The Touch Bar was wrong. It was bad design that attempted to replace the function keys with a tiny OLED display. Initially, it even replaced Escape key. Apple did not enhance the functionality or features and was fully committed to its use for autocomplete while typing and third-party support was also limited. Emojis tho, bro.
Apple’s Touch Bar Era is officially over. We should not forget how the Mac was downgraded by these changes:
- Unreliable keyboards felt awful to use.
- SD card slot was stolen from us.
- Web cam did not improve for years.
- HDMI port was dropped.
- MagSafe was removed.
And the changes around the Touch Bar were even more devastating. Beyond forcing us into what I’d often called dongle hell, the ARM-based T1 and T2 chips ran the finnicky BridgeOS, causing kernel panics and worsening system stability. The keyboard design was foiled by dust and inspired a class action lawsuit. In Apple’s quest for thin and light, the cooling system was compromised to the point that some i7s were no better than i5s due to thermal throttling.
These issues have mostly been resolved by Apple Silicon Macs. And Apple has addressed nearly every complaint we had in the Touch Bar era by finally giving us the M1 Pro in 14″ and 16″ variations. The chassis was thicker, the keyboard had deeper, more satisfying travel, and the function keys came back. And then Jony Ive was dismissed from Apple.
But many users are still trapped in Touch Bar era. Apple knows this and wants them to switch. The cooling and keyboard are renewed, the SD card slot, HDMI is back, and even MagSafe lives again! This new design is an apology for Jony Ive’s Touch Bar. Part of the problem is that it took ~6 years for the wealthiest company in the world to fix it. Why did it take so long? Why was Apple so committed to these problematic designs? Had Jony Ive become too powerful?
We like the M1 and M1 Pro. Even in base forms, they offer compelling performance and killer battery life. The M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max may be faster, but for users who are already running Apple Silicon, there don’t appear to be any functional benefits. Gaming doesn’t count. It really doesn’t. And giving Myst as a game example is laughable.
Apple has released Apple Silicon-exclusive hardware in the form of the external Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, but that’s not enough. Apple needs to provide a new, more compelling piece of hardware that will only work with Apple Silicon for technical reasons rather than software-based locking. There needs to be a new type of device for which Apple can guarentee reliable mass production, something at a lower price point than Apple Vision, and something that is dependent on the technical abilities of the of this new processor architecture. Where is it, Apple?