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Crumbs. Apple has tweaked the MacBook Pro keyboard

They say it is 'quiet(er)'. Well, quite...

Apple gave part of its MacBook Pro line of laptops a speed bump today. But all you'll want to know really is whether the machine can still be paralysed by a crumb, or a speck of dust.

A child with a butterfly, from shutterstock

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We can't say until the models show up in the channel, including Apple's own Stores, later this week.

All Apple said for now is that the range gets "an improved third-generation keyboard for quieter typing". Would that be quieter because the user is not swearing? Or quieter typing because you've had to move to an iPad?

Video editors and crypto-miners can plug in a Blackmagic eGPU.

The 13- and 15-inch models with Touch Bar get eighth-gen Intel processors and True Tone displays. The latter adjusts the colour balance of the display to the ambient environment. The 15-inch receives a six-core i9 capable of 4.8Ghz Turbo Boost mode, and up to 32GB of DDR4 memory. Every 15-incher has a refreshed Radeon GPU with 4GB DDR5 and can be configured with up to 4TB of SSD.

Apple MacBook Pro 15-in WRD mid-2015

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A second-generation T2 chip is in Touch Bar, which is used for encrypted storage, secure boot, and Siri.

Prices here start at £1,749 and £2,349.

For users who pound their machines outdoors – typically field editors and photographers – the fragility of the MacBook Pro's butterfly mechanism made it a non-starter. The price of secondhand models that are four to five years old remains surprisingly robust.

Apple finally acknowledged the issue last month after the lawsuits started flying. A Keyboard Service scheme covers models made between 2015 and 2017. ®

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