Latest Software For Macbook Pro

Millions of people have recently transitioned from working at offices to “work from home” lifestyles, radically changing their daily paradigms in the process. Daily video conferences and collaborative chat rooms have suddenly become the new normal, and with them came an unprecedented demand for network bandwidth, software, and computers that make remote group discussions possible. Many users without business laptops had to lug their office desktop machines home, or purchase new computers for their home offices.

Software For Mac
What Is The Latest Software For Macbook Pro 2012
Latest Software For Macbook Pro 2011

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Performance Portable powerhouse. MacBook Pro elevates the notebook to a whole new level of performance and portability. Wherever your ideas take you, you’ll get there faster than ever with high‑performance processors and memory, advanced graphics, blazing‑fast storage, and more — all in a compact 3-pound package.
MacBooks come with Apple's iLife software bundle, which consists of iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand. IPhoto lets you import photos from CDs, folders and digital cameras; organize them into events and albums; edit for exposure, color, saturation and contrast; and even apply filters and effects. IMovie lets you edit videos and create home movies, with options to add music, transitions.

Interestingly, this unexpected rush of demand for new computers led Apple executives to predict gains this quarter for both the Mac and iPad — platforms that seemingly peaked in demand years ago. After releasing the 2020 iPad Pro in March and a laptop-esque Magic Keyboard accessory in April, Apple this week began delivering new 2020 MacBook Pro notebook computers. I purchased all three and have been using them since their respective releases, so I wanted to offer some guidance on how Apple’s “Pro” portable computers compare as work from home solutions.

My big takeaway: Even if you drop laptop-like dollars on the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard combination, you’re not going to get a premium Apple laptop-caliber experience for work purposes. Though the iPad excels in versatility, it still struggles with various ergonomic unforced errors and OS-level limitations that will make it a problematic work machine for many users, regardless of how heavily Apple markets it to the contrary. The 2020 MacBook Pro is a far more competent work machine, and should probably be your top choice if you’re considering an Apple business laptop purchase today.

1. Making sense of Apple’s laptop lineup

Superficially, Apple’s laptop lineup looks simpler than it has in many years: You can choose between a 13-inch MacBook Air, a 13-inch MacBook Pro, or a 16-inch MacBook Pro. Dig deeper and you’ll see that there’s a seriously underpowered dual-core MacBook Air for $999 alongside a 1.1GHz quad-core model for $1,299, a classic Apple trick to get forward-thinking users to spend more. For the same $1,299 price, the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro includes a faster 1.4GHz quad-core processor, and there are multiple upgrade tiers: $1,599 for a 1.7GHz version, $1,799 for a 2.0GHz model, or $1,999 for a faster 2.3GHz CPU, generally with benefits beyond the faster clock speed. The larger 16-inch MacBook Pros start at $2,399 for a 2.6GHz six-core CPU and only become more expensive from there.

Software For Mac

After many years of using Mac laptops, I see two sweet spots in this lineup, and they’re both 13-inch MacBook Pros: the $1,299 entry-level model and the $1,799 midrange version. Sure, you can buy the ever-so-slightly thinner MacBook Air, but the cheaper model is as slow as a four-year-old MacBook Pro, and the more expensive one has a Pro price with sub-Pro performance. At 3.1 pounds, the 13-inch Pro is barely heavier than the 2.8-pound “Air,” fits in the same backpacks and bags, and offers a handful of screen and processor performance benefits that justify its price. You could also pay more for the 16-inch Pro if you need desktop-class horsepower and are willing to haul around a 4.3-pound laptop everywhere you go; unless you’re a video professional or need a high-end GPU, though, you’ll almost certainly find the 16-inch Pro to be overkill.

The 2020 MacBook Pro I bought this week looks almost identical to the 2016 version it replaced in my work from home setup, but inside, the new 2.0GHz quad-core machine is much faster across the board than its 2.9GHz dual-core predecessor thanks to generational CPU, GPU, and RAM improvements. After just under four years of ownership, my 2016 Pro scored 629 (single-core), 1595 (multi-core), and 6923 (Metal compute) on Geekbench 5.1.1 tests, while the 2020 Pro scored 1086 (single-core), 4178 (multi-core), and 10206 (Metal compute). That’s a nearly 73% improvement in single-core, 162% jump in multi-core, and 47% jump in Metal graphics performance. You can spend less for less performance or more for even higher speeds, but I’m generally very satisfied with these gains.

2. A note on MacBook reliability and longevity

As of this week, all of Apple’s laptops now feature the “Magic Keyboard,” a well-tested design that uses scissor switches rather than the “butterfly” key design that plagued nearly every MacBook model during the latter half of the 2010s. After an initial period of acceptable performance, I and many other professional users found Apple’s butterfly keyboards to be highly failure prone and hard to recommend — an issue Apple attempted to remedy with warranty extensions and free repairs before just going back to scissor switch keys. There’s nothing worse than giving up your work laptop for a multi-day repair, so for most people, I wouldn’t advise buying one of the older models even if it’s being discounted on a close-out sale.

