—a genuine WTF.
The only other advantage to the MBP-13 would be active cooling. But I agree that, in this generation, the Air is a no-brainer. It was a very close call even in the first (M1) generation...the Pro had slight advantages (slightly better screen, active cooling), and I chose it over the Air for those reasons (plus, I wanted to try the TouchBar--a decision I came to greatly regret). I think that, today, with the 14- and 16-inch MBPs in the picture, if your workload is such that it requires active cooling, then you're better off going for one of the larger models.
Apple's decision to update the MBP-13 came as a surprise, and to me it seems inexplicable that they've continued such a dated design. That said, I have to assume that Apple Marketing knows their markets better than any of us on MacRumors, so there must continue to be a significant demand for such a machine. Go figure.
I don't understand all of the hate on this. It's got active cooling (fanless MBA was a mistake for my usage). And it lets you have greater than 16 GB of RAM in a system priced less than 2k. The 14" starts at 2k and only has 16 GB RAM. Would have been cool if it had the new magsafe included, but this is otherwise a phenomenal product offering imo.
This is perhaps the dumbest thing Apple has done in a long time. They literally undercut the new MacBook Air upgrade to preserve a $1299 price point? I understand that the "real" MacBook Pros start at $1799, but sticking the M2 in to the older design seems odd to me. There is nothing Pro about the 13.3" device and if you look at the spec of the new Air with its sleek design and 13.6" viewable display, it is a better offering at the $1199 price. In fact, the Intel offering of the 13.3" MacBook Pro had more ports and was actually a better device than their initial M1 with less ports. The 13.3 should have just been discontinued. If you want a true Pro it starts with the 14" with 32GB of RAM and an M1 MAX. Otherwise the new Air is a really nice solution below the Pro.
Apple today unveiled an updated 13-inch MacBook Pro featuring Apple's next-generation custom M2 chip.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is essentially a processor bump, with the design and other hardware features identical to the previous model.
Built using second-generation 5-nanometer technology, Apple's M2 chip improves upon the M1 in every respect, with a 18 percent faster CPU, a 35 percent more powerful GPU, and a 40 percent faster Neural Engine. It also delivers 50 percent more memory bandwidth compared to M1, and up to 24GB of fast unified memory.
With a faster 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, working with RAW images in apps like Affinity Photo is nearly 40 percent faster than the previous generation, and up to 3.4x faster for users who are upgrading from a model without Apple silicon, according to Apple.
Apple says playing graphics-intensive games like Baldur's Gate 3 is also nearly 40 percent faster than the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro and up to 3.3x faster for users upgrading from a model without Apple silicon.
With support for ProRes encode and decode in the media engine of M2, users can play back up to 11 streams of 4K and up to two streams of 8K ProRes video, and they can convert their video projects to ProRes nearly 3x faster than before, according to Apple.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 20 hours of video playback on a single charge. Due to the M2 chip, the 13-inch MacBook Pro also supports up to 24GB of unified memory, along with 50 percent more memory bandwidth.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro will be available to order from next month, with prices starting from $1,299.
Article Link: Apple Announces Updated 13-inch MacBook Pro With New M2 Chip
The M2 keeps it competitive with the MBA. Either they plan to refresh it soon or phase it out. It must be selling in large enough numbers to justify the niche. At this point in time, I suspect that the TB is just a throwback rather than a major sales feature.