Apple unveils MacBook Pros with 14.2" and 16.2" ProMotion displays with a notch, M1 Pro or Max chips, MagSafe, no Touch Bar, HDMI port, SD card slot, and more
A Boolean value that indicates whether … YouTube : The new MacBook Pro | Supercharged for pros | Apple Sanjiv Sathiah / Notebookcheck.net : Apple's M1 Max GPU is as powerful as an Nvidia RTX 2080 desktop GPU and the Sony PS5 gaming console Hartley Charlton / MacRumors : 14-Inch MacBook Pro vs. 16-Inch MacBook Pro Buyer's Guide Mike Peterson / AppleInsider : Intel under fire: What Wall Street thinks about Apple's new MacBook Pro Callum Booth / TNW : The breakout star of Apple's MacBook Pro event is a $19 cleaning cloth Lauren Goode / Wired : Apple Finally Remembered What Makes Laptops Great David Gewirtz / ZDNet : The deal on Apple's new MacBook Pro: You can spend more than $6K Alice Newcome-Beill / The Verge : 2021 MacBook Pros compared: how Apple's laptops stack up Scott Stein / CNET : What the next MacBooks should steal from the iPad Pro Mat Smith / Engadget : The Morning After: Introducing Apple's new MacBook Pros and AirPods Sinéad Baker / Insider : Apple is selling a piece of cloth for $19 bit-tech.net : Apple intros the M1 Pro and M1 Max 5nm computer SoCs Ryan Whitwam / ExtremeTech : Apple's New 14-inch MacBook Pro Brings Back the Ports You've Missed PC Gamer : Apple claims its new M1 Max chip is a match for Nvidia's RTX 3080, but should we believe it? Chris Barylick / O'Grady's PowerPage : Apple unveils new 14.-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro notebooks feature M1 Pro or M1 Max processors, assorted new features Vish Gain / Silicon Republic : 5 things Apple unleashed at its latest event The Economic Times : Apple doubles down on chip strategy with new premium-priced MacBooks YouTube : NEW M1 Max MacBook Pro Reaction: The Ports are Back! Livemint : Apple's screen-cleaning cloth: Guess how much money it costs Tweets: Colin / @cszechy : some personal news... I spent part of 2019, all of 2020, and most of 2021 working on the new MacBook Pros announced today! I designed the M1 Pro and M1 Max dev boards. then I was the M1 Pro and M1 Max system integration lead, and new miniLED and camera system integration lead. https://twitter.com/... Paul Haddad / @tapbot_paul : HDMI port is only HDMI 2.0, exactly why I'd much rather have had another T4 port, what a waste. https://twitter.com/... David Pogue / @pogue : The new MacBook Pros (14" + 16") are remarkable. New M1 chips, 3 USB-C jacks, 17-hr battery, 6 speakers, etc. But also: the RETURN of SD card slot, MagSafe charger, and Fkey top row! (TouchBar is gone!) When has Apple EVER restored a feature it once eliminated—let alone 3? BRAVO! https://twitter.com/... Marques Brownlee / @mkbhd : The new MacBook Pro is here It has a notch It has MagSafe It has ports https://twitter.com/... @pinboard : This is like boasting that you no longer get blackout drunk and soil yourself. You wasted five years of our life. [image of MacBook physical function keys] David Pogue / @pogue : OMG, I cannot believe that people are complaining about the camera notch on the new MacBook Pros. You do understand that you're GAINING screen area, right? Apple extended the image up into what used to be blackness. (And put the menu bar there. The notch doesn't block anything.) https://twitter.com/... Steven Sinofsky / @stevesi : A lot of attention will go to the high price point, but the “low end” models will be more powerful, battery efficient, etc. than most every Windows laptop. Ben Dodson / @bendodson : If this Geekbench score is true, the M1 Pro / Max are as fast as a £6500 Mac Pro with a 12-core Intel Xeon... but in a laptop using significantly less power 🤣 https://www.macrumors.com/... Paul Graham / @paulg : Apple got rid of the touch bar! Finally I can buy a new laptop. Ryan Jones / @rjonesy : Actual courage. We were wrong about TouchBar We were wrong about HDMI We were wrong about SD card slot We were wrong about MagSafe Marques Brownlee / @mkbhd : Apple flexing so hard about how they gave back ports that they took away is just poetry. Niels Andersen / @nielsandersen : @tapbot_paul It feels like they ran a marathon with the Thunderbolt ports only strategy and then tripped on the finish line just as the rest of the industry has finally moved. Patrick Tomasso / @impatrickt : the greatest apple retcon is just erasing everything in between the mid 2015 MacBook Pro and the new M1's. it's like going from Carpenter's Halloween to the 2018 sequel. https://twitter.com/... Joe Rossignol / @rsgnl : Hand it to Apple. It really seems like they took customer feedback and listened with the new MacBook Pro. Some people will miss the Touch Bar, but overall this feels like the most crowd-pleasing MacBook Pro ever. Mark Gurman / @markgurman : There was a rumor the new MacBook Pro packaging would hide the notch. Looks like Apple chose otherwise. https://twitter.com/... Luke Miani / @lukemiani : This is a disappointment and I have no earthly clue why they did this https://twitter.com/... Steve Moser / @stevemoser : The things that excite me the most about the 14" & 16" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro: 1) 120 Hz first party Mac display 2) iPad like battery life 3) Cheaper ‘internal’ storage via a low profile SD card. https://twitter.com/... Stephen Shankland / @stshank : In case you're wondering how long it take to make a new laptop (with an entirely different processor family, during a pandemic and global chip shortage), the answer is ~2 years. At least in the case of the new MacBook Pro laptops. #AppleEvent https://twitter.com/... Becca / @beccafarsace : things i never thought i'd hear apple say #957: ["Having a wide range of ports