![]() An example of the latter is 3D Touch, an interesting technology that I often forget is on my phone unless I accidentally trigger it. ![]() That technology fundamentally changed the way the vast majority of iPhone users interact with their phone every single time they pick it up. A good example of the first was Apple’s introduction of Touch ID on the iPhone (and available now on the MacBook Pros with Touch Bar). What’s not clear to me yet is whether the Touch Bar is one of those new features that will instantly resonate with customers and become a part of their daily lives or if it is merely an interesting technology that makes for a great demo but never really takes off in common use. ![]() And it will be perhaps more telling if smaller developers, with more constrained development time and budgets, decide such an update is worthwhile for their users. It will be interesting to see if other major Mac software developers do the same in the coming weeks. Power users might scoff, but for many people this level of increased visibility could lead to real productivity gains.Īpple tells me that it is very easy for a developer to enable the Touch Bar for their apps, and noted that partners appearing onstage this week did so in a very short amount of time. With Touch Bar, the developer can surface some of these features, making them visible and more easily accessible for the average user. These apps tend to have tons of features that get lost in icon-dense ribbons or buried deep in drop-down menus. It works as you would expect for tasks such as scrolling through pictures and video (fast and fun), changing system settings (precise as physical buttons) and using the calculator (it’s the killer app - seriously, you heard it here first).īut where the Touch Bar really shows promise is with large, complicated apps such as Microsoft Word and Excel, and Adobe Photoshop. I can tell you this much: The Touch Bar is addictively enjoyable to use. I suppose that over time you could develop some muscle memory for the unique Touch Bar keys you use often, but that seems unlikely.Īfter the Apple keynote on Thursday, I participated in a deep-dive session, and had the chance to spend some time with the new hardware. But it also means I’m looking down from the screen toward the keys to find the specific custom keys that each application serves up on the Touch Bar. Keeping the Touch Bar on the horizontal axis means, as a user, that I’m not reaching for the screen. But I also know, now that I’ve been doing it for a while, that it feels pretty natural to me to reach up to touch the screen to scroll a web page.Īpple has put together a touch technology that its executives clearly believe is a better option than a touchscreen. In theory, I agree that touching a notebook screen seems unnatural. To its credit, with the Touch Bar, Apple has put together a touch technology that its executives clearly believe is a better option than a touchscreen.Īpple has long suggested that reaching up to touch the screen of a Mac is unnatural, and that it breaks the usage model of the notebook. It’s easy to see Apple’s decision to put a small touchscreen above the keyboard as a simple, stubborn unwillingness to bend to the larger trends in the PC industry, just as it once resisted larger smartphone screens. I’ve lamented before that, after using a number of touch-enabled Windows notebooks, using a non-touch Mac notebook felt like a step backward. ![]() But the real question is whether the rest of the developer community will follow suit, and if so, how soon? Sticking to its guns At launch, Apple already had buy-in from big firms such as Microsoft and Adobe. In person, this display looks great, and it has a unique coating that makes using it feel super smooth.Īs you might expect, Apple’s Mac OS and first-party apps use Touch Bar right away, but if it is going to become a must-have feature worthy of driving Mac buyers to upgrade, third-party developers will also have to embrace it. It’s a high-quality miniature screen that runs the length of the keyboard, replacing the old F-keys row above the numeric keys. A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.Īpple introduced new MacBook Pros last week, and in addition to bright new screens, fast new processors and - of course - ever-thinner form factors, Apple introduced a new hardware feature called the Touch Bar. ![]()
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