Apple is rolling out a major new hardware feature this year with the introduction of what it calls Force Touch. It is a catch-all term for a combination of pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback that you will find built into the Apple Watch and the trackpad of the newly redesigned MacBook. Force Touch is Apple’s hallmark of newness for 2015, but it also finds a home in one of the Cupertino company’s less adventurous machines, the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Though it was a mere footnote to Apple’s big event last month, the MacBook Pro will actually play a pioneering role for its maker. It’s going to serve as the device on which many people experience Force Touch for the first time, and it signifies Apple’s intention to make this a standard feature across all of its laptops. Unlike the more glamorous Watch and MacBook, the new MacBook Pro is practical and designed for everyone. Its price isn’t weighed down by a novelty premium, its versatility and power aren’t compromised, and its raison d'être isn’t in question. This is Apple’s most powerful mobile computer, so if mobile computing is a thing you do, this is the laptop for you. It really is that simple.

The new MacBook Pro’s design is, to borrow a famous Jony Ive adverb, unapologetically unchanged. Convinced in the superiority of its display, keyboard, and chassis, Apple has kept them all the same as in years past. All the upgrades have taken place within. Everything inside the machine is now faster: the processor, the memory, and the SSD have all been given a speed boost. This dual approach of moving to new technology while sticking to a familiar aesthetic is best exemplified by the Force Touch trackpad.

The size and shape of Apple’s new trackpad on the Pro are the same as the classic glass pad that’s been around for years now. Touch it and you won’t notice anything different about its smooth surface. Press into it and you’ll hear and feel a familiar click. It’s the same reliable, satisfying user experience that Windows laptops have been so chronically unable to match. Only the click isn’t real.

IT TOUCHES YOU AS MUCH AS YOU ARE TOUCHING IT
Force Touch uses a haptic feedback system, which vibrates the pad’s surface in a way that simulates the sensation of pressing a button in. In reality, the trackpad is fixed in place and barely moves at all. The sound of the click is simulated just like the sense of motion under my finger, but both feel real. As far as all my senses are concerned, I am clicking exactly as before. Apple has taken one of the last remaining mechanical parts in its laptops and replaced it with a more high-tech version that — successfully — recreates the familiar tactile response.

I came to this review dreading the idea of Apple tinkering with a thing that really didn’t need changing. The original glass trackpad is one of the MacBook’s clearest advantages, and it seemed to me that Apple was tackling a problem that didn’t need a solution. But I’m gratified to find that little has been lost in the transition to an electronic alternative, and there’s plenty to be gained from it — in the future, if not immediately.

For example, the new design means a click at the very top of the trackpad feels the same as at the bottom. The old hinge made clicking easier in the lower half of the touchpad. Another important advantage for Apple’s engineers, claims the company, is that the static pad is less likely to break down over time and takes up a tiny bit less space than its predecessor. While that doesn’t make a difference for me today, Apple’s big design revolutions are built upon small evolutions of precisely this magnitude: shaving off a millimeter here, improving space efficiency there, and suddenly a new MacBook is born.