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Remember the OLED touch strip on the upcoming 2016 MacBook Pro? How about that and other rumors...


Apple is about to give us yet another lesson about taking rumors with a grain of salt.

Apple MacBook Pro with OLED display

For the past few weeks, rumors of the next MacBook Pro have been stirring the imagination of fans, pundits, and even a concept artist who has imagined what a MacBook Pro with an OLED touchstrip, would look like.

In all fairness, the concept is a solid ten on the visual scale, and certainly portrays a much needed refresh of MacBooks going forward. It is also accurate to previous rumors hinting at the next MacBook Pro’s design being closer to the 12 inch MacBook, with some going as far as citing the 12 inch MacBook as the basic mold for all future MacBook models.

There is only one problem: the chance of an OLED touchstrip, or any kind of touchscreen feature on the MacBook is getting slimmer by the hour. The authenticity of leaked footage covering the alleged OLED MacBook Pro are no more questionable than those surfaced prior to the 12 inch MacBook Retina, which was previously believed to be the next MacBook Air.

By this token, it’s not impossible for future MacBooks to integrate touchscreen features, on some degree, at least to a point where the functionality doesn’t create conflict between the MacBook and the iPad Pro. Tim Cook has been very clear on the matter: there will be no merging of Macs and iOS devices. That includes features that could potentially cause a degree of cross-product cannibalization, and even worse: confusion for consumers.

With that said, it’s also very possible that the next MacBook won’t feature anything radical at all in the way of design. One thing we can be certain about, is that it will be slimmer, and feature a design along the lines of the 12 inch MacBook Retina.

Fanless design

It has been argued that the next Pro will feature a fanless design, however, common sense is about to stomp all over this notion. Even if the next MacBook Pro will be powered by an Intel Core Kaby Lake processor, the processing power required by applications like Photoshop, or Final Cut, will have to be at least in the 3.5GHz ~ 4.5GHz range. Heat dissipation will be an even bigger concern when more RAM is introduced, which makes the presence of fans even more crucial, even with the use of the entire unibody casing as one giant heatsink.

Touch-ID

The rumor about Touch-ID being implemented (somehow), in the next MacBook Pro, may be about the only extravagant information that might actually have a foundation of reality.

Security on the Mac has been a conversation starter from blogs to social media, especially now that we know Mac owners can be just as good a target by hackers, as Windows users are. By this token, there may be a solid chance that Apple might manage to sneak Touch-ID, or some form of fingerprint reader technology into the MacBook Pro.

As a fatter of fact, Apple has been working on ways to improve Touch-ID on iOS devices, so that they may no longer be fooled by “gummy-bear” hacks, otherwise known as techniques to unlock a device using an imprint of the legitimate device owner’s fingerprint, on a soft skin-like substance, such as rubber or solid glue.

By that token, it’s possible that if Touch-ID is improved beyond such point, Apple just might consider extending Touch-ID to Macs, including the next MacBook Pro.


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