Is the world finally healing? After roughly a decade in the dark, the glowing Apple logo is finally back on the Mac, lighting up the lid of Apple’s new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR.
For anyone who grew up spotting MacBooks across a coffee shop or college or university class by that soft white apple, this one hits home.
Apple first put a lit lid logo on the PowerBook G3 in 1999. The backlight shone through a translucent cutout, and the look stuck around PowerBooks and MacBooks for about 16 years. The 12-inch MacBook dropped it in 2015, and the 2016 MacBook Pro redesign finished the job. The 2015 models were the last ones that glowed.
John Ternus even teased the return this morning with a clip hours before Apple’s Pro and Tell event.
That same redesign day also breaks another long Apple rule: no touchscreen on a Mac. Steve Jobs laid out the case against it at the Back to the Mac event in October 2010, and the clip still hits hard.
Check out the video again below:
“You know, the first thing you think about is this, right? We thought about this years ago. We’ve done tons of user testing on this and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo. But after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work. It’s ergonomically terrible. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal. Hence, pads. For a notebook, that’s why we’ve perfected our multi-touch trackpads over the years.”
Sixteen years later, Apple has changed its mind. The new MacBook Pro uses a tandem OLED panel Apple calls PROLED XDR, with a touch sensor built into the display, a firmer hinge for taps, ProMotion from 10Hz to 120Hz, and up to 2000 nits of peak brightness.
In Canada the 14-inch model starts at $3,999 CAD, with the 16-inch from $4,799 CAD. Pre-orders are open now, and units arrive Friday, November 6. It’s not cheap by any means, and we’re wondering who’s ready to jump on this.
Under the new Ternus era, this counts as one big step for the Mac, right beside the other one that already landed this month. The iPhone Duo put a foldable Apple phone in Canadian stores.
Would that glowing logo alone make you upgrade, or do you still need the touchscreen to close the deal?
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