Apple MacBook Pro, iMac Pro repairable without proprietary software: iFixitOct 8 (AZINS) After reports emerged about Apple using its proprietary software for MacBook Pro and iPad Pro repairs, iFixit took the task upon itself to find out if third-party repairs are actually impossible without the diagnostic software. The repair firm found that the so called secret repair kill switch has not been activated yet, meaning third-party repairs even without the software are possible.

Previous reports indicated that replacing certain parts on Apple devices equipped with the custom T2 chip requires proprietary software to complete the repairing, otherwise the devices become unusable.iFixit stresses in its blog that independent repair is possible with the Apple computers, however, the company may soon change that owing to user security concerns.

The new 13-inch and 15-inch Touch Bar Macbook Pro models have just been given a summer boost -- getting more power, bigger storage, improved viewing experience and “Hey Siri” -- without a change in price tags.

Anyone in the need for speed is going to appreciate what Apple announced -- “up to 70 percent faster performance” for the 15-inch Macbook Pro with Touch Bar feature, which now comes with 8th-generation 6-core processors.

Focusing on the larger MacBook Pro, along with the improved processors, it now also packs up to 32GB of DDR4 memory, enhanced graphics with a Radeon Pro chip, and the storage capacity has doubled from 2TB to 4TB -- these types of upgrades should increase performance speed, improvements especially beneficial to ‘pros' such as developers, photographers, musicians and so forth.

As for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the new Quad-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processor should provide “performance that's up to twice as fast” according to Apple. Furthermore, there's now up to 2TB of SSD storage as well as improved graphics, along new features added to both models.

With True Tone technology, the display and Touch Bar now set the ‘tone' for the displays of both models by adjusting color and brightness to best suit the viewing environment -- a feature already available on recent iPhones, as well as iPad pros.