12:54PM EDT - We're here at 4 Infinite Loop for Apple's "Hello Again" event

12:55PM EDT - This is, presumably, the last Mac event that will be held here, as the new Apple campus nears completion

12:56PM EDT - Apple has not had a great time with leaks lately, so we have a good idea of what to expect

12:56PM EDT - New MacBooks, particularly, an all-new generation of MacBook Pro

12:59PM EDT - It has been a very long time since Apple has offered even a minor hardware update for the MBP, so the line is overdue, to say the least

01:00PM EDT - Today Ryan is on the keys, meanwhile Ian is on photo duty

01:01PM EDT - And here we go

01:01PM EDT - Starting with a video, as is often the case

01:02PM EDT - Siri is narrating it

01:02PM EDT - Now on stage, Tim Cook

01:03PM EDT - Apple is launching a new accessibility website to showcase the accessibility tech in their products

01:04PM EDT - "We have some great new products to share with you this morning"

01:04PM EDT - But first, some quick updates

01:05PM EDT - A wonderful quote about the iPhone 7 from a site called AnandTech

01:05PM EDT - Tim's sharing some really nice photos taken with the iPhone 7

01:06PM EDT - Recapping the Memories feature

01:07PM EDT - iOS 10 adoption is at 60%

01:07PM EDT - Tim doesn't hesitate to point out that most Android devices will never get Android 7

01:08PM EDT - Now discussing the iOS minor update shipped earlier this week, which enabled the simulated depth of field effect

01:08PM EDT - We need to check the iOS adoption rate, but we suspect it's a bit lower than Apple's record in previous years

01:09PM EDT - Now on to iOS functionality for Japan. Transit, Apple Pay, etc

01:10PM EDT - Now recapping the Apple Watch 2 and watchOS 3 launches

01:10PM EDT - The Nike+ watch will be available tomorrow

01:11PM EDT - Apple TV news up next

01:11PM EDT - "The future of TV is apps"

01:12PM EDT - Minecraft for the Apple TV due by the end of this year

01:12PM EDT - Over 1600 apps from video content providers

01:13PM EDT - Now on stage, Ryan Troy from Twitter

01:13PM EDT - Twitter is showing off Twitter on Apple TV, and how it changes watching video/sports

01:14PM EDT - Twitter timeline to the right of the video

01:15PM EDT - Meanwhile news is also breaking that Twitter is going to be discontinuing Vine

01:16PM EDT - So it's a significant change for video for Twitter

01:16PM EDT - "We want Apple TV to be the once place to access all of your television"

01:17PM EDT - Apple is announcing a new app: TV

01:17PM EDT - Rather than explain what it does, they're going to demo it

01:18PM EDT - A unified frontend for all video apps

01:18PM EDT - Related content, content recommendations, etc

01:19PM EDT - Filtered by the apps you already have, so you can immediately access it

01:20PM EDT - You can also find and install new video apps from within it

01:20PM EDT - So far it's very Netflix-y

01:21PM EDT - Now showing it on the iPad

01:22PM EDT - And Siri integration

01:22PM EDT - And that's the TV app in a nutshell

01:22PM EDT - "It's going to completely change how we watch television"

01:22PM EDT - Next category: Live

01:23PM EDT - Siri knows what apps offer live TV, and what programming is on

01:23PM EDT - Switching to the news, football, etc

01:25PM EDT - And that's a wrap on the TV demo

01:25PM EDT - The TV app will be free, available in December, by the end of the year

01:26PM EDT - Up next: the Mac

01:27PM EDT - Tim is recapping Apple's love of the Mac

01:27PM EDT - Recapping macOS Sierra launch

01:28PM EDT - "This week happens to be a huge week in the history of the Mac"

01:29PM EDT - 25th anniversary of the launch of the first Mac notebook

01:29PM EDT - The very first PowerBook

01:29PM EDT - Recapping the major innovations of the first PowerBook

01:30PM EDT - "Today we're going to [redefine the notebook] again"

01:31PM EDT - Promo video time

01:31PM EDT - Immediately draws attention to the rumored OLED touch panel

01:32PM EDT - Now on stage: Phil Schiller

01:32PM EDT - Full body aluminum

01:32PM EDT - 13" and 15" sizes

01:32PM EDT - Silver and Space Grey

01:33PM EDT - Thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro, once again

01:33PM EDT - 14.9mm thick for the new 13" MBP. Versus 18mm for the rMBP

01:33PM EDT - 3 pounds, almost 0.5lbs less than the rMBP

01:34PM EDT - 15" MBP, 15.5mm versus 18mm

01:34PM EDT - 20% less volume

01:34PM EDT - 4lbs, 0.5lbs less than the rMBP

01:34PM EDT - "Everything is all new"

01:34PM EDT - New force touch trackpad. 2x bigger than the last generation MBP

01:35PM EDT - Keyboard uses the 2nd gen butterfly key switches

01:35PM EDT - (So expect shallow key travel)

01:35PM EDT - And now the elephant in the room: the OLED panel

01:36PM EDT - Phil is not hiding the fact that Apple has it in for the traditional function key

01:36PM EDT - What could Apple do if they got rid of old keys?

