Back in 2016, Apple introduced the MacBook Pro model that has remained until today. In addition to having only USB-C ports, cutting drastically with the past, these teams introduced the Touch Bar. A thin screen that replaces the traditional “function” keys to try to give it a new focus.
Five years later and on the doorstep of one of the most radical and long-awaited redesigns, some rumors put her out of the equation. If all goes according to plan, this innovation will have reached the beginning of its end. And this afternoon’s Unleashed event will be key to its future.
Touch Bar, a good idea that did not reach a big idea
The Touch Bar is an interesting way to try and expand the Mac user base. A daring addition. A way of trying to rethink keyboards in an age when everything is tactile.
However, five years after its introduction in a keynote that he devoted almost 15 minutes, the Touch Bar languishes. Within the first year of its introduction, this display was only found on MacBook Pros. Neither the MacBook Air nor the iMac keyboards recruited this innovation in successive reviews.
Just a few hours after confirming or not his death, his lack of prominence is not the fault of his confinement in the MacBook Pro. Nor of the apparent lack of adoption by developers in your apps. The Touch Bar is surely a good idea that never reached the category of big idea.
The point has come where Apple would need to rethink the Touch Bar in another way or retire it for good.
That zenith is unique to those ideas that fulfill the well-known phrase of “one yes for every thousand no’s.” And the Touch Bar never crossed that threshold. It just doesn’t fit into the workflow of many users, as requires looking away from the screen and look at this row. We cannot memorize the position of the buttons because being a screen they can be, literally, anything or shape.
A step back to rethink the physical keyboard of the future
The physical keyboard has the advantage (or drawback) that it is fixed. It always keeps its shape. The keys are in place and when we get used to them, you don’t even need to look at it. The Touch Bar requires a steep learning curve for benefits that are not so steep.
For those of us who see a future with an advanced keyboard on the horizon, the Touch Bar was the beginning of the journey. Move shortcuts and shortcuts to hidden functions In menus and submenus in each app, it promised to make a complex app visible to the average user. However, it has never moved to the most popular laptop on the block: the MacBook Air.
The more than possible death of the Touch Bar would mean taking several steps back in this regard. All those patents that investigate devices without keys or dynamic keyboards with a screen on each key will have to stay a while longer in Apple laboratories.