Touch Bar Fully Discontinued on New MacBooks After Seven Years

[lovehateapple]

I never owned a Mac with a Touch Bar so I don't know if it was something I would have liked and used. I remember when it was announced it looked like an innovative idea and I thought apple would (have to) expand it to their desktops as well. Obviously it didn't take off in the marketplace, but imo it was worth a try. Sometimes you have to take risks to break new ground.

 

[swester]

Thinking more about this: it would have been neat - perhaps not possible with current tech - for it to have become an optional implementation that could somehow work "above" the tactile function key row. Something like a hovering/gesture thing with a sensor.

With that kind of 'floating' setup, power users could benefit from having gestures for app-specific uses, while regular users can still get the (huge) benefit of tactile feedback from a physical row of keys.

 

[kalafalas]

DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD

Good riddance to that worthless gimmick. Now sure, the touch bar had SOME cases of usefulness, like fast timeline scrolling in video editors or quick access to effects and transitions, or on Photoshop having the color palette accessible at all times was neat. But outside of those two fringe cases, the entire thing made the computer objectively worse. No tactile feedback, increasing thoughtput in simple tasks like adjusting the volume and brightness, absolutely useless in other operating systems, and just the idea of your function key row being software bound by a touch bar was a horrible idea.

The new M3 14 inch Macbook Pro ushers in a new age for the Mac, as the last remnant of the Cursed Jony Ive Era is finally gone (well except for the awful Magic Mouse with it's charging port being on the bottom. That stain remains)

My main issue with the Touch Bar, was that the instant I needed to look away from my main display at the keyboard it was a failure. I can type without looking down - now I need to look away in order to just change the volume? Terrible user experience.

 

[paulisme]

I’d be fine with the touch bar if they kept the function keys, but if it’s one or the other, I’ll take the function keys. As a professional software engineer with decades of muscle memory built around physical function keys, the touch bar was a significant hit to productivity for me. Instead of feeling my way around the buttons, I had to divert my attention to the touch bar to make sure I was tapping the right spot.

 

[iamasmith]

About time, not great for a UNIX guy with no physical escape key.

Bring it back on something useful like a trackpad, I would definitely update my trackpad for that and probably actually use it alongside my mouse

 

[bluecoast]

I thought it was so cool…..until it wasn’t. I bet we will be reading a similar article about Dynamic Island in a few years too.

Alas, poor Touch Bar.

You were met with derision from the word go.

Even losing some of your body for a physical escape key was not sacrifice enough.

Now we know that you only had a stay of execution, as Apple was focussing on the internals when it put the M1 into your chassis.

Then it was waiting for the M3 to reach a certain baseline peformance and unit cost, before you were shown the door.

Cruel for you, to know your fate for years before.

Thank you for your service.

 

[wijngeest]

I was excited to buy the first MBP with a touch bar. I use it every day, like for emoji's. ❤️
They should keep it as an option for those who want it. 👍

 

[scrapesleon]

such a good feature that never saw its full potential

 

[cocky jeremy]

TouchID - introduced in 2013 iPhone 5s, last flagship to have it is the 2017 iPhone 8 series, still available on iPhone SE 2020 and SE 2022
Touch Bar - introduced in 2016 MacBook Pro and no longer included in Pro models announced in Oct 30 2023
Dynamic Island - introduced in 2022 iPhone 14 Pro series, will it get discontinued like the others?

Eventually, but not until we can put the camera under the screen. Supposedly, that's another 2-3 years off. Next year is supposed to have the FaceID stuff under the screen, so a single hole punch for the camera.

 

[pottmi]

Is this another Jony Ive legacy item?

 

[GuruZac]

Dynamic Island is not a permanent feature. It is a way of trying to make the notch more functional. It’s fundamentally different than 3D Touch (which is the biggest flop that Apple had in my view because it would’ve vastly improved the experience of the iPhone X line but created a new problem: force people to learn a completely new system that would’ve been a barrier to adoption, or scale it back. Apple went towards scaling it back and then decided to eat the loss, but if they made its use robust on the X line, I feel it would’ve vastly improved the experience and pulling it was “schizophrenic”).

