But mostly because this is way less convenient than an actual touchscreen, and is probably way less accurate too.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
'AirBar' Accessory That Gives 13-Inch MacBook Air a Touchscreen is Now Available
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Oh, I agree 100%, I'd hate to use it create any work, but there are instances I'd love to have that choice of interaction, even if rarely.
As nice as the touch bar looks, it leads me to feel its a stubborn fix. Like mentioned after using it for a good hour last week, I caught myself reaching up to interact with the screen knowing fully it's not active.
In truth, I purchased a refurbished 2015 MacBook Pro, back when they were still available, specifically to avoid the dongle hell of the newer Mac laptops.
In truth, I purchased a refurbished 2015 MacBook Pro, back when they were still available, specifically to avoid the dongle hell of the newer Mac laptops.
Yes, my own MacBook Pro is an early 2014 version 13"), honestly, it's best Mac I've ever owned and I don't feel I need to upgrade for a while yet either....well until a Mac with 16mb Ram becomes sensible priced.
So, you traded Ethernet for HDMI. Considering that we mostly use Wi-Fi at this point in time, that's a good trade-off. I would say that you lost your Firewire port, but that's not a problem since the computer industry ditched Firewire a few years ago.In truth, I purchased a refurbished 2015 MacBook Pro, back when they were still available, specifically to avoid the dongle hell of the newer Mac laptops.
I actually have some older hard drives which have a Firewire 800 port. Fortunately it wasn't the only interface... they also have (the slower) USB 2.
I suppose I shouldn't say that USB 2 is slower, since the maximum bit rate for Firewire 800 with my current laptop is 0bps.
I hope they can eventually make these devices for all MacBook models. I understand that some people want touch screens on their Macs, but I really don't want macOS redesigned for finger input. That inevitably means bigger UI elements and less screen real estate for information. Something like this AirBar seems to be a good compromise for people who want touch capability now.
Mad Mac Maniac
macrumors 601
Well considering how you need to have a 13" MBA to use this, that will certainly limit the pool...
I do happen to be a 13" MBA owner and, while I'm not hugely outspoken about whether Macs should have touchscreens or not, I generally think it's good to allow the choice. For a couple of reasons 1) there are some instances where touch is useful 2) the more touch centric our technology becomes (especially with the children who were raised on iPhones and iPads) the more backwards the Mac is going to seem to not have the capability.
I don't currently have plans to get this device mainly for 3 reasons 1) the Mac UI/UX is not designed for touch 2) this particular device will likely be wonky in various ways 3) I'm actually moving myself away from my Mac towards the iPad Pro. For my needs the iPad is all I really need. My current plan is to use my 2013 MBA until it dies ( hoping to get another 4-6 years or so out of it) and then I'll be all iPad. But of course who knows what the tech landscape (or my life) will be in 6 years....
Side note: I have never ONCE felt the urge to touch the screen on my MBA, but the last few times I went to the Apple store I had the urge to touch the MBP screens (ok maybe I actually did touch it a couple of times...). I'm not sure if it's because of the similarity to my iPad (retina display, black bezels, etc) or just because my brain thinks "oh this is the new Apple stuff, of course it is a touch screen".
I am quite accomplished with, and comfortable using, the trackpad on my MBP. Despite that, on occasion (particularly when I've recently been using my iPad), I find myself putting my finger on the screen to select/move/change something, before realizing that doesn't work.
A touchscreen on a laptop is absolutely not useless. If Apple made the MBP screen an iPhone-caliber touchscreen while keeping the multitouch trackpad, I would certainly not complain. I'd use it along with the trackpad and keyboard. For some things it would be quite useful.
100% agree
[doublepost=1500419307][/doublepost]
The last thing I'd want to see is a Mac with a touch screen, for people who use them purely for private use maybe, but when you're using a Mac on a professional basis for editing, creating graphics of some kind, then the last thing you want is not only you're fugly fingerprints on your screen, but everyone else's also who'd come up and think it's playtime on your screen.
I don't care for a touchscreen, but if others want one - so be it. But in watching the video it looked like there was some pretty visible lag at times....like writing "hello!" at the end for example.
Of course. But my point was simply that touchscreen Macs wouldn't cannibalize iPads, or vice versa, if they offer different user experiences in the form of different OSs.
[doublepost=1500425905][/doublepost]
Clearly he means out of the box rather than with a peripheral.
[doublepost=1500426066][/doublepost]
I don't use the touchscreen on my laptop that much, but I'm glad it's there when I do use it. I don't think I would want to go back to a laptop that lacks this feature. Sometimes it's just really easy and natural to tap or swipe something on the screen rather than moving a cursor to it.
But, they’d need yet ANOTHER operating system for the product you describe (or a roughly 5 year revamp of macOS, optimized somehow for touch without losing the mouse optimization either...with a huge amount of growing pains along the way; as we’ve seen in the MS journey from the painfully bad, Windows 8 experience, to the current Windows 10).
I have no reason to disbelieve Tim, Phil, and Craig- they’ve seemed very logical & earnest the dozens of times they’ve discussed this repeating each time that in all their attempts to marry the two interfaces, they just come up with “Windows 8”... a worse OS for a desktop than Windows 7 was, and about the worst tablet OS imaginable! (not lightweight; needing less resources- which is the FUNDAMENTAL concern in a tablet OS, since they’ll have weaker processors than desktops)
Your lot is calling for the ENTIRE ecosystem to take a hit, usability-wise & GUI-wise, to feed the desire of an incredibly small subset of Mac users.
Ffs, here it is- a flipping product that gives you what you want!
Is there any reason NOT to be satisfied with this new peripheral??
It absolutely MUST be foisted on the rest of us, who don’t want it- for you to be happy??
That doesn't make it a problem. That makes it a design by choice with Apple. It would Only be a problem if Apple implemented a touchscreen for macOS and realized later it was a failure or a poor implementation By design.
Such a shame they didn't ask you - they could have saved a lot of time and money. I'm sure that if you let them know, they'll take it off the market. Make sure you also tell anyone who has bought it and is using it, so that they can see that they are wrong and return it.
(Quick rule of thumb - if someone makes a product and someone else buys it - then someone finds it useful).
Ah yes the whole "if someone buys it, it must be useful to someone" argument. You do understand that loads of people buy things without knowing its usefulness, right? There are thousands of products which people buy every day that are useless unbeknownst to them. You can literally buy a pack of "nothing" online, it's literally packaging with nothing inside, yet people still buy it.
I've yet to find anyone here who actually gains anything from this product...
[doublepost=1500460694][/doublepost]
So let's hear its usefulness, go on, give me something that this AirBar's "touch screen" will beat the trackpad in
looks like this particular solution sucks a bit - but i'd like apple to build touchscreen-function ootb into their macs. not for use as a main input device - because you'd get arm-fatigue, and osx is not really built for this - but just for the occasions, when you reach for the screen and nothing happens (just ask every two-year-old). makes as much sense or non-sense as that touch-bar nobody asked for.