01:37PM EDT - Retina display, multi-touch, supports gestures and taps

01:37PM EDT - Its name: Touch Bar

01:37PM EDT - The Touch Bar adapts to whatever software is running

01:37PM EDT - Safari: buttons for websites

01:38PM EDT - Search field, forward/back controls

01:38PM EDT - Quick Type suggestions when typing

01:38PM EDT - Touch ID support

01:39PM EDT - Fingerprint login

01:39PM EDT - Apple T1 chip to handle touch ID and secure enclave

01:39PM EDT - Extending Apple Pay web functionality to support Touch ID on the MBP

01:40PM EDT - Grand reveal of the hardware units on the demo table

01:40PM EDT - Demo time

01:40PM EDT - Bad "touch" puns abound

01:41PM EDT - Showing new ways to use system controls

01:41PM EDT - And how it's used in Mail

01:42PM EDT - Quick Type includes emoji support

01:43PM EDT - Showing all the options for Safari

01:44PM EDT - And how Touch ID works. Very good for impulse purchases

01:46PM EDT - Photo editing as well

01:46PM EDT - Apple is clearly looking to leverage their touch screen experience on iOS and bring it to the Mac

01:47PM EDT - Touch Bar can of course be customized. Drag buttons from the screen to the bar

01:47PM EDT - Now demoing Touch ID for fast user switching

01:47PM EDT - The MBP can log in the correct user based on whose finger it is

01:48PM EDT - Touch Bar support for Terminal as well

01:49PM EDT - And support in XCode

01:49PM EDT - Now on to the display

01:49PM EDT - 67% brighter, 67% greater contrast ratio, and a 25% wider color gamut

01:49PM EDT - P3 color gamut?

01:50PM EDT - All 15" MBPs have a Core i7. Skylake generation

01:50PM EDT - 2133Mhz memory

01:50PM EDT - AMD Polaris dGPU, up to 2.3x faster

01:50PM EDT - (Sounds like Polaris 11)

01:51PM EDT - SSD, up to 2TB, up to 50% faster

01:51PM EDT - Now discussing how Apple got the cooling system thinner

01:51PM EDT - New speakers, 2x dynamic range

01:51PM EDT - Now the 13" MBP

01:51PM EDT - Dual core CPUs, i5 or i7

01:52PM EDT - Intel Iris Graphics

01:52PM EDT - 2x faster SSD

01:52PM EDT - "New 13-inch MacBook Pro"

01:52PM EDT - (We'll need a better name)

01:52PM EDT - New I/O options

01:52PM EDT - 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports

01:53PM EDT - Also supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 (via the TB controller) and DisplayPort 1.2

01:53PM EDT - All ports support charging

01:54PM EDT - Promoting an LG 5K display for MBP users

01:54PM EDT - Single cable functionality. The spiritual successor to the Thunderbolt Display

01:55PM EDT - Demo time again

01:55PM EDT - Final Cut Pro

01:55PM EDT - How FCP takes advantage of the greater power, wider color gamut, and the Touch Bar

01:56PM EDT - Color gamut always being refered to as "wide color" rather than a name

01:57PM EDT - Touch Bar always shows the editing controls you need

01:58PM EDT - Video playback controls on the touch bar so that it doesn;t have to overlay/block the video

01:59PM EDT - This seems very similar to Microsoft's philosophy on the ribbon for MS Office

01:59PM EDT - Bring otherwise hidden features front and center

01:59PM EDT - Next demo: Photoshop

02:01PM EDT - Calling it now: Apple will replace the Force Touch pad with a touch screen once it's viable

02:02PM EDT - Theres a Touch Bar mode just for brushing

02:02PM EDT - (Remember the importance of brushing, kids)

02:05PM EDT - Third demo: music, DJ Pro

02:05PM EDT - DJing via the touch bar

02:07PM EDT - Not being a DJ, I'm admittedly unsure how this is different/better than trying it on an iPad

02:08PM EDT - But this guy can mix a sick beat

02:08PM EDT - "This was all done right on the Touch Bar"]

02:09PM EDT - Touch Bar supports up to 10 inputs (10 fingers)

02:09PM EDT - Touch Bar support also coming to MS Office

02:10PM EDT - "An entirely new experience"

02:10PM EDT - Video time again

02:11PM EDT - "Wider color gamut" again

02:11PM EDT - Discussing/recapping the technical changes

02:13PM EDT - 10 hours battery life on both MBP models

02:14PM EDT - "15-inch Retina display" so it sounds like the display resolution has not changed

