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Concept Imagines What a Dynamic OLED Touch Panel Could Look Like on a MacBook Pro

Its kinda the HPrization or Dellirization of the Mac.

The concepts looks good though, I just hope Apple surprises us with a delightful presentation of it in a way that makes us wonder how we ever lived without it. The company has made some underwhelming decisions, I think the majority consensus on the Retina MacBook is, not many users like the one USB C or butterfly keyboard or the 480p camera or the slow processor.

So there is always a possibility of this going down hill.
 
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The Doctor11 said:
It seems that a lot of people in this thread really like this. But I'm struggling to realize why. I don't really see the benefit of having information displayed on the keyboard. What would really be the benefit of having information placed not the keyboard? I'm already looking at the screen so put stuff there.
Click to expand...

Agreed; precisely why many people consider it a gimmick.
If you usually use the laptop on a stand with an external keyboard, maybe it can be useful.
 
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Col4bin said:
Sweet, now Apple just needs to create a MacBook Pro with full OLED touchscreen display--similar to the MS Surface Pro.
[doublepost=1465514728][/doublepost]
Bingo.

Edit: I was wrong--my apologies. Here's Apple's financial quarters:

Q1: November - January
Q2: February - April
Q3: May - July
Q4: August - October
Click to expand...

That makes sense... it almost MUST make that "back to school" time frame.
 
The only question is 13 or 15 :D?

Touch ID, custom keys for each application, external desktop GPU (even if it's only possible via bootcamp/parallels), and charging from either side are huge upgrades for me. Also, the keyboard may actually end up being great as I love the new magic keyboard because it combines good amount of travel with key stability which I actually like.
 
brunosh said:
It's not just information, it's keys that change on the context of the app. It's like the removal of the physical keyboards on the first iPhone. I can picture this being an awesome feature, let's see how they implement it.
Click to expand...

Isn't that exactly what the LCD screen in front of you is for? To dynamically change information? To use your reference, this is exactly what Steve Jobs pitched about the original iPhone, and if I paraphrase this right, he said that this problem was solved already for decades where UI elements on a desktop computer screen change in order to suit the needs of the app. The difference here is the sizes of the devices that we are comparing between. The large surface area touchscreen is essential over a hard wired keyboard where space is such a luxury on such a small device.

Unless Apple is intending to drop the menu bar and drop down menus entirely in OS X (que the riots), all this information shown in the concept is just straight up redundancy for the sake of something cool looking.

And I won't disagree that the concept looks cool indeed, but I don't see what kind of problem this is fixing at all. I'd like to see what Apple really intends to use it for, instead of simply mimicking UI elements already found in OS X, if true.
 
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I'd prefer a separate OLED within every key on the keyboard, with app-specific layouts.

Is that asking too much?

optimus-aux-front.jpg
 
Wow, this looks really cool. I was hesitant when I read they could possibly be removing the function keys. But seeing this as a substitution would be a great.

Now if Apple would just reduce the bezel size and increase the screen size, so we could get a 16" screen in the same form factor.
 
I know this is a fan mockup, so critique is kinda pointless, but...

A small display below an actual display just seems kind of redundant. Especially if you consider the premise that it's giving you info about the app that you're already in on the main display. Or is it pinned information? And then you have to manage what app is pinned?

Also, I'm not sure the power button should contextually go away...

Anyway, I can see the idea of more dynamic key mappings, but as a general purpose informational screen it just feels like added complexity for the sake of it.
 
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brunosh said:
It's not just information, it's keys that change on the context of the app. It's like the removal of the physical keyboards on the first iPhone. I can picture this being an awesome feature, let's see how they implement it.
Click to expand...
But the buttons can already be made to change in the context of which app it is, its just often not the F keys that change because they're kinda in an odd spot. For example I know that when ever I open photoshop pressing C changes the tool to crop. IMO there simply is no need to have more context keys, any key can already do that. I'd certainly not want this to take the place of the current F row, where I find it quite nice to have volume and brightness no matter what app I'm in.
 
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The Doctor11 said:
It seems that a lot of people in this thread really like this. But I'm struggling to realize why. I don't really see the benefit of having information displayed on the keyboard. What would really be the benefit of having information placed not the keyboard? I'm already looking at the screen so put stuff there.
Click to expand...

That is a good point. I'm also thinking how this is essentially just adding a tad bit more vertical space to the screen. If this keyboard display is 50 pixels tall, for example, I would prefer Apple just added the same 50 pixels to the top of the actual display. I don't care if my display isn't exactly 16:9 - vertical space is nice to have. I actually sort of miss the 4:3 displays.
 
The function keys and the bar on top are super nice, but I want physical buttons for the regular keys.

P.S. With a screen as the keyboard, it reminds me of the Nintendo DS.
 
It looks interesting and oh so fashionable, but not sure how - or if - Apple can get the software to work so it actually adds something useful that's absent now. OLED is also not that durable over the long haul, which makes me think that this (and gobs of glue) will bring this machine one step closer to being a 3 yr throw away device - with much less resale value than current Macs.

Hope I'm wrong but planned obsolescence is written all over this thing. And if Apple doesn't get their act together with their software updates, it could make a great paperweight.
 
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The Doctor11 said:
It seems that a lot of people in this thread really like this. But I'm struggling to realize why. I don't really see the benefit of having information displayed on the keyboard. What would really be the benefit of having information placed not the keyboard? I'm already looking at the screen so put stuff there.
Click to expand...

Jeez. No imagination.
 
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Damn it, I just bought one of the new rMB like a month ago. Looks like that may be going up on Craigslist.
 
tampageek said:
And if Apple doesn't get their act together with their software updates, it could make a great paperweight.
Click to expand...
The world's first paperweight with an OLED touch bar! Innovation, isn't it? Something only Apple can do.

Actually I like it. Though we'll have to see how it will be implemented by Apple.
 
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