Reports are coming in that Apple is planning to release refreshed models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 27-inch iMac this coming Wednesday, sporting some hardware upgrades, speed bumps, and the likely introduction of the Force Touch trackpad on Apple’s larger Pro notebook.
Apple has been rather slow in updating its 15-inch MacBook Pro lineup, and as such this purported change is a much awaited one. A couple of months ago, back in March, the 13-inch MacBook Pro was refreshed by Apple which included the latest 5th-gen of Intel Core CPUs coming in at 2.7 GHz on the base model, but the major update was the introduction of the Force Touch trackpad – something that was included in Apple’s new 12-inch Retina MacBook as well. However, the Force Touch tech itself made its debut with the Apple Watch.
Similarly, the 27-inch iMac, which hasn’t been refreshed for some time, is likely to get newer generation of hardware as well, with the 5th-gen Intel Core processor being the most probable update. On the matter of these 5th-gen Broadwell processors from Intel, the larger MacBook Pro could also hope to gain some significant improvement on the battery life front as well, despite the power boost under the hood.
This pleasant bit of information comes in from MacG, a French publication which maintains a significantly decent track-record pertaining to Apple rumors. The publication does not have a lot of details to offer on this specific bit of news for now, but regarding the updated 27-inch iMac, 9to5Mac has just confirmed that the sources themselves are unclear whether the iMac in question is the Retina or non-Retina one.
Currently, shipping estimates of the higher-end models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro can be seen to have slipped to around 2-3 weeks which could mean that Apple is curtailing production of the current models to focus on producing the purported refreshed model of the MacBook Pro.
Meanwhile, the iMac with Retina 5K display is still advertised to ship immediately, with only the high-end models with 2GB of video memory shipping in 1-2 weeks. Does this mean the update will be targeted at the non-Retina 27-inch iMac? This remains unclear as the non-Retina iMac is also available to ship immediately upon order.
(Source: MacG [Google Translate])
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