Speaker 1: After five years, the apple touch bar is dead. So with that, let us look back at its controversial existence
Speaker 1: That over there is the rundown jump around to different sections of this video. If you want, I will mind and this over here, this is I as let’s start at the beginning because that’s how time works. In 2016, apple introduced the thinnest and lightest MacBook pros ever. The 15 inch MacBook [00:00:30] pro weighed in at just 4.02 pounds or 1.8, three kilograms. The keyboard was all new. It used these second generation butterfly switch, which was beloved by everyone what’s that it wasn’t. Yeah, there was a change.org petition titled apple recall MacBook pro with the effective keyboard replaced with different working keyboard. It featured an image of a knife to the keyboard and received over 40,000 signatures. Apple also introduced a keyboard [00:01:00] service program for MacBook MacBook air and MacBook pro apple said it determined that a small percentage of the keyboards in certain MacBook MacBook air and MacBook pro models may exhibit one or more of the following behaviors, letters, or characters, repeat unexpectedly letters or characters do not appear keys, feel sticky or do not respond in a consistent manner. Yeah, so those are bad problems for a board that has keys on it. Anyway, above that keyboard was the first iteration of the touch bar. [00:01:30] It ran the entire length of that keyboard. Apple was very proud of the touch
Speaker 2: Bar. I do think it’s worth a moment for Requiem for the function key. Many of you probably spent for the first time, as some of us did back with something like this. This is an IBM 32 70 mainframe terminal from 1971, over 45 years. We’ve been using function keys. Well, actually for the last, who knows how many years we really haven’t been using them anymore.
Speaker 1: The touch bar was [00:02:00] an apple retina display that supported multi-touch and gestures. You could still access brightness and volume controls from this little O led strip. The escape key was virtual and indented. Why courage? Nah, that was something else. As an aside. Did you know that the touch bar was introduced in the same year when apple removed the iPhone headphone Jack it’s true. 2016 touch bar was October iPhone seven was September back to the touch bar. It could display new app specific [00:02:30] controls that you could touch as odd as it was. This actually makes sense from apple way back in 2010, Steve jobs had this to say about touchscreen max touch
Speaker 3: Surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo, but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue. And after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work. It’s ergonomically
Speaker 1: Terrible. That’s right. Steve jobs [00:03:00] said, touch screens should not be vertical. It’s bad. Ergonomics touch surfaces should be horizontal. Well hello, touch bar. We got this particular version of the touch bar for three years. In 2019, we got the second iteration of the touch bar. The escape key came back physically, and it was not indented for whatever reason. Touch ID also got its own discreet key on the right. The touch bar was located in the middle. Sure enough apples. Phil Scher had a lot to say to defend the touch. Bar’s [00:03:30] honor. In an interview with CNET, Scher was faced with this question. The touch bar is back and there isn’t an option to not have it. What’s the feedback been on that feature? Here’s an over the top dramatic reading of his response. There
Speaker 4: Is a fairly large number of people who use the touch bar and find great benefits in some of its features. But there were also some complaints. If I were to rank [00:04:00] the complaints. Number one was people who like a physical escape key. It was just a hard adaptation for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: We then asked him about apps and the touch bar. What are you doing to get more developers to take advantage of the touch bar? One of the knocks on it is there aren’t a lot of applications that take advantage of that. Take it away over dramatic actor.
Speaker 4: That’s actually an old view. [00:04:30] If people looked again, they would see that support has gone up quite a bit. Most applications use it. Now we’ve seen adoption across the Trump tremendous number of Mac apps. Our developer relations team has worked with a large number of our Mac developers to help with that support. So we do see support has grown over the years. It is much further [00:05:00] along than people thought from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Okay. So in 2019, sheer was saying that most applications used the touch bar. Was that true? I don’t know. You would’ve to define what using the touch bar is first. Like what’s the minimum for usage, just placing any app specific virtual key on the bar. Then you’d have to catalog every app for of the Mac in 2019 and see if over 50% of them used it, a touch bar, regardless of the amount, there were some apps that tried to make real [00:05:30] use of the touch bar. The image editing app pixel made pro really tried. The touch bar could be used to select any tool you could arrange layers, rotate things, choose a blend mode and more that’s a lot of stuff. Photoshop had similar controls that you could access in the touch bar. Apple highlighted that experience during the introduction of the original touch bar
Speaker 5: And the tool for cutting things out in Photoshop is called select and mask. And normally it’s in a menu or a sub tool, but with the touch bar, it’s right here at my fingertips. Now you can see [00:06:00] the touch bar has changed to show me only the controls I need for this task. And you can see how with my right hand I’m mouthing and selecting. And with my left hand, I’m adjusting the size of the brush. It’s a really fun and natural way of working. Totally. This two hand way of working. It’s really fun. I dunno if you guys can tell how much fun I’m having.