And part of this is style. To get 3D Touch to make sense would’ve probably required skeuomorphism. And that’s where the change after Steve died mattered: considering roadmaps, it’s quite likely that it was already in development by the time the iPhone 4s was released. It certainly would’ve been in development by the time Scott Forstall was fired. And Apple fundamentally moved away from that direction at that time in software development leaving the tech essentially an orphan. Importantly, it’s not obsolete, and probably will never be obsolete, even if it isn’t ever used. Same with the Touch Bar. Dynamic Island will assuredly be obsolete and sooner than later. A phone without a cutout as we think of it won’t need dynamic island. Though it could probably be built with a 3D Touch array if Apple wanted to spend the money and do that. But that would require the admission of a lot of mistakes for something the consumer isn’t asking for, which would cost millions of dollars to put into newer phones. It’s dead in all likelihood but would very much compliment the current phone (although it might be incompatible with under the screen cameras and sensors, so possible there is a future roadblock, who knows).


I love physical buttons and hate my touch screen. But, at the same time, Musk had a point about it being rigidly designed, and in my opinion, they too weren’t great. I’d have a ton of dead switches in my car and I have ADHD. So I can appreciate the lack thereof. But…physical buttons are likely better most of the time. The lack of physical buttons in the car saves money. I’m not sure it did in the laptop (cheap connectors and slave labor sounds cheaper than a light bar) so that’s probably not the motivator (differentiation), but it was also a ridiculous way of not giving us touch screen laptops (which do not differentiate Apple from Lenovo if it adopted).

I would’ve probably integrated the LEDs into the trackpad and left the function keys, but that’s why those guys at Apple got paid the stock options. They know best. And I probably would flop if they hired me.

I disagree with Dynamic Island going away. I think even when there is no hole/notch/pill because Apple have placed the camera/FaceID module under the display we will still get something similar that pops out of the screen. The way audio, Shazam, live notifications, flashlight, screen mirroring, etc all show up at the top of the screen is very useful. Although, it is entirely possible that Apple introduces some completely new way to interact with the phone once the notch/pill/hole is gone.

 

[laszlo182]

I would love if they kept both the physical keys and a Touch Bar above. IMO there are many use cases where it is useful.

 

[FloatingBones]

The ultimate YouTube ad skipper - 7 years, unbeaten by Google. That's always going to hold a special place in my respect.

Downie is the ultimate YouTube ad-skipper.

 

[LV426]

I think the Apple logo needs to be scrapped. I mean, it's a bit long in the tooth now.

 

[dasjati]

About time, not great for a UNIX guy with no physical escape key.

I'm not here to defend the touch bar (never used it), but they brought back the physical escape key with the second generation of it.

 

[MobiusStrip]

the last remnant of the Cursed Jony Ive Era is finally gone (well except for the awful Magic Mouse with it's charging port being on the bottom. That stain remains)

AMEN, brother. Jony Ive is a pompous hack who epitomized some of the coddled pets at Apple who suck at their jobs but get attached to a successful product and then ride that laurel until they quit. Too few people there have the guts to say get rid of this guy, he's ruining our products. Jony Ive was the most damaging thing to hit Apple since the '90s, without question. He insulted customers and embarrassed the firm for farrrrrr tooooooo longgggg. It's incredible that Apple abused its customers and ruined, yes ruined its laptops with Ive's POS "butterfly" keyboard for FIVE YEARS.

Good riddance indeed to the absurd and embarrassing emoji bar, which also showcased Apple's failure to think things through from a development standpoint. Why would I, as a developer, waste my time implementing a bunch of functionality for this idiotic gimmick when it didn't exist on a huge number of target computers? I would much rather implement something that every user could benefit from. DUH.

