A news report on Bloomberg shows that Apple is working on a MacBook Pro 2017 refresh. The new MacBook Pro will have a chip made by Apple using ARM Holdings Plc’s technology.
A similar chip already powers the processing needs of the 2016 MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, and a new version is being developed to take the load off the Intel processors that run the main workloads.
The chip has been codenamed T310 internally, and is a successor to the T1 that’s on the 2016 MacBook Pro devices. It powers the OLED screen embedded into the keyboard, but will have additional functionality in the MacBook Pro 2017.
According to the Bloomberg report, Apple’s engineers are going to use the chip to offload resources from Intel’s processors for the “Power Nap” mode, which turns on when the laptop is shut. It allows the system to continue certain low-power functions such as calendar syncing and email retrieval.
That low-power functionality is currently handled by the Intel chip, but when the new ARM-based chip from Apple is featured on the MacBook Pro 2017, it will take that load off Intel’s shoulders in addition to handling the needs of the Touch Bar, allowing the laptop to conserve more power and help the battery last longer.
The MacBook Pro didn’t have that great a 2016. Shortly after the launch, a lot of users were reporting erratic battery life and other problems. The problem was finally narrowed down to a single fix in macOS 10.12.3 beta 4 that made battery life more consistent across devices.
But even before that, we showed how switching the default browser could help get more juice out of the MacBook Pro 2016.
Hopefully, the MacBook Pro 2017 won’t have any battery problems because Apple is likely going to keep an extra eye out for that. In fact, we may see even better battery life on the new MacBook Pro this year since the new chip will be handling all low-power functions. However, processing is expected to be better on this year’s MacBook Pro because of the Intel seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors that it is expected to have.
The MacBook Pro 2017 is likely to be available sometime in Q3 2017, but there’s been no verifiable confirmation of that yet. Keep checking in; we’ll be reporting it as soon as we get any new information.
Thanks for reading our work! Please bookmark 1redDrop.com to keep tabs on the hottest, most happening tech and business news from around the world. On Apple News, please favorite the 1redDrop channel to get us in your news feed.
