Apple unveils new Ultra-thin MacBook with Retina display, new Trackpad and Colors!

Apple’s “Spring Forward” event is underway at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts and CEO Tim Cook said that Apple has challenged itself to “reinvent the notebook” before he took the wraps off a brand new MacBook model which weighs just two pounds and is available in silver, space gray and “a stunning gold.”

Featuring a twelve-inch screen with a Retina pixel resolution of 2304-by-1440 pixels, the display produces clearer images and consumes up to thirty percent less energy. The trackpad, now called, Force Touch trackpad, ditches away the mechanical design in favor of four sensors and Haptic Engine from the Apple Watch.

The trackpad has adjustable click feel and, more importantly, it can distinguish between a force click and a tap or standard click. They’ve developed new gestures that take advantage of force-clicking in OS X, enabling a range of pressures that the sensors can sense.

For instance, when watching a video, the deeper you press the faster the video plays.

What’s inside the notebook is the latest Unibody architecture and, most importantly, a 67 percent smaller logic board one third the size of the previous logic board, thanks to its fanless design.

Yes, no fans on the new MacBook, meaning it operates silently.

It’s powered by Intel’s new 14-nanometer Intel Core M chip clocked at 1.3 GHz, but you can configure it with a faster chip in mind. Apple has created the notebook’s battery in sheets so it can occupy more space, allowing for a 35 more capacity in energy use, good enough for a 24-hour performance on this notebook.

“It’s the world’s most energy efficient notebook,” Apple said.

Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller, took the stage to talk more about the notebook, which “looks absolutely gorgeous from every angle”.

Weighing just two pounds, it’s the “thinnest notebook we’ve ever made.”

At its thickest point it’s just 13.1mm thin versus 18.3mm for the 11-inch MacBook Air, a 24 percent thinner appearance.

“That is a huge difference,” said Schiller.

As rumored before, the machine has a new USB Type-C connector that’s fully reversible and now replaces MagSafe, Thunderbolt and USB.

Incorporating a new Butterfly keyboard technology, the keyboard on the new MacBook is four times more stable than the standard mechanism, even if you strike the keys on their side.

Each key now has its own LED backlighting allowing for a more precise illumination. Connectivity wise, the new MacBook has 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The computer is shipping on April 10 priced at $1,299 for the baseline model, with a $1,599 model available with twice the storage and faster internals.

By the way, Mac growth has been outpacing the rest of the industry for ten years straight.

Source

Tim Cook: Apple working on ‘some really great stuff’ in new product categories!

“There will be new categories,” Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal in an interview regarding Apple’s recent buyback of more than $14 billion in stock. “We’re not ready to talk about it, but we’re working on some really great stuff.”

Now, Cook has alluded to Apple getting into new product categories before. But speaking with the Journal, the CEO seems more intent than ever on convincing worried investors that his company has some major things in the pipeline…

The Journal’s Daisuke Wakabayashi reports:

“Thursday, Mr. Cook reiterated that Apple plans to enter a new category this year. Apple watchers are speculating about wearable devices or a new television platform.

“There will be new categories. We’re not ready to talk about it, but we’re working on some really great stuff,” Mr. Cook said. When asked whether a new product category could mean an improvement on an existing product like an iPad Air, a lighter version of its tablet computer, or new services such as mobile payments, Mr. Cook declined to comment.

He said that anyone “reasonable” would consider what Apple is working on as new categories.”

Cook also wanted to make it clear that Apple remains a “growth company”—something investors have repeatedly questioned over the last year as the iPad maker’s revenue growth has dropped to less than 10%, and its net income to 11%.

“He said his statement that Apple doesn’t aim to make the most phones has been misunderstood.

“I don’t view that as being satisfied with being small or however you want to define it,” he said. “I just want to say that the macro thing for us is making a great product and we must do that. If we can’t do that, we’re not going to force ourselves to hit a price point that makes us produce a product that we’re not proud of because we lose who we are in that. We’re not going to do that.” 

And finally, the CEO talked about acquisitions, another hot topic with investors who feel Apple’s $160 billion cash pile is burning a hole in the company’s pocket. Historically, Apple hasn’t made big acquisitions, but it’s not out of the question.

“The Apple CEO said its history of opting for smaller deals doesn’t mean that the company won’t pull the trigger on a big acquisition if it makes sense.

“We’ve looked at big companies,” said Mr. Cook. “We have no problem spending 10 figures for the right company, for the right fit that’s in the best interest of Apple in the long-term. None. Zero.” 

I recommend checking out the entire interview, as Cook seems more candid than his usual self. It almost comes off as a bit of a defensive PR move, which would make sense after Apple’s stock dropped more than 8% following its Q1 earnings.

Apple seems to be fighting the perception that its best days are behind it, but there’s only so much words can do without action. I for one am looking forward to seeing if it can live up to its own hype this year: larger iPhone, iWatch, new Apple TV.