Apple May Soon Release a ‘Pro Mode’ that Would Speed Up Your Laptop

According to some code uncovered in Apple’s latest Catalina beta, the company may soon debut something called Pro Mode: a setting that could boost the performance of your MacBook Pro, assuming you’re okay with less battery life and more noise.

The potential feature was spotted by the folks over at 9to5Mac, who found references to a Pro Mode in the source code of macOS Catalina 10.15.3 beta build.

The found code describes a feature that users could turn on and off, and includes the phrase “apps may run faster, but battery life may decrease and fan noise may increase.” It seems to be a pretty straightforward “fan speed limit override” (not uncommon among PCs) which you could switch on for a cooling boost when you need extra processing power. You could then manually turn it OFF or, according to the found code, the feature will turn off by itself in 24 hours just like Do Not Disturb.

Importantly, 9to5Mac says that this feature seems to be limited to laptops, and may only work with the new 16-inch MBP with its bigger fans/better cooling system.

But if you’re not interested in the 16-inch model, there’s still reason to hold out hope. 9to5Mac also points out that Apple has registered a new model of MacBook with the Eurasian Economic Commission, giving us hope that a better-cooled, better-keyboard, bigger-battery 13-inch (or 14-inch?) MacBook Pro may already be in the works.

(via Engadget)

Image credits: Header photo by DL Cade