can make life a lot easier for pros."] Jeff Benjamin / @jeffbenjam : Like I said, RIP PC Laptops. Benjamin Mayo / @bzamayo : Closing thoughts before I go to sleep: crazy good MacBook Pro generation. I bought one. All that being said, most people in the world should still buy a $999 M1 MacBook Air and be insanely happy. Apple's MacBook lineup is so strong at the low end and high end now. Ben Thompson / @benthompson : “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster trucks. And they were right!” Apple, finally. Christian Selig / @christianselig : Wow, Apple asked users what they wanted for this laptop and just said yes to everything haha Mike Murphy / @mcwm : they got rid of the dongles, they gotta find that cash somewhere https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Mac geekery: Apple kills the touch bar, adds back all the ports. But put a notch on the screen. Let the fanboy wars commence. Luke Miani / @lukemiani : Apple basically gave us back everything they took away with the 2016 MacBook Pro, added insane performance on top, and left the room. I'll take it Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : Today's MacBook Pros are for sure the retro throwback editions. They've come back around to the 2004-era PowerBook design language; the 14" really reminds me of a 12" PowerBook G4 https://twitter.com/... Spencer Dailey / @spencerdailey : i hide my menu bar for maximum space, and you can't do that here without eating into your main apps' vertical space. the notch also reminds people of iphone features, and makes a touch screen an even more obvious omission, as well as Face ID. https://twitter.com/... Michael Hodapp / @michaelhodapp_ : @Pogue These are basically exactly what enthusiasts have been asking for for years. You love to see it. Bob Curry / @bobcurrysf : @Pogue Pretty unusual for Apple indeed to essentially admit they were wrong. Maybe a result of a post-Ive Apple, where slimmer/minimalism is subordinate to the actual needs of customers (like a thicker, heavier iPhone 13 Pro with bigger battery)? David Pogue / @pogue : @michaelhodapp_ That's exactly right. Seems weird to say “I'm so surprised that Apple listened to our complaints”!, but this time, they did it. Alan Cooper / @mralancooper : Call me crazy, but that sounds like Apple—APPLE—admitted to making a mistake. THREE mistakes, in fact. And all three are about interfaces. Awesome! https://twitter.com/... Sebastiaan de With / @sdw : me going into this keynote: i'm fine with my i9 MacBook Pro :) me seeing the design of the new laptops: fuck this piece of garbage laptop I have. what a giant heap of trash Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : PCs are not the future. But, Apple is lapping the field over and over. @tonx : All these MacBook Pro capabilities make me wish I had skills or talents. Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : I'm not a big fan of Apple's naming schemes these days, but M1 Pro and M1 Max feel like they make a lot more marketing sense than ‘M1X’ and ‘M1Z’. Much more appealing Vlad Savov / @vladsavov : Love that half the new MBP features are: we ditched the Touch Bar, we gave you your ports back and we stopped screwing around with unreliable battery life. MagSafe is great, display sounds great, don't love the notch. But price really is for pros only. Marco Arment / @marcoarment : For the first time in five years, the MacBook Pro looks like it was designed by and for people who love computers. Curtis Herbert / @parrots : Plus it looks like the M1 Pro 14" gets 4hrs less battery than the M1 13"? I've been enjoying my “you'll forget you have to plug it in” levels of battery life. https://twitter.com/... Joanna Stern / @joannastern : I cannot stop looking at it. I'm making it my phone wallpaper. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple’s Mac silicon transition began with the first M1 system-on-chip, then gained credibility when analysis found the fan-cooled Mac mini’s M1 performance competitive with Intel and AMD offerings. Apple also moved M1 into the iPad Pro, tying its premium computing devices to a common chip foundation.
The new MacBook Pro range takes that strategy into Apple’s professional laptop tier, pairing differentiated M1 Pro and M1 Max chips with a design that restores ports and charging features aimed at established pro workflows.
First-order effects
- MacBook Pro buyers can choose between two Apple-designed performance tiers while regaining HDMI, an SD card slot and MagSafe; the Touch Bar is removed from the line.
- Apple turns the M1 from a single-chip launch into a segmented MacBook Pro platform, making processor choice a central part of its premium-laptop positioning.
Second-order effects
- Apple’s earlier M1 MacBook Air and M1-equipped iPad Pro now sit beside a more explicit professional tier, sharpening the company’s own device ladder around silicon capability and I/O needs.
- The return of built-in display and card connectivity reduces the need for some adapters in MacBook Pro setups, while the notch and ProMotion display make Apple’s mobile design language more consistent across premium devices.
Third-order effects
- If Apple keeps extending distinct in-house chip tiers across Macs, product differentiation will increasingly be set by Apple’s integrated hardware design rather than a single shared processor configuration.
- The move points toward a premium-computing structure in which custom, heterogeneous chips are paired with device-specific features for defined workloads and buyer segments.
The trend: Apple is expanding its silicon transition from a first-generation M1 launch into a tiered, vertically integrated hardware strategy for consumer and professional devices.