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If Apple only added utility to the Touch Bar instead of letting it rot after introduction. Intelligent function key suggestions based on what app you were using, in a more familiar touch-based package. A “revolutionary new way to use your Mac,” was how Apple described it on its website at launch. The Touch Bar was supposed to be the company’s alternative. “This is crazy! Keeping 45-year-old technology around and mapping other things to it,” Schiller said at Apple’s event. They’ve become far simpler and settled into some common uses like volume or brightness control.

The hardware feature was introduced as a sort of 21st-century replacement to the familiar row of function keys that exist on almost all laptop and desktop computers.Īs current Apple fellow and former vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller noted in his “requiem for the function key” at the MacBook Pro launch, the functionality of function keys has really changed since their appearance on early server terminals. A whole new functionĪpple added the Touch Bar to its laptops in 2016, specifically the 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros. And after speaking to some of them and experimenting with my own Touch Bar modifications - I think I might feel the same. But believe it or not, there are people who do, and they’ll actually miss the programmable, keyboard-length touchscreen now that Apple’s going another way. I really don’t think about it all that often. The closest the company has gotten to adding a touchscreen to a Mac.Īs the proud owner of a refurbished 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, I’m a self-described Touch Bar agnostic.

The new 2021 Macbook Pros don’t have a Touch Bar.Īmid news of the M1 Pro, M1 Max, and the return of glorious ports (HDMI! MagSafe! SD card!) Apple killed its last new (if misguided) vision for the future of laptop computing, a much-maligned, multi-touch strip at the top of the keyboard.

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