Above: The 2018 MacBook Pro had silicone covers inside the butterfly keys — they still had problems.

It bears mention that apart from its multiple butterfly keyboard repairs, my aluminum-bodied 2016 MacBook Pro is still in nearly pristine shape — good enough to hand down to my daughter, with performance roughly equivalent to an entry-level 2020 MacBook Air. Instead of spending $999 for a new laptop for her, I put the same dollars towards a higher-end machine, and we both get to enjoy the benefits.

While I still remember the first time (many years ago) I had to be convinced to spend a little more on an Apple “Pro” laptop, there’s now no question in my mind that these machines are well built, and continue to be usable by second owners or as secondary computers well after the date of purchase. Understand these machines as work investments, and you’ll find that they pay dividends for years.

3. How does an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard compare?

At this point, I’ve been actively using the 2020 iPad Pro with its new Magic Keyboard accessory for more than two weeks, and although the combination is akin to a baby business laptop in some ways, it’s still not up to MacBook Pro standards — a real issue given that the tablet and Keyboard collectively cost as much as an Apple notebook. For $1,098, you can get an entry-level 11-inch iPad Pro and plasticky Magic Keyboard that weigh 2.36 pounds, with a smaller screen than any current Mac laptop; $1,348 buys you an entry-level 12.9-inch Pro and matching Magic Keyboard, nearly rivaling the MacBook Pro’s display size with a slightly lower 2.98-pound total weight.

These iPads aren’t short on MacBook-class horsepower: The 12.9-inch iPad Pro clocked 1115 (single-core), 4701 (multi-core), and 10012 (compute) on Geekbench 5, which is to say roughly the same as my new $1,799 MacBook Pro, though the Mac includes nearly three times the RAM, twice the SSD storage, and other advantages. If raw speed was all that mattered, the iPad Pro would be a great choice for work, especially if you didn’t need the keyboard/trackpad accessory.

Similarly, the iPad Pros have one major advantage over MacBooks: way better cameras. While the latest MacBook Pros are stuck with grainy 720p resolution cameras for FaceTime, Zoom, and other purposes, the iPad Pro has a 7-megapixel front facing camera, front Face ID depth-sensing capabilities, two rear cameras (10 and 12 megapixel), and a rear lidar depth sensor. If you’re buying a work from home computer primarily for video chats or taking photos/videos, and don’t care as much about multitasking, the latest iPad Pro will run circles around any MacBook.

I’ve said before that the iPad’s problem is iPadOS and its apps, but after the last two weeks, I’m going to streamline that: The iPad’s problem is iPadOS. Trying to use an iPad for work isn’t a problem because there still isn’t an iPad-specific WhatsApp or Instagram app in 2020, but rather because Apple has spent 10 years forcing well-liked and fully working iPhone apps to take over the entire iPad screen in portrait orientation (and forcing users to turn the device 90 degrees from landscape mode to use them). Moreover, none of iPadOS’ various multitasking paradigms — split-screen, float over, or interactive pop up notifications — works better than user-controllable windows. Compared with what can be done with the smallest MacBook screen, even the largest iPad display is a sad waste of space.

Night after night for the past two weeks, I’ve tried to use the iPad Pro as an alt-work machine, and it just doesn’t compare with the MacBook Pro I use during the day, largely for user experience reasons. Dividing the screen into only two panes is never enough for the multitasking I need for work. It’s a problem even when I try to juggle a Messages conversation in one window with a Slack chat in another, and accessing a web page (say, VentureBeat’s publishing interface) in a third. Similarly, I use Pixelmator Pro for photo editing on the Mac, but I don’t want to regress to the stripped-down Pixelmator version that’s available on the iPad.

There are rare occasions where the iPad’s direct touchscreen interface is a valuable asset compared with the MacBook Pro. I can pull the iPad off the magnetic Magic Keyboard and draw or write on the screen, but the ergonomics of the transition are always awkward — even more so than opening and closing the Magic Keyboard when the iPad’s inside. If I’m doing something where precise keyboard input doesn’t matter — just talking with a friend — I can switch over to the virtual keyboard and cut the iPad’s weight and footprint in half, which is nice. But these situations only happen once in a while compared with the many times the iPad feels comparatively inadequate as a work machine. After years of waiting for Apple to bridge the gap, my iPad’s still there mostly for fun, and my MacBook’s there for work.

