The MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch Bar is the first major laptop that has the potential to remake the keyboard in a way we've never seen before. The latest Apple flagship laptop comes with a thin touchscreen strip that can add ever-changing digital controls and touchscreen buttons to the familiar set of physical keys, and it.
MacBook Pro 2016 With Touch Bar
According to The Verge, the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has been received with mixed feelings about the MacBook experience provided. The Touch Bar's usefulness is immediate and obvious in some cases. But in many others, it's unnecessary or overly complicated. This addition has the potential to improve every MacBook, but it might take time to get accepted by every user.
Apple has two objectives in mind with the introduction of the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro 2016. The immediate goal is to improve the function keys, while the long-term and more interesting goal is to introduce a brand-new way of interacting with the Mac. Up to date, Apple avoided putting a touchscreen on any of its Mac computers. The Touch Bar is the company's solution of compromise.
While on its developers site Apple tries to present the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard, in practice the new feature is more like a touchscreen interface. The Touch Bar's set of four fixed buttons can be customized by users by swapping in some other macOS functions, like Spotlight.
The center of the Touch Bar is the area that morphs to display different controls and buttons depending on the opened app. Within their own apps, every developer has the possibility to customize the Touch Bar. Apple has already announced future support for Office, Photoshop, 1Password, Pixelmator, DaVinci Resolve and more.
Why The Mixed Reviews?
According to App Advice, the reviews of Apple's MacBook Pro with Touch Bar are mixed. Some are liking Apple's latest professional-grade laptop, some don't. For instance, Andrew Cunningham writing for Ars Technica said that the Touch Bar is more convenient to use than the standard row of function keys and that he "liked the Touch Bar a lot." But he also agreed that the Touch Bar could seem useless. It all depends on the application.
Meanwhile, Christina Warren at Gizmodo said that the Toch Bar is not worth the money and called the feature a "gimmick." The MacBook's Touch Bar is still undersupported for apps beyond Apple, even if it is somehow useful. In her opinion, the Touch Bar is not makes a compelling good reason to buy a new MacBook Pro, especially if you are already satisfied with your existing laptop's performance.
For Jacob Kastrenakes writing for the Verge the new MacBook Pro is aiming for "a future it can't quite reach yet," where it can be powerful enough for the pros and have all-day battery life, while being impressively thin and super light. Other reviews out there are overall positive and agree that the new Apple flagship laptop is a good machine. But the common thread among the complaints is that the MacBook Pro 2016 is too expensive.
