Apple Could Add Force Touch Sensors to Future MacBook Pro Touch Bar

[MacRumors]

Apple could add Force Touch sensors to the OLED Touch Bar on a future MacBook Pro if a new patent application by the company ever comes to fruition.

The original Apple Watch was the first device to feature Force Touch, which sensed extra pressure when users pressed firmly on the display, allowing them to access additional content and controls depending on the context.

In 2015, Apple added the haptic feedback technology to the iPhone 6s in the form of 3D Touch, which featured Peek and Pop gestures, and brought Force Touch sensing technology to the MacBook Pro trackpad the same year.

Perhaps as a result of its lack of discoverability, Apple dropped support for Force Touch on Apple Watch with the release of watchOS 7, and ‌3D Touch‌ went the same way on iPhone when it was replaced by Haptic Touch (aka long press) in the iPhone XR and subsequent models.

• 10 Functions in ‌watchOS 7‌ That Replace Force Touch Features

However, the new patent published by the US Patent & Trademark Office, spotted by Patently Apple, suggests Force Touch could have an expanded role in future on the Mac, with the development of a new pressure-sensitive Touch Bar.

Filed in 2019, the patent is short on finer details, but does offer visual examples of how force-sensing technology would be implemented in a MacBook Touch Bar, with Force Touch circuitry surrounding the touch-sensitive OLED strip.

The Touch Bar for MacBook Pro was introduced in October 2016, with a Touch ID sensor integrated into the power button. The control strip has replaced the top row of function keys on most MacBook Pro models ever since, and its usefulness continues to divide opinion.

Would you be interested in seeing Force Touch added to the Touch Bar, or is it time for Apple to drop the OLED strip altogether and bring back the function keys? Let us know in the comments.

Article Link: Apple Could Add Force Touch Sensors to Future MacBook Pro Touch Bar

 

[Mythos99]

I would really love, if they would make a 16 MBP without the touchbar. Just give the users a choice .

 

[Marbles1]

The Touch Bar would be useful if it somehow had physical buttons - which could dynamically change according to the layout.

Something like this: https://www.yuelilianyuan.com/new-project

Keyboards are best when you don't have to look at them; and when you don't accidentally press buttons.

 

[mattspace]

Woo, strap in folks, the feature noone wants on the Macbook Pro, to get the feature noone cared about on the iPhone.

Michael Jackson, eating popcorn while looking amused.

 

[e1me5]

The 6s came out in 2015.

 

[farewelwilliams]

this should fix my number one problem with touch bar. if it does, keep touchbar. don't remove it, Apple should ignore the complainers IMO. they're wrong.

 

[jonplackett]

There’s this other invention, created a while back but it’s still a goodie.

You press down on it using force, a lot like force touch, except it actually loves, and then something happens. I think it’s called a ‘button’ or sometimes a ‘key’.

 

[goobot]

I would really love, if they would make a 16 MBP without the touchbar. Just give the users a choice .

Or just put both

 

[tobiastimpe]

I just want to be able to buy a MBP again, I really can't use the Touch Bar due to my left hand not being fully functional.

 

[bountyofcolors]

Lipstick on a pig.

 

[ruka.snow]

The only thing I want fixed on the Touch Bar is Safari window previews, they keep overlapping their boxes.

 

[vagos]

I want both the touchbar (meh) and function keys (thing of the past) to be gone from keyboards. 🦕

 

[Atarikid]

I would really love, if they would make a 16 MBP without the touchbar. Just give the users a choice .

Heu... why? If it is there and don't like it .. don't use it. Your choice.
Or are you referring to a lower priced non-touchbar-MBP? That will not happen for sure.

 

[nexusrule]

Woo, strap in folks, the feature noone wants on the Macbook Pro, to get the feature noone cared about on the iPhone.

Michael Jackson, eating popcorn while looking amused.

All major and most minor creative professional apps (design, photo, music, presentations etc.) have implemented the Touch Bar, meaning a lot of professionals use it. In my office a lot of people in product, design and tech roles uses it and find it useful, me included, and we are several thousands people. That a few people don't like it doesn't mean it's "the feature none wants" at all, I mean there are probably like 5x more people that likes it in my office alone than all the detractors of it in this forum...

 

[duanepatrick]

That's a really long slide bar.

 

[MayaTlab]

I doubt that this rumour is of any value, but if it turns out to be true it's one more argument to support the idea that under Tim Cook Apple doesn't understand the value of systematisation of the inputs and feedback mechanisms across their ecosystem (something the Touch Bar made problematic in the first place as even when it was at the design stage Apple already knew that they couldn't systematise it across their entire lineup because of cost and power consumption, just like for force touch for other reasons - it should therefore logically have been axed at this stage of development).
If I'm going to ask the users of the devices I'm putting out to learn new ways of interacting with their devices, I better make sure that I try to make them as consistent as is feasible between them. And developers won't go full-in if they know that only part of their users will have x feature.

 

[icymountain]

If the touchbar was such a wonderful idea, I think the external keyboards would have it by now, almost five years after introduction.

 

[MayaTlab]

If the touchbar was such a wonderful idea, I think the external keyboards would have it by now, almost five years after introduction.

Apple's problem is that it's difficult to do for cost and power consumption reasons. Something they've always known even before laughing the Touch Bar MacBook and yet they went with it.

 

[kstotlani]

The arrogance continues.

 

[Moonjumper]

If the Touch Bar is so great, why is it not on every Mac? As it is only on one machine, it isn’t used in the volumes needed for it to get the attention from developers to make it useful for more than for a niche of users, although I’m not sure if there is a real use for the Touch Bar that is greater than the price increase for it’s inclusion, and the lost utility of the missing function keys.

 

[BYTE RIDER]

The Touch Bar would be useful if it somehow had physical buttons - which could dynamically change according to the layout.

Something like this: https://www.yuelilianyuan.com/new-project

Keyboards are best when you don't have to look at them; and when you don't accidentally press buttons.

Or like this! http://hight3ch.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/optimuskey.jpg

 

[and 1989 others]

I doubt they will inplement old iphone tech on new MacBooks. They probably patented it, because that is what Apple does.

 

[ArPe]

Long touch to spring loaded options.

 

[TheAustrianGuy]

Apple could also „add a coffee machine to its top line Macs“.
I know this is MacRUMORS. But some speculation is plain silly.

 

[felixen]

Woo, strap in folks, the feature noone wants on the Macbook Pro, to get the feature noone cared about on the iPhone.

Michael Jackson, eating popcorn while looking amused.

Just saying, 3D Touch on iPhone X is part of my motivation for still using it. Emphasis on “part” - in other words, it makes my decision to skip the new stuff every year a bit easier. There are a lot of people on here who loved 3D Touch