Apple held a special event on March 9 at Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco and they announced an all new 12-inch MacBook line in the event.Apple is calling the new 12-inch Macbook just MacBook. The new MacBook is the thinnest and most efficient MacBook Apple has ever made.
Size, Weight and Display
The new MacBook is the slimmest MacBook by Apple and is just 13.1 mm thin, which is 24% thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air. The 12-inch MacBook is super light in terms of weight and weighs just 2 pounds which is incredibly light.
12-inch MacBook packs LED-backlit retina display with a resolution of 2304-by-1440 pixels at 226 pixels per inch. That's more than 3.3 million pixels on the screen.
The New Keyboard
MacBook features an all new full-size keyboard which is designed ground up. Traditional keyboards use Scissor mechanism which makes the button wobble when pressed from a corner. MacBook's keyboard comes with a newly invented Butterfly mechanism which not only makes the typing experience better by reducing the key wobbling but also makes the keyboard more stable and responsive that takes up less vertical space.
The new Keyboard also includes individual LED under each key to improve the backlight. The LEDs glow at uniform brightness so as to make the characters look more sharp and clear. These LEDs also add minimal lighting around the keycap.
Force Touch Trackpad
New MacBook's trackpad isn't the trackpad that comes with MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, it is a totally new trackpad that Apple is calling Force Touch trackpad. Force Touch trackpad in the new MacBook includes four force sensors underneath the trackpad which detect the pressure you're applying. This allows the trackpad do more when you Force Touch the trackpad. In OS X Yosemite, you can apply this Force Touch on the trackpad to do some quick actions such as adding an event in the calendar or previewing a file in Finder.
There's also a Taptic engine underneath the trackpad which allows it to detect a click anywhere on the surface. The Taptic engine also provides haptic feedback when you perform certain tasks in OS X.
Terraced Battery Cell
MacBook's batteries are designed in sheet structure so as to increase the number of battery cells that can be made fit in the MacBook enclosure. Traditional batteries are rectangular in shape and they usually leave unused space in a curved enclosure. This nice placement of battery allows the placement of 35% more battery cells which allows the new MacBook to deliver all-day battery life.
USB-C Port
Apart from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, the MacBook offers only one port for connectivity and charging. The USB-C port is an all-in-one port. This USB-C port can be used for charging the MacBook, USB 3 data transfer and video output. The new connector is reversible and is one-third the size of current USB port.
Pricing and Availability
The new MacBook will come in three colors, Silver, Gold and Space Gray. It will come in two variants, the one with 256GB flash storage will cost $1299 and the 512GB model will cost $1599. The new MacBook will start shipping on April 10.