The MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is the first major laptop that tries to replicate that dream — not with individually reprogrammable keys, but with a thin touchscreen strip that can do even more. It adds touchscreen buttons and ever-changing digital controls to the familiar set of physical keys, and it has the potential to remake the keyboard in a way we’ve never seen before.
I’ve been using the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar for more than a week now, and I have mixed feelings about what it brings to the MacBook experience. In some cases, the Touch Bar’s usefulness is obvious and immediate. But in many others, it’s overly complicated or just plain unnecessary. It’s an addition that very much can improve every MacBook — but it’s going to take some time to get there, if it ever does.
First, a short aside: two weeks ago, my colleague Vlad Savov published a review of the 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar. That computer is nearly identical to the one I’m testing here, save for a few significant differences: this one has more ports, more power, a smaller battery, a fingerprint sensor, and — of course — the Touch Bar. You should read his review for an in-depth look at this laptop’s fantastic hardware and ridiculous port situation. I’ll touch on some of that later on (spoiler: I agree with his assessment), but for the most part, I’m going to be focusing on the unique Touch Bar that you’re all really here to read about.
This is Apple’s vision of a touchscreen Mac
The Touch Bar arrives on the MacBook Pro with two objectives in mind: the not-very-lofty immediate goal of improving upon the function keys (how hard can that be?), and the more interesting goal of introducing a brand-new way of interacting with the Mac. Apple has been resistant to putting a touchscreen on any of its Mac computers, and if I had to guess right now, I’d say it’ll never happen — that is, aside from the Touch Bar.