If you’ve fallen in love with that input device over the last few years (I’ve learned through my stories in recent weeks that such people do, in fact, exist), buy now or forever hold your peace. For the time being, at least, reports of the Touch Bar’s death were moderately exaggerated. It’s a form that arrives with some vestigial organs. In this case, it’s taken a step up the evolutionary ladder in the brain department, while its body has yet to follow. In evolutionary science, it’s known as a “transitional form” - a link between two species. What we have in this case is a strange artifact. Not only that, but we also have a pretty good notion that it’s going to be better in the most important ways. But in the case of the 13-inch Pro - which, like the late-2020 models, features new silicon in an old chassis - we can say with 100% certainty that we know exactly what’s around the bend. When you’re not 100% sure what’s around the corner, sometimes you bite the bullet and buy the new device that you really need right now. The prospect of “holding out a bit longer” for the next update is a tricky one, especially with a notoriously tight-lipped company like Apple. What the devices lacked, however, was any manner of meaningful redesign to external hardware. The company has had several great quarters of PC revenue since. At the time, the prospect of brand-new silicon was enough to super-charge sales. Above all, the new Pro feels like a stopgap - and not a particularly long one, at that.Ĭast your mind all the way back to November 2020, when Apple launched a trio of Macs: a MacBook Pro, an Air and a Mini. As far as moments of glory go, this one is pretty short-lived - and honestly, it’s no wonder the company didn’t linger on this model for very long during the WWDC keynote. Apple’s new chip is the real selling point of this new Pro, of course, but the laptop’s exclusivity with the M2 is going to be up in a manner of weeks, when the new Air arrives. ![]() Thing is, much of what I’ve just written is going to be rendered largely moot a few weeks from now. Hop on a half-dozen flights and suddenly you’re reminded why you were so concerned about such things in the first place. For my part, the conversation looked very different in March 2020 than it does today. If you’ve ever shopped for a laptop, you know the mental math - screen size and portability are inversely proportional. There are standard trade-offs, of course. As someone who invariably finds himself working on flights, I can tell you that airplane seats are one of the places in the world where a centimeter here or there actually makes a good bit of difference (I’m not made of Comfort+ upgrade money, folks). The new model is as thick as the 14-inch (actually, it’s precisely 0.01 centimeters thicker), but the overall footprint is more compact, owing to the smaller screen. ![]() The change is immediately evident in my bag, and my back is thanking me for it. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro sheds half a pound from its larger, older sibling, weighing in at 3 pounds on the nose. Given how stationary the pandemic has made most of us, portability likely hasn’t entered into too many of our gadget-buying decisions - certainly not the way it used to. Up until this flight, the 14-inch MacBook Pro has been a constant travel companion, rarely leaving my sight, lest the Find My app send out panicked signals. ![]() It’s a lot of cross-country travel after 2 years of largely not leaving my one-bedroom apartment. I’m writing this atop a tray table on my fifth flight in 3 weeks.
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