Teardown of Apple's new 13" MacBook Pro reveals 'Force Touch' trackpad, shared tech with new MacBook
The new "Force Touch" trackpad Apple introduced for its notebooks earlier this week has begun to arrive in consumers' hands in the refreshed 13-inch MacBook Pro, and a teardown of that device shows off the trackpad's construction while shedding light on storage technology shared between the company's computers.
The Force Touch trackpad assembly. Via iFixit.
Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Pro is largely similar to its predecessor, repair firm iFixit notes in its disassembly. Some chips have been moved around and the layout of the logic board slightly altered, but the all-new 'Force Touch' trackpad is the largest change.
Prying apart the new trackpad, the company found four electromagnets that push and pull on a small metal rail. Apple touched these briefly during its "Spring Forward" event on Monday, but did not mention the method in which they operate.
Speculation suggests that Apple may vary which electromagnets are activated for a given press event, using different combinations to react to the force and position of the press on the trackpad.
A deconstructed assembly, with strain gauges visible on the supporting tabs. Via iFixit.
The force sensing mechanism relies on four small strain gauges affixed to flexible mounts in each corner of the trackpad. These gauges likely measure the deformation of the mounts, using that data to evaluate the force of the user's press.
Apple also brought its new flash memory architecture to the MacBook Pro, with the laptop sharing the same Samsung memory and controllers as the refreshed MacBook Air. Apple says this storage is twice as fast as the previous generation, claims largely backed up by benchmarks.
A close-up view of the electromagnet assembly. Via iFixit.
In all, iFixit gave the new MacBook Pro an unsurprising repairability score of 1 out of 10, citing the proprietary pentalobe screws, fused Retina display, and copious amounts of adhesive. This is unlikely to pose problems for most Mac buyers, who can simply return their devices to Apple for service in the event of a problem.
The Force Touch trackpad assembly. Via iFixit.
Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Pro is largely similar to its predecessor, repair firm iFixit notes in its disassembly. Some chips have been moved around and the layout of the logic board slightly altered, but the all-new 'Force Touch' trackpad is the largest change.
Prying apart the new trackpad, the company found four electromagnets that push and pull on a small metal rail. Apple touched these briefly during its "Spring Forward" event on Monday, but did not mention the method in which they operate.
Speculation suggests that Apple may vary which electromagnets are activated for a given press event, using different combinations to react to the force and position of the press on the trackpad.
A deconstructed assembly, with strain gauges visible on the supporting tabs. Via iFixit.
The force sensing mechanism relies on four small strain gauges affixed to flexible mounts in each corner of the trackpad. These gauges likely measure the deformation of the mounts, using that data to evaluate the force of the user's press.
Apple also brought its new flash memory architecture to the MacBook Pro, with the laptop sharing the same Samsung memory and controllers as the refreshed MacBook Air. Apple says this storage is twice as fast as the previous generation, claims largely backed up by benchmarks.
A close-up view of the electromagnet assembly. Via iFixit.
In all, iFixit gave the new MacBook Pro an unsurprising repairability score of 1 out of 10, citing the proprietary pentalobe screws, fused Retina display, and copious amounts of adhesive. This is unlikely to pose problems for most Mac buyers, who can simply return their devices to Apple for service in the event of a problem.
Comments
"Teardown of Apple's new 13" MacBook Pro reveals 'Force Touch' trackpad, shared tech with new MacBook Air"
How do you reveal something that's public knowledge? Apple's own videos show more than this teardown.
"Teardown of Apple's new 13" MacBook Pro reveals 'Force Touch' trackpad, shared tech with new MacBook Air"
How do you reveal something that's public knowledge? Apple's own videos show more than this teardown.
Plus I'm pretty sure this is shared tech with the new MacBook, not the new MacBook Air.
Apple's website lists Force Touch under the MBP but not the MBA.
I must be fickle...I'd buy it b/c it's so thin, light and gold!
Plus I'm pretty sure this is shared tech with the new MacBook, not the new MacBook Air.
Apple's website lists Force Touch under the MBP but not the MBA.
Erm...
Apple also brought its new flash memory architecture to the MacBook Pro, with the laptop sharing the same Samsung memory and controllers as the refreshed MacBook Air. Apple says this storage is twice as fast as the previous generation, claims largely backed up by benchmarks.
I'd also like to see the Macbook Air models with this trackpad. This is coming closer to the Wacom tablets without using a resistive layer. I wonder what the spacial sensitivity is, one pixel, or ten pixels? They were showing this with signatures during the presentation, and it looked very good.
Tundraboy, agreed on the 512GB. I also regret the absence of quad-core i7 CPUs in this lineup. For some of us, this severely limits the ability of the MBP to serve as a desktop replacement. The 2015 model scores almost the same as my 2011 MBP on Geekbench and is slower on parallelizable tasks.
I like the gold one a lot even though I really don't need one.
It's a matter of heat and battery life. There's only so much you can do with a thin and light portable. Of course, if you want Apple to add a couple of pounds and an inch in thickness to it, I'm sure they could meet your needs. But when I was in business, some time ago, and according to the people I know who are still in business, editing photos and movies on their Macbook Pro will always be preliminary work. The heavy work is done later on an iMac, or Mac Pro with a large calibrated monitor.
These are tools for lighter work than the "trucks" that real Desktop machines are.
But today's Macbook Pro is vastly more powerful than the ones from the beginning.
A question I've been asking, is why not give the 15" Macbook Pro the same treatment? Why just the 13" model? This seems strange to me.
I'd also like to see the Macbook Air models with this trackpad. This is coming closer to the Wacom tablets without using a resistive layer. I wonder what the spacial sensitivity is, one pixel, or ten pixels? They were showing this with signatures during the presentation, and it looked very good.
They're going for a bigger horsepower jump with the 15" and the chips aren't ready for that yet.
What does that have to do with the touchpad, about which I was asking?
What does that have to do with the touchpad, about which I was asking?
Sorry, your "the same treatment?" didn't make that clear to me as with no quote to what you were referring could be seen as ambiguous. But hey, YMMV
Feel free to ignore the previous post.
My guess is the 15" will get it at WWDC or this fall. MBAs probably won't as I suspect they won't be around much longer. Once Apple can get the rMBP thin and light enough the Airs go away IMO.
What is so difficult about that? If it was an issues, it would be impacting Apple sales and market share. Which it clearly is not
With the lackluster up date to the MBA you do have to wonder if Apple has a long term goal here. The only thing I can think here is that the new track pad is in a ramp up stage and thus expensive. That of course doesn't explian the lack of a boost to RAM or other improvements. I was actually a bit disappointed with the upgrade to the MBA, sure the GPU performance is way up but little else was done with the model.
Sadly last night I was seriously considering buying a laptop to put LINUX on. The problem is there just isn't much to choose from in the way of decent hardware, especially when it comes to track pads. On the other hand finding hardware with actual usable ports isn't a problem.
Intel has yet to release the quad core versions of the Broadwell chip, which is why the update of the 15" is MIA so far.
This is a bummer but the question should be asked has Intel released a suitable chip? Also if I had a choice between quad cores and a vastly improved GPU I think I would go the GPU route for this round. It would be nice to have a quad core, don't get me wrong here, but the improved GPU makes it a more versatile machine attractive to a wider array of users.
See, you will be running.
Oh come on here, they wouldn't add just a new track pad to an old model. This especially if that track pad requires frame modifications.