The future of the MacBook


rosegoldmacbook

Apple announced the first update to its ultra-thin 12-inch Retina MacBook line on April 19, 2016, introducing faster processors, better graphics, improved battery life, and a new Rose Gold color option for the machine.

First introduced in March of 2015, the MacBook is a new product line that is distinct 
from the existing MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro lineups, featuring Apple's 
thinnest, lightest Mac product to date with terraced battery technology and a
fanless design enabled by low-power Core M processors.
Measuring in at 13.1mm thick, the MacBook is 24 percent thinner than the MacBook 
Air, and it weighs just two pounds, lighter than both the 2.38 pound 11-inch 
MacBook Air and the 2.96 pound 13-inch MacBook Air. It has a 12-inch Retina 
display with a resolution of 2304 x 1440.
The second-generation MacBook continues to use the same design as the original 
version, featuring a full-size edge-to-edge keyboard with a speaker grille located above to save space, Retina
 MacBook Pro-style black display bezels, and a Force Touch trackpad that enables
 Force Click, allowing users to use pressure-based click gestures. The trackpad also
incorporates haptic feedback for a tactile response when it's used.
Due to its thinness, the MacBook uses a "butterfly mechanism" for the keyboard keys
 to make them 40 percent thinner than traditional keyboard keys and 
significantly changing the feel. The keys are also more stable for better precision when
 typing and each key is backlit with a single LED for uniform brightness.
Apple's MacBook comes in four colors that match the iPad and the iPhone - Silver, 
Space Gray, Gold, and Rose Gold. Rose Gold was introduced as a color option in 
2016 to match the Rose Gold iPhone and 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
The 2016 Retina MacBook uses Intel's Skylake chips with integrated Intel HD 515
 graphics for bothimproved processor speeds and 25 percent faster graphics 
performance. Also included is faster PCIe-based flash storage and 8GB of faster 
1866 MHz memory, giving the second-generation machine some solid performance 
improvements.

A single USB-C port continues to supply power, USB 3.1 connectivity, and 
DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI, and VGA capabilities. The MacBook continues to feature
 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, stereo speakers, dual microphones, a 3.5mm 
headphone jack, and a 480p FaceTime camera.
Apple has improved battery life on the second-generation Retina MacBook, both
through a larger 41.4-watt-hour battery and a more efficient processor. 
The Retina MacBook now features up to 10 hours of battery life when browsing the
web and up to 11 hours of iTunes movie playback.

Design
Apple designed the MacBook to be thinner and lighter, but also more functional and 
intuitive. When it comes to appearance, the Retina MacBook looks like a marriage
between the MacBook Air and the Retina MacBook Pro, featuring a super thin
clamshell design and a black bezeled display.
The Retina MacBook design was introduced in 2015 and remained unchanged in 2016 
aside from the addition of a Rose Gold color option, which joins the existing Space 
Gray, Silver, and Gold options.
At 13.1mm thick when closed, the Retina MacBook is Apple's thinnest MacBook to
 date, and it weighs just two pounds. The display portion of the notebook is only 
0.88mm thick, which means it does not have room for the same light-up rear Apple 
logo that's found in Apple's existing MacBook Pro and Air lines. Instead, it has a 
polished, embedded Apple logo that more closely resembles the logos found on the
 iPhone and the iPad.

The MacBook has an edge-to-edge keyboard with a speaker grille above the keyboard,
 and a single USB Type-C port on the left. On the right, there's a 3.5mm headphone 
jack. Aside from the USB-C port and the headphone jack, there are no other ports on
 the MacBook.
Display

The MacBook features a 12-inch Retina display that Apple calls "paper thin" at 0.88 
millimeters. It's the thinnest Retina display ever on a Mac, which Apple says was 
created using a manufacturing process that creates edge-to-edge glass that's just 0.5
 millimeters thick. It has a resolution of 2304 x 1440 with 226 pixels-per-inch, a 16:10 aspect ratio, 
and a 178 degree viewing angle.
According to Apple, the MacBook includes redesigned pixels with a larger aperture, 
which allows more light to pass through. That let the company use LED backlighting 
that's 30 percent more power efficient but still offers the same level of brightness.

Keyboard Redesign


Because the MacBook is so thin, Apple had to entirely redesign the keyboard, leading 
to a new key feel that's seen some criticism. According to Apple, the keyboard is
 "dramatically thinner" than the keyboard in the MacBook Air.

It includes a butterfly mechanism underneath the keys that's 40 percent thinner than
 a traditional keyboard scissor mechanism, but also "four times more stable." Apple 
says that the butterfly design offers better precision regardless of where a finger 
strikes the key. A traditional scissor mechanism is focused on the center of the key, 
causing wobble around the edges.
The MacBook required a more precise key because hitting a key off-center on such a
 thin keyboard could cause keystrokes not to register, leading to the more precise 
butterfly mechanism that ultimately takes up less vertical space.
To keep the keyboard thin, Apple opted to remove the LEDs and light guide panel that
 traditionally light up its keyboards, opting instead for a single LED built into each key. 
This has the benefit of no light leak around each key cap for a much cleaner look.

Intel Core M Processor


The second-generation MacBook uses Intel's low-power Core M Skylake processors, 
enabling fanless operation. At the low end, the MacBook includes a 1.1GHz dual-core 
Intel Core m3 processor, while the higher-end machine uses a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel 
Core m5 processor. A 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core m7 processor is available through 
Apple's custom configuration options.
Skylake processors are faster and more efficient than the previous-generation 
Broadwell processors used in the first-generation MacBook, and thus the new 
MacBooks will see some small speed improvements.
In early benchmarking tests, the 2016 1.2GHz MacBook earned a single-core score of
 2894 and a multi-core score of 5845, an improvement over the 2437 single-core and 
5049 multi-core score earned by the first-generation 2015 1.2GHz MacBook. Tests 
suggest the second-generation Retina MacBook is approximately 15 percent faster 
than the 2015 model.
All new Retina MacBook models use integrated Intel HD Graphics 515, which are 25
 percent faster than the Intel HD Graphics 5300 used in the previous-generation 
MacBook. The MacBook supports full native resolution on the built-in display while also 
powering an external display of up to 3840 x 2160 pixels at 30Hz.

Memory and Storage Improvements


Along with Skylake processors and faster graphics, the 2016 MacBook's performance
 is also bolstered by faster PCIe-based flash storage and faster memory. Apple has
 not outlined the speed improvements of the new PCIe-based flash used in the 
second-generation machine, but it is described as "faster" than that in the 2015 
MacBook.
Early BlackMagic disk speed tests have seen write speeds that are up to 80 or 90
 percent faster than the write speeds in the previous-generation MacBook. 
Read speeds are also improved.
As for RAM, the 2016 MacBook includes 8GB of 1866MHz LPDDR3 memory while the
2015 machine contained 8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 memory.

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