How the new MacBook Pro can help a creative business

Apple’s much anticipated update of the MacBook Pro’s was finally revealed to the public last Thursday evening. There are lots of new features, so we wanted to delve into them and see how they can help your creative business.

The all new Touch Bar

The biggest change in this update is the brand new Touch Bar that has now replaced the row of function keys along the top of the MacBook Pro’s keyboard; it’s made of smooth glass so it seamlessly sits flush into the keyboard. The multi-touch feature that we see on iOS devices has been incorporated giving a familiar, tactile control method for on the move video editors or photographers. You’ll be able to scroll through your timeline, adjust audio levels or change the colour of a filter without touching the mouse or keyboard! I know how tricky using the trackpad can be when managing the timeline in an edit. Having the Touch bar with multi-touch will now give a greater level of control for creative tasks.

One of the most impressive features of the Touch Bar is how quickly it adapts to the programmes you are using. Whenever you move onto another task the touch bar will change to reflect the tools for that new task. You can also customise the default controls by going to the view menu and ‘Customise Touch Bar’. You’ll be given a variety of options to drag down and customise the Touch Bar contents to suit your particular needs.

Something that I have been personally wanting on a Mac for a couple of years is Touch ID and for the first time this is now available for the MacBook with the Touch Bar. Not only does it authenticate the users identity but it also allows you to effortlessly switch between user accounts on the same Mac. By placing your finger on the Touch ID panel, you will instantly switch to your account even when another user is still logged on.

All the apps that Apple create; Keynote, Numbers and Pages to name a few are going to have Touch Bar integration. Additionally Apple have also opened the technology up to third party developers, so who knows what will be created with your favourite app.

Display

The new display offers many great new features starting with the colours. Graphic designers, video editors and photographers all need the widest colour gamut they can get their hands on, to give the most faithful reproduction of their source material. The new MacBook Pro offers 25% wider colour gamut than standard RGB (sRGB) which is a great advantage when it comes to colour grading in video editing and graphic design. With increased brightness and a greater contrast ratio, the new MacBook Pro’s display is suited for demanding work but also day to day tasks.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Apple have taken the keyboard with the butterfly mechanism from the MacBook and have made it even better in the new MacBook Pro. Now with up to 4x more key stability, those long essays and reports will now be almost effortless. Almost.

The Force Touch trackpad has also gone under some development. Almost doubling in size it now offers a much larger space to gesture and click, which will make certain creative tasks like scrubbing along timelines a lot easier if you don’t want to go for the Touch Bar option.

Performance

A consistent level of performance throughout the day is a major factor when you’re in your own creative bubble, losing focus is the last thing you want. With 130% faster graphics, long edit and animation sessions will be handled with ease.

On the topic of speed, flash storage on the MacBook Pro’s was introduced on the last generation and vastly improved the speed at which those machines started up and programmes and files were accessed. In the new lineup the flash storage is now offering up to 100% faster performance even compared to the last generation. Which is quick, really quick.

Apple recently introduced USB-C to their lineup of MacBooks and they’ve done the same with the new MacBook Pro’s. This time combining them with Thunderbolt 3, in turn getting rid of the usual USB ports, HDMI port and the SD card slot. Now have no fear this really isn’t a bad thing, there are multiple adapters that can be bought from KRCS that will still allow you to use your existing peripherals. If you’re like me screen real estate is a big thing, having your render window on one screen, the timeline and effects on another is such a massive help to your work flow and with Thunderbolt 3 on the MacBook Pro it can now support up to two 5k monitors, which is quite frankly beautiful!

Oh and did I mention it now comes in 2 colours? Adding to the original silver aluminium there is now space grey too!

The brand new MacBook Pro is now available to order from our website or in store!

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