4. What’s going to change?

The next two months are going to be pivotal for the iPad and Mac families, as Apple’s late June WWDC20 event will include beta releases of the next iPadOS and macOS operating systems — most likely on or around June 22. Thanks to Apple’s Catalyst initiative, there’s no question that the platforms are going to come even closer together this year; the only ambiguity is “how close?”

Apple is already pushing developers to merge their Mac apps into universal Mac-iOS-iPadOS-tvOS files that users can purchase once and use across multiple supported platforms. It has also told developers to build iPad apps that support any tablet screen size — a precursor to arbitrarily resizable windows? — and there have been hints that iPhone apps might follow iPad apps in coming to Macs in some way. We’ll have to see whether Apple lets an iPhone app run in a window like its own Calculator, or forces a new Mac-specific UI. Being able to run iPhone apps on a Mac like this would be great, and iPads should be able to do the same thing.

Developers are going to keep pushing their iPad apps forward, as well. Reports this week suggest that Microsoft is planning full mouse/trackpad support for its iPad Office apps “later this year,” and hopefully image editing experts such as Adobe and Pixelmator will have more fully featured options for professionals as well. Being able to share codebases between the Mac and iPad should benefit both platforms over time, though it’s by no means guaranteed that certain large and sluggish developers will make use of the cross-platform development tools Apple has given them.

It’s also worth a brief note that the Mac family is expected to transition from Intel chips to Apple-designed ARM processors at some point in 2021, but the impact here is a question mark. Will ARM Macs be able to run prior Intel Mac apps or Windows (via Boot Camp/Parallels) as they do today? No one’s quite sure. But Intel Macs won’t just stop working when the hardware transition starts to take place, or even after it ends; they’ll be viable for years to come.

Since the future of these platforms is at this point so speculative, the safest work from home bet is to go with the solution that does what you need today. For most people, my recommendation is to lean heavily in the direction of a new MacBook Pro for work purposes. But if you know your workflow is compatible with one of the latest iPad Pros, you’ll find it to be at least as strong for entertainment as it is for productivity. And thanks to its better cameras, you may wind up looking way better in video chats than your laptop-toting colleagues.

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macOS is the operating system that powers every Mac. It lets you do things you simply can’t with other computers. That’s because it’s designed specifically for the hardware it runs on — and vice versa. macOS comes with an entire suite of beautifully designed apps. It works hand in hand with iCloud to keep photos, documents, and other stuff up to date on all your devices. It makes your Mac work like magic with your iPhone and other Apple devices. And it’s been built from the ground up with privacy and security in mind.

Featuring all-new, dedicated apps for music, TV, and podcasts. Smart new features in the apps you use every day. And Sidecar, which lets you use iPad as a second Mac display.

Easy to Use When it’s simple to
do
everything, you can do anything.

On a Mac, everything is designed to work just the way you expect it to — from operating it with simple, intuitive gestures to asking Siri to find a file to having your apps automatically update themselves. Whatever you set out to do on a Mac, there’s much less to learn and that much more to accomplish.

The Finder lets you easily browse and organize the files on your Mac — and those stored in iCloud Drive. View files by icons, in a list, or with Gallery View, which helps you quickly locate a file by how it looks. Drag and drop files into folders in the sidebar. And use the Preview pane to see all of your files’ metadata, quickly create .zip files, and share using the handy Share menu.

Dark Mode adds a dramatic look to your desktop and apps that puts the focus on your content. Dynamic Desktop makes your Mac even more beautiful with time-shifting desktop pictures that match the time of day wherever you are. And Stacks keeps your desktop free of clutter by automatically organizing your files, images, documents, PDFs, and more into tidy groups.

Spotlight helps you quickly and effortlessly find what you want, like documents on your Mac, movie showtimes, and flight departure and arrival times. Just type a few keystrokes in the Spotlight search field and autocomplete immediately shows you relevant results.¹

A simple two-finger swipe from the right edge of your trackpad brings up Notification Center — the same one you use on iPhone — where you can see all the alerts that have come in recently. It’s also where you’ll find your Today view, which you can customize with helpful widgets or handy information pinned from Siri searches.

Siri helps you get things done just by using your voice. It also helps you get more things done at the same time. So you can finish your document while asking Siri to tell your coworker that it’s on the way. Looking for the presentation you worked on last week? Just ask Siri.² And with Apple Music, Siri can be your personal DJ and recommend music based on your tastes, and tell you more about songs, albums, and artists.³

Continuity All your devices.
One seamless experience.

Your Mac works with your other Apple devices in ways no other computer can. If you get a call on your iPhone, you can take it on your Mac. And when friends text you — regardless of the phone they have — you can respond from your Mac, iPad, or iPhone, whichever is closest. When you copy text or an image from one device, you can paste it into another with standard copy and paste commands. And with Sidecar, you can extend your workspace by using your iPad as a second Mac display. You can even unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch. No password typing required.

