There will be no MacBook Pro 2016 release following Apple's staging of the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this coming June. In its stead, the tech giant will unveil a 13-inch Retina MacBook while the pro refresh will have to wait until October at the earliest with new form factor, Touch ID and OLED touch bar as among the key feature upgrades.
The 13-inch MacBook 2016 will soon join its 12-inch sibling and the chance is high that the device will unbox via the 2016 WWDC next month, Apple Insider said in a report, citing the latest research note issued by KGI Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo.
However, it is the 2016 MacBook Pro that really will generate the most excitement as the same report indicated that the lineup's upgrades "will be the most significant in four years."
In the same KGI note, Kuo reiterated his earlier forecast that Apple is finally giving the MBP line a major design treatment with the final form factor "thinner and lighter than ever." While making sure that the next-generation MacBook Pro will unbox with super slim chassis, the inside components will be the mightiest and fastest ever that the line will see, strongly suggesting the use of Intel Skylake chip plus enhanced memory chip and storage technology.
A MacBook Pro that is further slimmed down also suggested the use of Butterfly keyboard mechanism and battery tech that Apple had jammed with the new 12-inch MacBook.
But what could prove as the game-changing features would be the inclusion of OLED display and Touch ID feature to the MacBook Pro. The former, Kuo said, will be employed as a touch bar panel that will bump off the device's physical function keys.
The Touch ID functionality, on the other hand, will see the MacBook Pro being paired with Apple's flagship phone - the iPhone. With hardware and software tweaks, the MBP can be remotely unlocked using the iPhone's fingerprint sensor via Bluetooth connectivity, suggesting that the function will only be supported at a certain range of distance.
On release date, likely to happen in October this year, the MacBook Pro 2016 will unpack in 13-inch and 15-inch screen configurations and will run on OS X 10.12, which Apple is set to unveil through the June WWDC and is rumored to be rebranded as MacOS.