The touchscreen MacBook Pro only makes me miss the Touch Bar
Macworld ·
Macworld After years of rumors and speculation, Apple has finally begin shipping its first MacBook with a touchscreen . But while this may sound like a dream come true for some users, others are still trying to figure out whether this change actually makes sense. After all, the move appears to contradict principles laid down in 2010 by no less a commentator than Steve Jobs . I’m not entirely against the idea of touchscreen Macs. There are a lot of touchscreen Windows laptops out there, and plenty of use cases to suit them. It’s just that Apple’s implementation doesn’t seem particularly effective. The touchscreen doesn’t seem to add anything new to the user experience, or to the rest of the market. In fact, the more I look at the new MacBook Pro and its marquee feature, the more I find myself missing something else: the Touch Bar. The Touch Bar was misunderstood The Touch Bar was an OLED strip that sat above the keyboard on MacBooks a few years ago. It replaced the classic function keys with virtual buttons that changed depending on what was on the screen; each app had its own controls. The idea seemed too good to be true when it was announced, and I was really excited about it. Apple itself seemed to lose interest in the Touch Bar after a while and stopped adding new features. Not only that, but the Touch Bar never made its way to any Mac other than the MacBook Pro: not the MacBook Air, or Apple’s wireless keyboard for its desktops. The reality is that users didn’t have many reasons to like or prefer the Touch Bar over conventional function keys. At least physical function keys were easier to hit without looking. Perhaps it was for this reason that Apple brought back the physical Esc key on later MacBook Pro models, before finally getting rid of the Touch Bar for good. But the Touch Bar also had its good side, like being able to adjust the MacBook’s brightness or volume with just a swipe. It was also handy to have quick controls for picking emojis or scrolling through the Final Cut Pro editing timeline. None of these features were really a must-have, but they made the Mac experience a little bit nicer. And crucially, they were accessible in a place that was easy to reach . By contrast, Apple’s examples of how owners should use the new MacBook Pro’s touchscreen seem awkward and uncomfortable. When you use a conventional laptop, your hands sit on the keyboard and the palm rest most of the time. You don’t have to lift your arm to move the cursor and click buttons. Constantly lifting your arm to touch a screen facing you vertically seems unergonomic and tiring. There’s a reason why piano keys lie on a horizontal plane. Apple How does a touchscreen help the Mac? One of the things that bothers me most about the new MacBook Pro is that Apple seems to be trying too hard to convince us that touching a laptop screen is something we’ve been missing. Apple showed some examples of how people can use the new touchscreen, like playing a virtual piano. I’m sure this is a fun way to show off what the new hardware can do, but in reality the average user is unlikely to do this often, if ever. There’s a reason why the iPad works so well as a touchscreen device. You can hold it in your hands, place it flat on a table, or adjust the screen angle depending on what you’re doing. A MacBook, on the other hand, is still designed primarily around a keyboard and trackpad. There are laptops designed for touch, with screens that can be tilted at steeper angles or even flipped over so you can use them like a tablet. That’s not the case with the new MacBook Pro. Apple is rarely the first to introduce new technologies, but it usually takes its time to get them right. We saw this with the iPhone Duo : it isn’t the first foldable phone, but it solved problems that stumped rival companies. That’s not the case with the touchscreen on the MacBook Pro. It feels like Apple added the feature just for the sake of it. The new MacBook Pro is essentially the same laptop with the same user experience, but now you can touch the screen. What a natural and comfortable way of working! Apple Ahead of its time That brings me back to the Touch Bar. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an idea that made more sense than the current implementation of a touchscreen on a MacBook. We had something to touch that was right at our fingertips. Perhaps it would have been successful if more apps had supported it, or if Apple had figured out how to combine it with traditional function keys for those who need them. It’s hard to argue in favor of the Touch Bar when Apple killed it because most users weren’t interested. Still, to me it seems like a good idea that was poorly executed, or something that was ahead of its time. It was nice to see Apple trying to bring touch to the Mac in a unique way that only Apple could do. When we heard rumors about touchscreens finally coming to the Mac, I hoped for a thoughtful execution of a long-requested feature. I wanted Apple to do more than just let users touch the screens of the MacBooks we already had. But based on the latest MacBook Pro, I have to say I’m a little disappointed.