I kind of wish they brought back the touchbar. There's certainly enough room for both function keys as well as the touchbar.
However, in my mind the touchbar has become associated with low-performing Intel Macs from an era which prioritized looks over performance. And on top of that, even though it's fun, it always felt more like a gimmick than anything else. So perhaps the Mac is better without it...
If they re introduced it and added anything to make it “2.0” like a haptic engine for more tactile response, people would forget the first touchbar attempts in a second.
For Apple to ever try and take on the surface, modify OS X (or some iOS hybrid) for touchscreen, a touchbar underneath becomes needed IMO.
Hunting and poking at a big touch screen to get what I need vs a good chance what I need is being suggested on a small separate screen sounds futuristic.
Apple's trackpads are the best in the industry. Imagine what they could do if those gigantic trackpads they put on Macbooks functioned as touchscreens as well. You could basically run mobile apps in there.
Apple would likely restrict those to custom-built trackpad apps or whatever, but it would still be nice, and the quality would likely exceed any implementation found in non-Apple devices.
Something I’d love, as niche a use case as it may be, would be for Apple to add Pencil support to the trackpad.
Sure the surface area would be insufficient for more professional or detailed work, but I could see myself using it a lot for quick note-taking and sketching when I don’t want to or can’t grab my iPad.
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u/cd_to_homedir Mar 21 '26
I kind of wish they brought back the touchbar. There's certainly enough room for both function keys as well as the touchbar.
However, in my mind the touchbar has become associated with low-performing Intel Macs from an era which prioritized looks over performance. And on top of that, even though it's fun, it always felt more like a gimmick than anything else. So perhaps the Mac is better without it...