Touch Bar Fully Discontinued on New MacBooks After Seven Years

[MacRumors]

Just over seven years after it was introduced, the Touch Bar has now been fully discontinued on all new MacBooks sold by Apple, marking the end of an era for a hardware feature that was loved by some users and derided by others.

The first MacBook Pro models with the Touch Bar were released in October 2016, as part of a controversial redesign that also included a defective butterfly keyboard and the removal of many ports, including an SD card slot, HDMI, and MagSafe. Physical function and Esc keys were also removed in favor of the Touch Bar.

Apple initially described the Touch Bar as a "revolutionary" and "breakthrough" interface, but it was clearly not popular enough to stick around.

It was a slow death for the Touch Bar:

• In 2019, Apple released the first 16-inch MacBook Pro with a physical Esc key, but the Touch Bar lived on in place of physical function keys.
• In 2021, Apple removed the Touch Bar from higher-end MacBook Pro models, switching back to full-size physical function keys.
• This week, Apple discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the final model with a Touch Bar.

For now, the Touch Bar can still be found on some refurbished models sold by Apple.

It's possible that the Touch Bar could return at some point in the future, especially if the 13-inch MacBook Pro is ever re-released as a lower-cost model, but at this point there is no firm evidence to suggest this will happen.

Article Link: Touch Bar Fully Discontinued on New MacBooks After Seven Years

 

[abatabia]

I thought it was so cool…..until it wasn’t. I bet we will be reading a similar article about Dynamic Island in a few years too.

 

[Howard Ellacott]

I still love my Touch Bar, wonder if they’d released it with a physical escape key to start with and properly updated it with software and rolled it to desktops if it would still be here

 

[ThomasJL]

Good riddance. Now if only Apple could also get rid of rounded corners on displays, notches, and Dynamic Notchland...

 

[RigSatMe]

Touch Bar was most effective. For instance, tagging folder was just a breeze.

 

[fel10]

good night sweet prince

 

[wegster]

Good riddance to it and to Ives; just lol on 'could return again' - WHY?

If they wanted to do something useful, they could do the same functions (although hopefully better) in the trackpad along with accepting pencil input on the trackpad, and allow the user to disable it all together. Not sure it'd even be worth the cost, but there have been times I wish I could even just sign a document on my touchpad sanely (i.e. with Pencil, not a finger).

 

[oldmacs]

I hate the Touch Bar but I know some loved it - I always thought it should have been retained as an option for the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros - that way everyone would have been happy.

 

[flybass]

Rest in pieces touch bar. It was the reason I didn’t upgrade my Mac for 9 years

 

[wegster]

I still love my Touch Bar, wonder if they’d released it with a physical escape key to start with and properly updated it with software and rolled it to desktops if it would still be here

Possibly. Lack of physical ESC key was my biggest gripe on it that made me hate the thing.
I know others have different reasons, and certainly I'm not a fan of 'let Jony make everything thinner for worse thermals and removing useful ports' era, but - maybe.

I found myself rarely but occasionally using the Touch Bar. Primarily as much of the time I'm connected to external kb, mouse, displays, etc. I think some of the issue is devs needed to code for it specifically, versus for example, giving it the ability to mimic the various menubar widgets, or automatically parse the menubar options if no app specific code were given.

I'd be ok if it came back (leaving ESC key separate) although I wouldn't pay extra for it, and would prefer to see it move to the trackpad along with pencil support and the ability to disable it entirely.

 

[oofio2461]

nice, but the replacement was too expensive, $1600 should have been 16Gb Ram.

 

[tomtad]

I'd be ok if it came back (leaving ESC key separate) although I wouldn't pay extra for it, and would prefer to see it move to the trackpad along with pencil support and the ability to disable it entirely

I’m with you here. I always felt it was in the wrong place up at the top of the keyboard. Something around the trackpad and easily tappable would be more useful.

I also think it being limited to only the higher end MacBook Pro models, and of course no desktops, hindered its adoption.

 

[swester]

Phew - a victory for tactile buttons! Now if we can get auto manufacturers to figure out the same lesson...

 

[no-reply]

The ultimate YouTube ad skipper - 7 years, unbeaten by Google. That's always going to hold a special place in my respect.

It wasn't useful for anyone who knew keyboard shortcuts, but it also wasn't such a big deal to ignore either. Anybody angry over it should seek help.

