Goodnight, sweet Touch Bar
The new MacBook Pro models are amazing, but I wanted to take some time to look back at what we’re leaving behind.
“A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.”
So begins Dune, the epic science fiction novel. And we may perceive that Apple failed in that regard when they introduced the redesigned MacBook Pro in October of 2016. It eschewed a diverse array of ports in favor of four USB-C/Thunderbolt ports (and a headphone jack). Perhaps most damning in the eyes of many Apple fans, it eschewed the beloved MagSafe power connector. It was incredibly thin and light, too thin and light according to many. And though Apple didn’t know it would face this issue when it unveiled the 2016 MacBook Pro, there was a flaw in the design of the butterfly keyboard switches. Over the course of the next few years, many people would need Apple to replace their keyboard due to keys not functioning properly. Even had those reliability issues not cropped up, many people didn’t like the way the keyboard felt when typing, due to the short key travel.
And then there was the Touch Bar. In an era in which Windows laptops began incorporating touch screens, Apple introduced touch to the Mac in a way that was built to align better with where your hands rest when using a MacBook Pro. It was instantly controversial. For programmers, a physical Escape key is an important part of their computer workflows. Apple eventually did bring a physical Escape key back to the MacBook Pro alongside the Touch Bar, but the PR damage had been done long before that point. Sometimes hatred becomes memetic. I’ll bet most people who say they hate the Touch Bar can’t articulate why.
Frankly, I think the Touch Bar gets unearned derision from the tech press and many in the Apple pro user community. I think it was an absolutely brilliant innovation, and I’m honestly sorry to see it go. There’s something immensely satisfying about moving a slider to control volume and brightness. I love the way Apple reintroduced the Control Strip interface, previously abandoned when Apple made the jump from the Classic Mac OS to Mac OS X twenty years ago. I love the way the Touch Bar seamlessly changes when you shift from app to app, giving you tools built for the app that you’re in. Have you ever given a Keynote presentation from a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar? Being able to see small pictures of each slide in your deck and being able to tap on the precise one you want to jump to is amazing! The emoji picker is classic Apple whimsy. One complaint about the Touch Bar I’ve heard lately is that Apple never updated it. But to me it never needed updating. It merely needed broad third-party support, and it got that.
One of the traps we all fall into is assuming that our set of preferences are the single correct way to do things, and I think a lot of people who didn’t like the 2016 MacBook Pro and the Touch Bar have hurdled headlong into that ditch. The reality is that product decisions are always about tradeoffs. Sure, emphasizing thinness to the extent Apple did in 2016 probably cost the MacBook Pro some performance. But on the other hand, there are obvious benefits to having a laptop that is thin and light. These are portable computers after all. Likewise, the move to all USB-C did push people into using adapters to maintain compatibility with their existing peripherals, but there was also an elegant simplicity to having four identical ports, two on each side. And there was something classically Apple about the hard break it took with older ports. Moreover, I’m convinced that it helped push the industry to accelerate the adoption of USB-C, something that has benefitted everyone in the years since.
“A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.”
Despite the fact that we’re losing some things that I love from the prior generation of MacBook Pros, I do think that this time around Apple has taken “care that the balances are correct.” We’re two years beyond Apple returning to the tried and true scissor key switches, so nagging keyboard reliability issues are a thing of the past. The new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors have wowed the entire industry. And in the design department, Apple has proven to its most disgruntled customers that their concerns haven’t fallen on deaf ears. I’m excited about getting to test the new MacBook Pro next week, but I also wanted to take a moment to reflect on what we’ve lost. Goodnight, sweet Touch Bar. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.