Privacy and Security We believe your data belongs to you. Period.

Everything you do with your Mac is protected by strong privacy and security features. That’s because we build data security into everything we make, right from the start.

Privacy. You trust our products with your most personal information, and we believe that you should be in complete control of it. We respect your privacy by enacting strict policies that govern how all data is handled. And when you browse the web, Safari helps prevent data companies from tracking the sites you visit.

Security. We design Mac hardware and software with advanced technologies that work together to help you run apps safely, protect your data, and keep you safe on the web. The new Find My app helps you locate a missing Mac that’s lost or stolen — even if it’s offline or sleeping. And Gatekeeper makes it safer to download and install apps from the Mac App Store and the internet.

Built in Apps Apps as powerful and elegant as your Mac. Because they’re designed for it.

With every Mac, you get a collection of powerful apps. They’re the same apps you use on your iPhone or iPad, so they’ll feel instantly familiar. They all work with iCloud, so your schedule, contacts, and notes are always up to date everywhere. And because they’re native apps — not web apps in a browser — they take full advantage of the power of your Mac to deliver the fastest possible performance and more robust features.

Media. Experience music, TV, and podcasts in three all-new Mac apps. Get all the news that matters from sources you trust, all in one place.⁴ Track the market and customize your watchlist. Peruse the best book titles from your desktop. And find the latest apps and extensions for your Mac, right on your Mac.

Podcasts
Stocks
App Store

Creativity. Enjoy your best photos and videos, showcased in an immersive, dynamic new look. Transform home videos into unforgettable movies or quickly share clips with your favorite people. Create music like the pros with a huge collection of sounds, instruments, amps, and a lineup of virtual session drummers and percussionists perfectly suited to play along with your song.

Productivity. Create beautiful documents with stunning simplicity. Visualize your data precisely and persuasively in spreadsheets with images, text, and shapes. Make stage-worthy presentations using powerful graphics tools and dazzling cinematic effects to bring your ideas to life. And collaborate with friends and coworkers in real time — whether they’re across town or across the globe.

Communication. Easily manage all of your email accounts in one simple, powerful app that works with email services like iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft Exchange. Send unlimited messages to anyone on any Apple device, using the same Messages app on your Mac as you do on your iPhone. Make unlimited high-quality video and audio calls right from your Mac with FaceTime. And securely locate a missing Mac using the new Find My app on Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Mail
Messages
FaceTime

Organization. A new gallery view and more powerful search help you find your notes more quickly than ever. Easily create, organize, and add attachments to reminders. Manage your iCloud, Google, and Exchange calendars in one place, create separate calendars for home, work, and school, and view them all or just the ones you want. Instantly capture personal reminders, class lectures, even interviews or song ideas with Voice Memos. Keep all your contact info up to date on all your devices, and easily import numbers, addresses, and photos from Google and Microsoft Exchange. And control all your HomeKit-enabled accessories from the comfort of your desktop.

Notes
Reminders
Calendar
Voice Memos
Contacts

Internet. Surf the web seamlessly with an updated start page that helps you quickly access your favorite and frequently visited sites. Use Apple Pay to make purchases on the web in Safari with Touch ID on MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Map out new destinations from your desktop, with gorgeous 3D city views like Flyover, point-to-point directions, and comprehensive transit directions. And instantly search your entire Mac or get results from the internet in just a few keystrokes.

Spotlight

iCloud All your stuff on your Mac.
And everywhere else you want it.

Every Apple app uses iCloud — it’s the magic behind the seamless experience you have with all your Apple devices. So you always have your photos, videos, documents, email, notes, contacts, calendars, and more on whatever device you’re using. And any file you store in iCloud Drive can be shared with friends, family, and colleagues just by sending them a link. iCloud Drive also lets you access files from your Mac on your iPhone or iPad. It’s all done automatically. Just like that.⁵

Accessibility We make sure that everyone is able to use a Mac.

What Is The Latest Software For Macbook Pro 2012

macOS comes standard with a wide range of assistive technologies that help people with disabilities experience what the Mac has to offer, providing many features you won’t find in other operating systems. Voice Control lets users control their Mac, iPad, and iPhone entirely with their voice. And features such as VoiceOver, Accessibility Keyboard, FaceTime,⁶ and Text to Speech help everyone get more out of Mac.

Technology Advanced to the core.

macOS features powerful core technologies engineered for the most important functions of your Mac. Thanks to Mac Catalyst, you can now enjoy your favorite iPad apps on your Mac. With SwiftUI, developers have a simple way to build better apps across all Apple platforms with less code. Create ML gives developers a faster and easier way to build machine learning into apps. And support for virtual and augmented reality lets developers create immersive worlds for you to step into.

Compatibility Need to work with Windows?
Mac does that, too.