Late yesterday, Apple released a next-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. It has a 2880×1800 220 PPI display. The normal 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs have also been updated, but the 17-inch MBP has been retired, in effect replaced by the new Retina display MBP. The refreshed MBPs and MBAs don’t have anything surprising under the hood: Sandy Bridge has been upgraded to Ivy Bridge, there’s a new Nvidia 600-series graphics card in the 15-inch models, and USB 3.0 now comes as standard (which is unsurprising, given these are Ivy Bridge systems).
The next-generation MacBook Pro with Retina display, though, is an engineering wonder in the same league as the original MacBook Air or iPhone. During the WWDC keynote presentation yesterday, Sir Jonathan Ive appeared on screen to say, “To create something that is genuinely new, you have to start again. With great intent, you disconnect from the past. It is without doubt, it’s the very best computer we’ve ever built.” When Paul Schiller showed a cutaway photo of the new laptop, it was patently clear that Ive wasn’t being hyperbolic: The Retina display MBP really looks nothing we’ve ever seen before.