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Apple's Powerful MacBook Pro Humbled By New iPad Pro

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Comparing the benchmarks of the latest iPad Pro and MacBook Pro machines leads to some interesting discoveries regarding the respective capabilities of the two devices launched at WWDC. Benchmarking the CPUs handed a narrow victory to the laptop, but the GPU victory went to the tablet family.

Chance Miller sums up some of these figures on 9to5Mac. It’s clear from the benchmarks that Apple’s promises of power in the iPad Pro is true. With Tim Cook and his team looking to pitch the iPad Pro range as a replacement for your personal computer, being able to show off the raw strength in the specifications is a key marketing strategy.

But it also means that the MacBook Pro range is weakened. Being beaten by a tablet is not what many would expect if they purchase one of the new Kaby Lake powered MacBook machines - let alone those who bought the refreshed MacBooks at the end of 2016 and have seen their laptops overtaken in a few by months not just by another Apple laptop, but also by a tablet.

Apple PR

The idea that a laptop should be better than a tablet is widely expected. The initial pitch of the iPad Pro as a possible PC replacement pushed back against that expectation and while there is a niche audience that remains the case today. The current iterations of the iPad Pro are challenging that expectation once more, but now with qualitative numbers on the side of the tablets.

The iPad Pro has also benefited from Apple’s apparent lack of interest in developing the ‘Pro’ side of the MacBook range. The addition of the Touch Bar has created new opportunities for developers, but until the Touch Bar can be considered ubiquitous it is never going to sport unique features and new UI’s - everything will have to be duplicated elsewhere.

Beyond the Touch Bar there’s not much that can be considered new and innovative in the latest MacBook package. The Kaby Lake chipset keeps the macOS powered machines on a par with Windows 10 machines, but the MacBook you buy today can draw a direct lineage back many years. It is an iterative design and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that if the functionality remains, but Apple’s ruthless focus on minimalism has reduced the flexibility and desirability of the Pro laptops.

The changes to the MacBook Pro seen in October 2016 and continuing into the new models do little to satisfy the demand of some consumers for a genuinely high-end professional ‘Pro’ machine from Apple. Instead the laptop range appears to be moribund as Apple’s efforts focus on the profitable walled-garden approach of its iOS-powered tablets.

Now read the internet’s reviews of the 2017 iPad Pro…

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