Touch Bar could be super useful, but we’ll have to see
A touch strip on a MacBook Pro isn’t a surprise. Its usefulness might turn out to be.
Apple added a novel touch-strip above the keyboard on its new MacBook Pros, an expected flourish to the 13- and 15-inch laptops. I’m impressed by how versatile this Retina-quality, multitouch strip of glass appears to be and how much third-party support the Touch Bar is getting.
A quick explainer: Touch Bar supplies dynamic shortcuts to the controls, sliders, menus and tools that relate to the task at hand, so they appear and disappear as needed. As you tap, swipe or drag the Touch Bar keys, you see the results of your actions on the MacBook Pro’s full-size Retina displays.
PROS: MANY USES If you’re in the Messages app, for example, you might use the Touch Bar to scroll through and choose emojis, which show up on the strip. If you’re listening to music, you’ll find the play controls there. And if you’re editing in Photos, you can scrub through images and apply filters or rotate the pics you choose.
Through the Touch Bar you can easily access favorite websites in Safari or answer (or reject) incoming FaceTime calls. As you’re writing something, you can also get predictive suggestions of the words you may want to type next, similar to a feature found on iOS devices.
What’s more, Apple opened up Touch Bar to outside app developers. So you might employ Touch Bar when choosing brushes or blending colors in Adobe Photoshop, one of the partners Apple trotted on stage in introducing the feature. There will be Touch Bar support for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Office apps.
You can still summon Touch Bar versions of the physical function keys that used to reside above the keyboard to raise the brightness or lower volume, and the keys are customizable.
CON: PRICE, USB ADAPTER As with prior MacBook Pros, they’re expensive. MacBook Pros with Touch Bar start at $1,799 for a 13-inch model, $2,399 for a 15-inch model. If you can live without the Touch Bar, you can purchase a 13-inch MacBook Pro that still has physical function keys for $1,499.
Apple has added the Touch ID sensor to the MacBook Pro, which means you can unlock the Mac with a fingerprint, just like you can do on state-of-the-art iPhones. It is integrated with the power button. And if you share the Mac with other members of your household or office, you can use Touch ID to take advantage of the feature Apple calls “fast user switching.” When an authorized person places his or her finger on Touch ID, their user environment takes over.
Touch ID makes it simpler to pay for Web transactions through Apple Pay, which arrived with the macOS Sierra upgrade and that used to require an iPhone or Apple Watch.
Longtime fans of MacBook Pros will appreciate these longin-the-tooth computers will be outfitted with state-of-the-art specs: sixth-generation dual or quad-core Intel Core i5 or i7 processors for starters. Apple says they’ll will run much faster than the prior generation. The entry point is 256GB of storage.
Moreover, at 3 pounds and 14.9mm or 4 pounds and 15.mm, respectively for 13- and 15-inch models, these are also the lightest and thinnest MacBook Pros. They are even thinner than the MacBook Air.
The 13-inch model without the Touch Bar comes with a pair of Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports; the 13- and 15-inch models with Touch Bar four such ports. You can use these to charge the computer — Apple touts about 10 hours of battery life — or to drive external monitors. But you’ll need an adapter to connect your older USB gear or even to charge an iPhone, which relies on a Lightning type connector you won’t find on any Macs. Alas, none are included in the box, and Apple sells a Lightning to USB-C cable for $25.
The machines have significantly larger Force Touch trackpads than the prior generation, and Apple says the butterfly-mechanism keyboard ( based on the keyboard first introduced on the MacBook) has been improved. I briefly got to type on it in a demonstration area; I did feel more comfortable, though I’d like more time testing.