 

[Seanm87]

Good riddance. Now if only Apple could also get rid of rounded corners on displays, notches, and Dynamic Notchland...

Whats wrong with rounded corners? They look way better.

 

[Aves]

I use it every day and I love it!

 

[Ursadorable]

I found the touchbaar quite useful.

I agree.. I mean once I realized it never got used, I could rest my pen there instead. Now that it's gone, I'm going to have to set my pen down somewhere else. Why Apple! Why did you take away my pen resting place?

 

[baryon]

I thought the touch bar would grow on me but nope, I never liked it. For the first year it would freeze all the time until a software update fixed it. But for that year I had a keyboard shortcut assigned to an Apple script to restart the touch bar, and I'd use it multiple times a day. That's like a third of the useful life of a product, for which a key feature doesn't work.

Switching tabs in Safari was always buggy and they never bothered fixing it.
Scrolling the silly menus of the apps that did support the touchbar was a mess.
Having to look at it to know what you're touching is bad enough, but the thing turns off after a few seconds so you first have to wake it, then look at it, and only then can you do anything. A stupid, needlessly complex solution for a problem that never existed with real buttons.
I would have at least loved it if I could turn night shift on and off, and be able to see whether or not it's on by looking at the hotkey, except it's also buggy and when you put the computer to sleep and night shift turns off in the morning, the button stays activated. So you can never trust it, making it kind of pointless.

Pair it with the removal of USB-A, the SD card slot, MagSafe and HDMI, add the crappy keyboards, and man, those were some crappy ass computers Apple. People paid a lot of money for them and they never got an apology. But the other option was to go back to Windows which is even worse!

 

[frisnit]

Still enjoy mine on my M1 MBP, so I’ll miss it when I have to upgrade. The fine volume/slider control is way better than with keys (and saves using the touchpad). Works great in the apps that go to the bother of giving you custom icons, but I imagine that was part of the problem with it, most didn’t/couldn't

 

[corinthos]

This was a pure gimmick from the start. Saw it coming.

 

[4odomi]

Just over seven years after it was introduced, the Touch Bar has now been fully discontinued on all new MacBooks sold by Apple, marking the end of an era for a hardware feature that was loved by some users and derided by others.

The first MacBook Pro models with the Touch Bar were released in October 2016, as part of a controversial redesign that also included a defective butterfly keyboard and the removal of many ports, including an SD card slot, HDMI, and MagSafe. Physical function and Esc keys were also removed in favor of the Touch Bar.

Apple initially described the Touch Bar as a "revolutionary" and "breakthrough" interface, but it was clearly not popular enough to stick around.

It was a slow death for the Touch Bar:

• In 2019, Apple released the first 16-inch MacBook Pro with a physical Esc key, but the Touch Bar lived on in place of physical function keys.
• In 2021, Apple removed the Touch Bar from higher-end MacBook Pro models, switching back to full-size physical function keys.
• This week, Apple discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the final model with a Touch Bar.

For now, the Touch Bar can still be found on some refurbished models sold by Apple.

It's possible that the Touch Bar could return at some point in the future, especially if the 13-inch MacBook Pro is ever re-released as a lower-cost model, but at this point there is no firm evidence to suggest this will happen.

Article Link: Touch Bar Fully Discontinued on New MacBooks After Seven Years

I've been using it for the last 5 years, it's great!
I shall miss it 😒

 

[4odomi]

I hate the Touch Bar but I know some loved it - I always thought it should have been retained as an option for the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros - that way everyone would have been happy.

I would have gladly paid an extra $200 for my new MacBook Pro M3 with a Touch Bar 😏

 

[4odomi]

I hate the Touch Bar but I know some loved it - I always thought it should have been retained as an option for the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros - that way everyone would have been happy.

BTW. Nice of you to think of others and not just your own opinion, like many so called "Pro's" 👏