Thoughts on Touch Bar

Apple has consistently said that touch on Macs would not be useful and doesn't make sense. If you'd asked me over the last few years, I'd have agreed.

One reason is the OS and software which are optimized around mouse cursor input. Another reason is the ergonomics of the Mac. With an upright display, reaching your arm out to touch a screen is awkward and uncomfortable over long periods. This is especially true on an iMac, but it's true on notebooks as well.

Then, Apple released the iPad Pro with a keyboard, and the ergonomics are about the same as any notebook. And unlike competitors like the Surface, there is no pointing device. Touch is the only way of interacting with the UI on an iPad Pro.

Now, with Apple promoting iPad Pro as a work machine, and with touch gaining widespread adoption on PCs, Macs are looking increasingly old fashioned by eschewing touch displays.

Apple's answer appears to be the Touch Bar. I've spent a little time using a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, and so I'd like to get into what I view as the pros and cons of Apple's approach.

First of all, let's take a look at just the Touch Bar on its own. It's delightful to use. It's fun, fresh and dynamic. Tapping and swiping through the many context-sensitive actions is really a joy.

But the Touch Bar does not exist on its own. It's part of a much bigger product. So how does it fit in that context? It replaces the function keys, which, as it turns out, I use quite often. You don't notice how much you use them until they're gone. I have another context for this, which is the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard. It lacks an escape key and the volume, brightness, and media buttons normally found on a Mac keyboard. I often find myself reaching for the escape key to dismiss menus or dialogs. It's an action I perform all the time that I wasn't even aware of previously.

Media shortcuts remain available on the Touch Bar, but now they are tucked away inside a menu. That means you're taking your eyes off the screen, and what was once a single button press is now a tap and a swipe away. It may seem insignificant, but a keyboard works because it's static and tactile. The Touch Bar is neither, which means it does not work as part of the keyboard. When you become fluent on the keyboard, you're not meant to look at it. The Touch Bar demands you look at it. So it is a neighbor to the keyboard, but it is entirely separate and discrete in both form and function.

The Touch Bar has another neighbor as well: the screen. And what I've learned from using the Touch Bar is that when you introduce a touch screen right below the computer's display, your expectations about how you interact with the display naturally begin to change. I intuitively start to expect that I could touch anywhere on the display. I start reaching for it without realizing it.

For instance, using the crop/rotate tool in Photos brings up a rotate dial on the Touch Bar. It's direct and it's precise, much more so than a mouse or trackpad would be. But if you also want to adjust the crop, those controls are on the main display. It would be the most natural thing in the world to move your finger off the Touch Bar and just an inch or two up onto the display to touch that crop control. But the product requires instead that you move your hand all the way down to the trackpad, while mentally changing gears from a direct touch interaction to an indirect mouse cursor interaction. To me, this repeated switching between modes is jarring and is a constant source of friction while using the computer.

The Touch Bar is a terrific piece of technology. But I'm afraid it doesn't make the product it's built into any better. If you are a fluent typist and you frequently use the shortcuts on the function keys, it may even be a worse product for you. Apple clearly intended to "check the box" for offering touch on Macs by introducing the Touch Bar, while not fundamentally changing the product or the OS. But I believe the Touch Bar's presence only makes the absence of touch on the display more glaring by contrast.

Apple may be right in principle by not adding touch to Mac displays. And touch may not ever and probably should not ever be the primary way of interacting with a Mac. But in a world where we can touch almost every screen, and kids are growing up expecting touch by default, Macs may feel increasingly "out of touch" and out of date by not offering fully multi-touch displays.