Macbook Pro 2016 with Touch Bar and Touch ID, Announced!

Apple's 2016 Macbook Pro looks like a thicker version of their 2015 and 2016 Macbook but is more powerful and has four USB Type C Thunderbolt 3 ports, a Touch ID, as well as this innovation called 'Touch Bar'.

That's basically how I would describe this sleek new machine - which is available in two elegant colors: Silver and Space Grey - to a casual Apple fan or gadget consumer.

Introduced within the week of the 25th anniversary of Apple's first two notebooks - the Powerbook 100 and 140, the new Macbook Pro is far thinner and lighter compared to their immediate predecessors, the Macbook Pro with Retina Display models.

In fact, the 14.9-mm-thin 13-inch MacBook Pro 2016 is 17% thinner and 23% smaller than the previous generation release. On top of that, it's nearly half a pound lighter at just 3 lbs. 4-lbs 15-inch MacBook Pro 2016, on the other hand, is only 15.5 mm thin and is 14% thinner, a pound lighter, and 20% smaller than its 2015 counterpart.

The key new feature of the new Macbook Pro is the Touch Bar, which is a touch-sensitive colored strip of screen found on top of the keyboard, replacing the row of function keys.

The Touch Bar changes its functionality or adapts to meet the settings of the app being used, giving you better control and ease of access. It works with applications including Garageband, Final Cut Pro X, Mail, Finder, Calendar, Numbers and many more, including third-party apps that are already optimized for the new system.

You can use it for answering video calls...

for manipulating photos in the gallery...

or for scrolling through the entire color palette in photo editing software, among many others.

Another cool mobile feature that Apple finally decided to integrate into its notebook system is Touch ID, which we've already seen on the iPhone and the iPad.

Lining the power button, Touch ID lets you quickly unlock your Mac or make Apple Pay purchases in territories where it is available.

Other notable features of the 2016 Macbook Pro include the larger Force Touch trackpad, redesigned keyboard with second-gen butterfly mechanism for more comfortable typing experience, improved fan design and cooling system, MacOS Sierra operating system right out of the box, and louder speaker with improved bass and double the dynamic range compared to older Macbook Pros.

As for the prices, according to Apple, the 13-inch (2,560 x 1,600) MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch Bar as well as Touch ID starts at $1,799 USD (that's Php 87,376 with current conversion and before taxes) and this variant already features a 2.9 GHz Sixth-Generation Dual-Core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage. The 15-inch (2,880 x 1,800) version of the MacBook Pro 2016, on the other hand, starts at $2,399 USD (that's Php 116,518 with current conversion and before taxes) and is equipped with a 2.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.5 GHz, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage.