15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. (Apple)
Apple has started selling an updated 15-inch MacBook Pro and cut the price on its Retina iMac. Meanwhile a report claims that Apple has “shelved” plans for its long-rumored TV set.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now boasts a Force Touch trackpad, faster storage, and longer battery life, Apple said Tuesday. A new configuration of the 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display was also announced at a lower price of $1,999.
The updated 15-inch MacBook Pro – whose basic physical design has not changed since it was introduced in 2012 – now has a Force Touch trackpad brimming with built-in force sensors for haptic feedback. “The Force Touch trackpad allows you to click anywhere with a uniform feel and customize the amount of pressure needed to register each click,” Apple said, in a statement. The new model also comes with faster (up to 2.5 times) flash storage, faster graphics, and offers an additional hour of battery life, with up to 9 hours of wireless Web browsing and up to 9 hours of iTunes movie playback.
The new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display starts at $1,999. This follows a similar update to the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro earlier this year.
The new $1,999 Retina iMac configuration includes a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, AMD Radeon R9 M290 graphics, 8GB of memory and 1TB of storage, as well as four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt 2 ports that deliver up to twice the bandwidth of the previous generation. The top-end iMac with Retina 5K display now starts at $2,299 and comes with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics, and a 1TB Fusion Drive.
No Apple TV set
But there may be bad news for consumers holding out for an Apple TV set. The company has “shelved” plans for a TV more than a year ago, according to a report Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.
Apple had been searching for “breakthrough features to justify” building a TV set but executives didn’t consider features – proposed by a small team working on the TV – compelling enough, the report said.
Speculation about the imminent arrival of a TV set from Apple has become a quarterly fantasy that financial analysts engage in, driven largely by comments made by former CEO Steve Jobs about his desire to reinvent the TV. But nothing ever materialized.
Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment from FoxNews.com.
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