Nearly five years since its release, Apple’s Touch Bar has mostly stayed the same. Here’s why I love it and hate it at the same time.
Confession time.
I bought a higher-spec MacBook Pro in 2017 and thought the Touch Bar would be revolutionary. I was wrong (mostly).
I hate Apple’s Touch Bar – a thin touchscreen strip that replaces the function keys. Yet, it’s useful and practical at times. Let me explain.
The Good
The Cupertino company certainty met the ‘Think Different’ mantra with the Touch Bar.
In a time of Windows and Chromebook laptops implementing full touchscreens, Apple went a different direction. Specifically, down to the keyboard deck.
That’s despite companies like Microsoft and Lenovo already experimenting with key-less touch sensitive and e-ink display keyboards with no success.
Exclusive to the MacBook Pro line-up, it’s a unique differentiator from the competition.
The Touch Bar is an OLED touch-enabled strip that can serve up shortcut buttons catered to each compatible program you open. For example, Spotify can serve up volume and playback controls, while Adobe Premiere Pro can pop-up shortcuts to editing tools like audio controls, layer properties, and brushes.
The catch is, you need to have the window actively opened and clicked on for it to appear on the bar.
This has been useful if I’m taking notes or transcribing while listening to an audio clip on QuickTime; I can scrub back and forwards without needing to switch windows or desktops.
Equally, finding the right emoji to send is really handy on the Touch Bar; it’s larger than the on-screen picker and I don’t need to press Command+Control+Space. Opening a new tab on a web browser with a gentle press is also satisfying.
This saves me time – and that’s good (in these applications).
The display also seems bright enough in any lighting condition (unless you’re directly in the glaring sun) and the matte coating is a life saviour to reduce fingerprint stains.
It’s similar to the nano texture glass available on the Pro Display XDR or 2020 iMac 27-inch. I just wish it was also implemented on the iPhone.
Unfortunately, the Touch Bar is also inconvenient.
The Bad
It’s the simple things that count.
Simply changing your brightness or volume requires a quick swipe or a tap and swipe on the bar – and there’s no physical haptic feedback so it’s a little strange from just easily pressing a key.
Fortunately, I got used to that – and isn’t too much of a nuisance.
However, not surprising for a touchscreen, I’d have accidental touches. If I quickly swipe the volume toggle too slowly, it’ll enter into the volume bar and accidently turn up the audio to 100 per cent.
That’s not ideal – especially if that music or video fires into your eardrums or explodes in front of strangers in a library.
While some programs are suited to the Touch Bar, it is unecessary in most other applications.
The Finder tends to present toggles that would be quicker to press using the mouse or keyboard shortcut like previewing a file or changing the file view.
Additionally, if you set the bar’s screen timeout shorter to save battery life, accessing these supposed application ‘shortcuts’ requires an extra tap.
Mostly of the time, the Touch Bar seems gratuitous.
Despite negative reviews, I thought the Touch Bar will sort of ‘catch on’ overtime. With Apple’s track record of solid software updates for its devices, there was hope that the big tech giant would improve the usability of the Touch Bar.
Four-years on since its debut on the MacBook Pro, little has changed. That’s disappointing.
What next?
With the change to ARM-based processors, there’s hope that Apple will revamp or reimagine the Touch Bar.
Unfortunately, it most likely won’t appear at Apple’s November One More Thing event next week.
Instead, prominent Apple leaker Komyia suggested in August an all-new Touch Bar would be coming to mid next year.
Admittedly, Apple has listened to consumer complaints. The conglomerate shrunk the Touch Bar with the MacBook Pro 16-inch refresh in late 2019.
It separated the Touch ID power button by itself and reinstated the physical escape key. However, these are minor touches to a problematic ‘pro’ feature.
Apple’s Touch Bar needs to be more practical, intuitive and convenient to use.
The company needs to go back to the drawing board. Apple needs to ‘Think Different’ again – much like its infamous butterfly keyboard.
The Connected by Henry Man 