02:15PM EDT - Now reiterating Apple's commitment to greener manufacturing

02:15PM EDT - Moving on from the MBP

02:15PM EDT - MacBook Air will continue to be offered as well

02:16PM EDT - There will be a version of the MBP that's more like the MBA. Traditional function keys

02:16PM EDT - Phil pointing out how the 13" MBP is now smaller than the MBA now that it's gone on a diet

02:17PM EDT - 13-inch display, Iris Graphics, Force Touch, Thunderbolt 3, etc

02:18PM EDT - So 3 models of the MBP altogether

02:18PM EDT - Base 13" MBP basically gets 2 TB3 ports instead of 4, a lower clocked CPU, and no Touch Bar

02:19PM EDT - $1499, $1799, and $2399

02:19PM EDT - The fn key model is shipping today

02:19PM EDT - The Touch Bar models in 2-3 weeks

02:19PM EDT - Now talking about the 12" MacBook

02:20PM EDT - No refresh, it sounds like. Just better illustrating the revised MacBook lineup

02:20PM EDT - Now rolling a video ad

02:21PM EDT - We'll have to double check once the press releases go out, but it sounds like the MacBook Air has not been refreshed at all

02:21PM EDT - Apple may be angling to phase it out over time like the optical disk drive MacBook Pro

02:22PM EDT - And that's a wrap. Time for some hands on

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  • Erazor51 - Thursday, October 27, 2016 - link

    zzZZZZ
  • alamilla - Thursday, October 27, 2016 - link

    Apple TV: 'Let's avoid the elephant in the room which is lack of 4K or HDR support'
  • solipsism - Thursday, October 27, 2016 - link

    I'm still on the 3rd gen Apple TV and I won't update until 2160/H.265 is supported. I buy other media extender applianced to test but the Apple TV still has the most fluid UI.
  • Ammaross - Thursday, October 27, 2016 - link

    Remix IO has H.265 and HDR support. Likely not as "fluid" of a UI as you'd like though, but way more powerful.
  • name99 - Thursday, October 27, 2016 - link

    What's the installed base of 4K and/or HDR TVs?
    What's the level of available content?

    My guess is that Apple has internal benchmarks for when they fell it's necessary to support those options, and that haven't hit that point yet. It's very easy for people living in a certain type of technology bubble to be oblivious to how rare are the toys they use everyday.

    I also suspect there's a larger game of chicken going on here. When Apple starts selling 4K content, they will want it all to be in a standard format, and usable on some reasonable fraction of their installed devices. Is that standard format going to be h.265 or something else? The h.265 consortium better get their act together quickly to make that decision, because I suspect Apple has told them "tick, tick, tick, we're making that decision on such-and-such a date, and if you haven't got your act together by then..."

    Remember Apple is in a rather different position from Netflix or Roku or even something like Android. Part of what they're selling is a sort of expectation that stuff more or less works everywhere, meaning that there's an expectation that if I, eg, buy a 4K movie on iTunes, I can watch it on my Mac, on my phone, on my iPad, on my Apple TV. Ideally this would all work transparently (meaning all those devices have hardware support for 4K h.265 or VP10 content); less ideal is if, to make it work, occasionally content has to be downloaded a SECOND time, to get the 1080p h.264 version for some older hardware. This sort of goal requires long lead times where hardware gets shipped but not yet "activated". The h.265 licensing BS just adds to that already existing problem.
  • Meteor2 - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link

    Low on both counts (answering your original question) -- but it isn't going to stay that way.
  • dsumanik - Friday, October 28, 2016 - link

    Honestly I think it has more to do with jacking profit margins ever higher. The majority of apples line is lower end, outdated hardware and consolidated. Like the MacBook Air and iMac use use same internals and processor for instance. But price remains extremely high. I think Apple is deleberatly not using 4K so they can another hundred to the price tag and tout it is a revolutionary feature, this has been the pattern since jobs died
  • pjc15 - Saturday, October 29, 2016 - link

    dsumanik, you don't know what you're talking about. MBA and iMac do not have the same internals and processor. Look up the parts, they are all different.

    The price is not "extremely high" compared to what custom builders and other OEMs are selling, spec for spec. Compared to do-it-yourself, of course Apple is much more expensive. They don't work for free and neither does any other OEM.

    Nor is there a pattern of using features to jack up prices. Apple has cut prices on MBA and MBP over time (until this event) and iPhone has seen many improvements without a price increase. They're actually getting cheaper over time due to inflation.

    dsumanik, you're clueless. Stop commenting on Apple.
  • sorten - Thursday, October 27, 2016 - link

    We're introducing a new app, that we're calling "TV". LOL
  • sorten - Thursday, October 27, 2016 - link

    The AMD GPU choice is unfortunate, but at least it's not last generation.

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