Speaker 1: Okay. Oh, we can tell how much fun you’re having. And if you wanted to use those touch controls yourself, take a look at this handy guide from Adobe. [00:06:30] Now that’s fun with the capital F Apple’s own final cut pro was shown off with touch bar support, but break this down.
Speaker 6: The new touch bar lets me edit in ways I never could.
Speaker 1: Before you can see the timeline in the touch bar. Yes, that is new because there wasn’t a touch bar before, but you could always see the timeline if you chose to on your screen, it’s
Speaker 6: Fully interactive. Yes.
Speaker 1: Like the timeline on your screen, the touch
Speaker 6: Bar are, is great at surfacing really useful features [00:07:00] that can be hard to discover in a rich app like final Cub pro if you’re just searching through menus.
Speaker 1: Now that is true. However, if your app has hard to find items, doesn’t that mean that the app itself needs some work? Yes. I know that powerful apps can have lots and lots of features, so it can be difficult to find stuff. I don’t know if the touch bar was the right way to go about this. Arguably that should be done in the menu system. PPAC was a pretty cool app that placed widgets right in the touch bar. Why lose screen real estate to your dock when it [00:07:30] could just be placed on your touch bar? Why not have the weather up there on the touch bar as well with PPAC you could do that over at CNET. One of our writers did not enjoy the touch bar. Steven Shanklin has authored a couple of articles and made a video about his issues with the little Ole strip. Here’s what he had to say in his piece. Why Apple’s map book pro touch bar drives me bonkers. Enjoy this dramatic reading.
Speaker 7: I often get the touch bar when I don’t want to triggering actions. I don’t want worse because it happens with just a gentle [00:08:00] brush against the very sensitive strip, as opposed to the deliberate tap on a keyboard key. I’m not always aware I’ve done
Speaker 1: It. He also
Speaker 7: Said another gripe is that there is no tactile feedback. I’m a touch typist who rarely looks at my fingers, but I’ve discovered with the touch bar, how much that relies on constantly feeling my way around the keyboard. The smooth touch bar strip has no indication of where one button starts and another ends. So I have to look down to use it. There’s no haptic feedback either which could be very helpful.
Speaker 1: SHA also got a statement from [00:08:30] HPS, PC chief, Ron Kalin Kalin said, we listen to our customers and customers say they want a touchscreen. There’s no piece of research that will lead you to a touch bar. It feels to me like there is a dogma that says, thou shout not put touch in. And the touch bar was away around that dogma. Anyway, two years after Phil Scher said how awesome the touch bar was, it is gone from Apple’s MacBook pros. Apple is not being quiet about this change. Either check out [00:09:00] this huge text block on apple site, touting function keys for the first time. Magic keyboard brings a full height function, key to MacBook pro with a tactile feel of mechanical keys that pros love it is includes new keyboard shortcuts for spotlight, Siri, dictation, and do not disturb and touch ID has a new tactile ring that guides your finger for a fast, easy, secure way to unlock your Mac. That’s over [00:09:30] 60 words by apple, about keys on a keyboard with all that said, I wanna say the apple could try the touch bar could have been something great, but it may have been a solution without a true problem. Also stepping away from the touch bar and adding ports to the newest Mappa pros. There’s a word for that courage. Yes. That’s the word. If you wanna know our impressions of the new Mappa pro laptops, check out the, in the descriptions, I’m Maya, Zach Turner, and I’ll see you online.
