Apple Introduces Updated MacBook Pros, Extends Keyboard Service Program →

Apple has updated the MacBook Pro today, just two weeks before WWDC. Jason Snell has details:

These updates don’t bring any changes to the exterior of the MacBook Pro—it’s the same base design introduced in late 2016—but they do bring 9th-generation Intel processors with up to eight cores to the MacBook Pro for the first time. There’s also been yet another tweak to the controversial butterfly keyboard Apple first introduced in 2015.

On the CPU front, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has received a slight speed bump, but it is still using 8th-generation Intel quad core processors.

The models without the Touch Bar are still using older 7th-gen CPUs, as before, and like that machine, the 12-inch MacBook has gone another release cycle without an update.

The 15-inch got a bigger update, as outlined in Apple’s press release:

The 15-inch MacBook Pro now features faster 6- and 8-core Intel Core processors, delivering Turbo Boost speeds up to 5.0 GHz, while the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar features faster quad-core processors with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.7 GHz.

Here are some specs:

• $2399: 2.6 GHz 6-core i7 (4.5 GHz Turbo Boost)
• $2799: 2.3 GHz 8-core i9 (4.8 GHz Turbo Boost)
• Configure-to-order option: 2.4 GHz 8-core i9 (5 GHz Turbo Boost)

I really like my 2018 13-inch MacBook Pro, but these are tempting.

All of the updated models come with a new, yet-again-revised-but-not-replaced butterfly keyboard. Again, Snell:

Apple says these new models also feature another change (I think this is the fifth?) to the butterfly keyboard in response to customer complaints that the keyboard would end up in a sad state where key presses were ignored or doubled. While Apple is quick to say that the vast majority of MacBook Pro customers haven’t experienced any keyboard issues, the company still keeps tweaking this design. It claims that the change made in these new MacBook Pro models will substantially reduce the incidence of ignored or doubled characters.

Jim Dalrymple reports:

To address the problem, Apple said they changed the material in the keyboard’s butterfly mechanism that should substantially reduce issues that some users have seen.

We’ll see how that turns out, but there is good news: Apple has extended its Keyboard Service Program to cover all machines with butterfly keyboards including the 2018 and brand-new 2019 notebooks.¹

I can’t remember another time when Apple introduced a product and on day one, it was part of a repair extension program. It’s the right call for users, but damn.