Touch Bar

The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is the first of Apple’s Macs to include a Touch ID sensor built-in for Apple Pay, unlocking the Mac with your fingerprint, and authentication purposes in third-party apps.

Other Macs can use Apple Pay, but they need to use a nearby iPhone or Apple Watch to authenticate and complete the purchase.

Here’s how it works:

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Apple’s new flagship MacBook Pro replaces the function key row with a dynamic multi-touch display called Touch Bar. This new screen changes based on which app you’re currently using and enables quick access to additional functionality throughout macOS.

One example of this is how Touch Bar handles screenshots. Whether you’re using the system keyboard shortcuts to create a screenshot or using the optional screenshot button on Touch Bar, you can assign the app or folder where you want the screenshot to save to on-the-fly.

And since Touch Bar is actually a second display, you can create a screenshot of whatever Touch Bar is displaying using a new system keyboard shortcut…

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Drop, a color picker for macOS, has launched today with support for the new MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar. Built by the Tapity app development team, Drop serves as lightweight tool allowing user’s to quickly select and grab colors on-screen, while also switching between a multitude of color formats. Colors grabbed can be added to the palette and automatically copied to the clipboard.

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With the new MacBook Pros with Touch Bar arriving to the first pre-order customers and going on sale at Apple stores this week, you might be looking to try out some apps that support the new hardware. Fortunately, Apple has already confirmed many apps that will get support for Touch Bar, the new contextually sensitive touchscreen panel embedded into the MacBook Pro’s keyboard, and many others app developers are announcing updates. 

Head below for the full list.

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In the list of moments you’re never going to live down, literally laughing at Apple’s launch of the iPhone has to be right there at the very top. Nine years on, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has told Bloomberg that Apple made it work thanks to a smarter business model.

“I wish I’d thought about the model of subsidizing phones through the operators,” he said. “You know, people like to point to this quote where I said iPhones will never sell, because the price at $600 or $700 was too high. And there was business model innovation by Apple to get it essentially built into the monthly cell phone bill.”

Microsoft was very late to move into the hardware business, despite creating a number of prototypes over the years – including something remarkably similar to Apple’s new Touch Bar, created back in 2009 …

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One big question people have been asking since Apple’s announcement of the Touch Bar is if the technology could come to the standalone Magic Keyboard. My colleague Ben Lovejoy noted of the possibility earlier this week, explaining that battery life and price would be to inhibiting  factors for the Magic Keyboard with Touch Bar to come to fruition.

Those factors haven’t stopped some eager designers from creating some pretty convincing mockups, though…

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A report from Korea’s ETNews says that the OLED Touch Bar panel in the new MacBook Pro was made by Samsung, and that Apple is currently testing OLED panels suitable for use in MacBooks.

According to an industry [source], Apple installed Samsung Display’s OLED panel for touch screen bar for its new MacBook Pro. This panel is rigid-type OLED that is produced from Samsung Display’s A2 Line […]

“Apple is currently looking into ways of using OLED panels for MacBooks and testing their performance.” said a different representative.

It’s of course a no-brainer that Apple would be looking at a switch to OLED for future MacBook displays given the benefits these offer …

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Concept image: macitynet.it

One of the comments people have been making about the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro is that it will be irrelevant to those professionals who mostly use their Mac at their desk with an external monitor and keyboard. Unless Apple can offer an external keyboard with a Touch Bar, the feature may not see much use.

So does Apple have a plan to offer an external keyboard with a Touch Bar? To offer an Even More Magic Keyboard … ?

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In an interview with CNET, Jony Ive said that his team had rejected a touchscreen Mac ‘many, many years ago.’ He did, though, suggest that Apple is working on other concepts in this general area, beyond the Touch Bar.

Asked why a touchscreen Mac would be inappropriate, Ive said:

For a bunch of practical reasons. It’s difficult to talk [laughs] without going into a lot of details that puts me starting to talk about things that we are working on. I don’t really want to talk much more about it.

We of course think we know one of those things already …

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The flagship feature of the new MacBook Pro is the Touch Bar, an OLED display strip that replaces the physical row of function keys. This adds a dynamic zone to top of the keyboard where apps can display custom buttons, sliders, switches and scrubbers to enhance the MacBook experience while adding a new way to interact with Mac applications beyond text input and mouse pointers.

How does the Touch Bar interface work? What is the resolution of the Touch Bar? What is the Control Strip? What can third-party developers do with the Touch Bar? Read on for all the answers and more …

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Two days ago Microsoft announced their Microsoft Surface Studio, and I wrote a piece on how it was their answer to Apple’s own desktop solutions. It was hard to compare the products’ philosophies, especially when I don’t think macOS is ready for a complete touchscreen experience. Then Apple announced their new MacBook Pro lineup yesterday and it dawned on me: the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro is Apple’s first distinct step into creating a touchscreen display experience in their MacBook line.

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Apple has officially unveiled the new redesigned MacBook Pro at its special event in Cupertino, California. The new design is all metal like the 12-inch MacBook (no plastic along the hinge) and available in space gray (looks darker than 12-inch but we’ll see) and traditional silver. 13-inch and 15-inch options are available. Much more below:

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Many people have been eagerly waiting for Apple to refreshed its entire MacBook Pro lineup with a thinner design, faster internals, Siri support, and more. A report yesterday said all of that is coming later this year in Q4, but added an additional detail: an OLED touch bar above the keyboard that would replace the row of function keys.

This is a new idea that hasn’t really been suggested for Apple’s MacBook Pro lineup before, but it has a variety of interesting possibilities. But with a significant change like that comes a steep, steep learning curve. The quick shortcuts we’ve all become accustomed to using throughout OS X would have an added twist, but could they potentially become easier to access in the long run? In the end, however, it would all come down to whether or not the OLED touch bar improved navigation enough to warrant a few weeks of relearning how to use your MacBook Pro’s keyboard.

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