Will your next MacBook Pro be powered by Intel Kaby Lake?

On Wednesday, July 20th, Intel’s second quarterly earnings call came with the official announcement of Intel’s 7th generation Kaby Lake CPU, being shipped to manufacturers. The announcement has been a long time coming, with rumors hinting at the possibility that the release of Kaby Lake, and subsequent OEM products, would be pushed to quarter one of 2017. Ultimately, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich dissolved the rumors, with news that could make MacBook fans very happy.

Speculation on the upcoming Apple MacBook Pro has been plentiful in the past few months, particularly in connection with the rumored OLED touchpad strip, which could replace the first row on the MacBook’s keyboard. With that said, very little is known about the processor that will power the upcoming MacBook Pro.

At one point, Skylake was a very likely candidate, however, with Intel announcing shipments of Kaby Lake already underway, it’s unlikely that Apple will settle for Skylake, considering that the next MacBook Pro is expected to feature a radical redesign, largely inspired by the 12 inch MacBook Retina. This could also mean a fanless design, allowing for a thinner laptop, with the potential to rival the (allegedly) soon-to-be discontinued MacBook Air.

What is so special about Kaby Lake, in respect to Skylake, does not come merely in terms of faster processing. Kaby Lake offers a number of features hinting at the next step in the evolution of Intel Core CPUs, which will come next year in the form of Cannon Lake. Some of these features include native support for USB Type-C, as well as integrated 4K processing, and advanced, hardware-based security and encryption.

Many of the 7th generation processor’s capabilities will likely make the centerpiece of future devices, including mobile and 2-in-1s, like the next generation Microsoft Surface Pro and Surface Book.