 

[seinman]

Am I the only one who likes and uses the touch bar? Guess I'm holding on to my 2018 MBP longer than I thought.

 

[clibinarius]

I thought it was so cool…..until it wasn’t. I bet we will be reading a similar article about Dynamic Island in a few years too.

We won’t be because Dynamic Island is a software way of hiding the cutouts, and it isn’t a piece of hardware replacing a whole role of useful keys. Dynamic Island is a compromise and sorta…worthless beyond aesthetics. It’s not intended to be permanent-unlike the touch bar it is pretty much a bandaid until they get better tech. Although I can see them shutting the pixels over the cameras in the future, so it might remain for certain features but ultimately in reverse (instead of hiding the camera, it might be used to push the camera forward!).

The Touch Bar deserved to die. Not because it was bad although the implementation was a bad joke like 3D Touch (Apple couldn’t sell it to third party vendors and seemed mostly incompetent at selling it to ordinary consumers, although that was there), but because those MacBook pros were so poorly designed that they had a tendency to break easily (not because the Touch Bar). It’s a great thing that Apple is burying Jony Ive’s last “brilliant” but unchecked and stupid idea. Jony was great with limits but terrible without them.

 

[GuruZac]

I am wondering if Dynamic Island will suffer the same fate as 3D Touch and Touch Bar. My 15 Pro Max is my introduction to Dynamic Island and I really like the UI and how it’s utilized but feel there’s so much more that could be done, plus far more apps could take advantage.

 

[Stiksi]

Good riddance to it and to Ives; just lol on 'could return again' - WHY?

If they wanted to do something useful, they could do the same functions (although hopefully better) in the trackpad along with accepting pencil input on the trackpad, and allow the user to disable it all together. Not sure it'd even be worth the cost, but there have been times I wish I could even just sign a document on my touchpad sanely (i.e. with Pencil, not a finger).

Or just accept that a touch screen mac is the way forward. This is exactly the same as Jobs saying the finger is the best stylus. Fingers are good for lots of things but you also need the stylus. Now Apple is dying on the no touch screen macs hill because they can’t figure out what the iPad’s special sauce should be. They’re stuck in ”it’s not a phone but it’s not a mac” mode.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Back to boring, physical buttons. Yuck.

 

[zkap]

It's a pity there will no longer be a model with the TouchBar, I love it on my M1 MBP and I use it all the time. Not the Apple defaults, I installed BetterTouchTool and customized the TouchBar to have all of the buttons and sliders I use all the time, it made using the laptop easier and more enjoyable for me. I'll probably miss it when I upgrade in a few years.

 

[Konigi]

I still love my Touch Bar, wonder if they’d released it with a physical escape key to start with and properly updated it with software and rolled it to desktops if it would still be here

Exactly! I'm in the few who loved it, and will miss it. But they stopped updating it (even Apple apps such as AppleTV and AppleNews have not fully integrated its capabilities). There is a missed potential here. Highlighting and noting PDFs, deleting files, etc, was faster with this. I guess I'll get used to use a MBP without one.

 

[roncron]

I was excited to buy the first MBP with a touch bar. It seemed like it might be a really cool innovation.

I experimented with it a lot, but never found use cases for it that benefited my work flows.

Meantime, I frequently accidentally grazed the touch bar when typing in the top row of keys, which activated things like launching the Music app. It was annoying.

Plus, I never warmed up to the butterfly keyboard. I really loved the keyboard on 2015 & earlier Macs, and was thrilled in 2020 when Apple brought the magic keyboard back to the macbook air & pro.

I know a lot of folks here find the Touch Bar useful and like it, and I'm sorry for them that it's going away. I personally won't miss it.

 

[winxmac]

TouchID - introduced in 2013 iPhone 5s, last flagship to have it is the 2017 iPhone 8 series, still available on iPhone SE 2020 and SE 2022
Touch Bar - introduced in 2016 MacBook Pro and no longer included in Pro models announced in Oct 30 2023
Dynamic Island - introduced in 2022 iPhone 14 Pro series, will it get discontinued like the others?

 

[nvmls]

Bury that abomination deep Apple.

 

[Marbles1]

I would pay... some money for a snap in row of physical function keys for my 13" MacBook Pro 2020. It's perfect in every other way. but now the Touch Bar has started flickering and it's out of warranty.