new MacBook

Now that invites for the October 27 Apple event have seen sent out, there's much speculation about what we will, and won't, see from a purported new generation of MacBook Pro laptops.

Thus far, the generally agreed-upon predictions -- as rounded up by Macrumors  are:New MacBook Pros with a thinner, lighter design and a secondary touchscreen at the top of the keyboard. That tiny screen is said to be replacing the function key row and providing context-based commands . different "soft" buttons which would vary depending on the app in use. Possible minor updates to the MacBook Air, which is one of the longest-standing designs in the Apple universe.A minor spec bump may be in store for the iMac desktops. With their distinctive aluminum bodies and (sometimes) glowing Apple logos, MacBooks are a familiar sight everywhere people compute on the go, from coffee shops and airports to college campuses.

But if it feels like you've been seeing the same MacBooks floating around for a while, you'd be correct. And that's why interest in next week's Apple event is so high. The current iterations of most MacBooks have been around for longer than many competing laptop lines, and the lone non-retina display 13-inch MacBook Pro is still on sale with the same basic configuration it's had since 2012. (Yes, Apple still sells a computer with a DVD drive.)

That's an outlier, but it's emblematic of a larger issue: the pace of design innovation on the Mac platform has slowed considerably. The last truly new model was the 12-inch MacBook in 2015. Apple's other laptops, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro, haven't seen anything other than minor spec bumps -- stuff like newer Intel chips, faster Wi-Fi, more memory -- in the past several years, although that may change by next week. Before the upcoming event, the only "new" Mac so far in 2016 has been the refreshed version of that 12-inch MacBook -- again, just a faster chip dropped into last year's body.