Yesterday Apple released an updated the 15-inch Retina display MacBook Pro, which includes the new Force Touch trackpad among other spec tweaks. It also introduced a new 27-inch iMac AiO computer equipped with a Retina 5K display.
15-inch MacBook Pro with Force Touch Trackpad
Apple has updated the 15-inch MacBook Pro with the Force Touch trackpad, first seen on the 13-inch model during the Spring Forward event in March this year. This new trackpad offers customisable pressure sensitivity and can provide haptic feedback (the 'Taptic Engine') to the user. It supports a range of new gestures including the Force Click to 'click through' and cause an action. The pressure sensitivity may be used for interactivity such as varying zooming speed and also for pressure sensitive drawing.
Other upgrades that have been implemented alongside the trackpad change includes 2.5x faster flash storage "with throughput up to 2GBps". Battery life is improved by about an hour giving a nine hour total for Wi-Fi web browsing or iTunes movie playback. Graphic performance is "up to 80 percent faster," thanks to the inclusion of a new AMD Radeon R9 M370X, accelerating apps like Final Cut Pro X, 3D rendering and games.
The new 15-inch MacBook Pro costs from $1999 for a model packing a 2.2GHz (3.4GHz boost) quad-core Intel Core i7, Intel Iris graphics, 16GB of RAM and 256GB PCIe flash storage. Another $500 will get you a faster Core i7 processor, double the flash storage and an integrated AMD Radeon R9 M370X graphics chip.
iMac with Retina 5K display
Apple has launched a new iMac featuring a 27-inch 5K display. The iMac with Retina 5K display is on sale now starting from $1999. Apple boasts that users of the new Mac will "experience unbelievable detail," thanks to the 14.7 million pixels (5120 x 2880 resolution) before their eyes.
This latest iMac features a quad-core Intel Core i5 processor running at 3.3GHz with Turbo Boost Speeds up to 3.7GHz plus AMD Radeon R9 M290 graphics. The entry level iMac with Retina 5K display also includes 8GB of memory and 1TB of storage, as well as four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt 2 ports that deliver up to 20Gbps each. Paying an extra $300 gets a faster i5 processor 3.5GHz base/3.9GHz boost), AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and a 1TB Fusion Drive. Customers can take advantage of Apple's online configurator to specify faster Intel Core i7 processors, additional flash storage and more.
All the new Macs come with OS X Yosemite and free apps including Photos, iMovie, GarageBand, and iWork.
