I thought some might be interested in this article with more details on the new
Touch Bar.
Mary
New MacBook Pro Touch Bar details: UI interactions, screen specs, Control
Strip, and how third party apps can use it
9to5Mac / Benjamin Mayo
The flagship feature of the new MacBook Pro is the Touch Bar, an OLED display
strip that replaces the physical row of function keys. This adds a dynamic zone
to top of the keyboard where apps can display custom buttons, sliders, switches
and scrubbers to enhance the MacBook experience while adding a new way to
interact with Mac applications beyond text input and mouse pointers.
How does the Touch Bar interface work? What is the resolution of the Touch Bar?
What is the Control Strip? What can third-party developers do with the Touch
Bar? Read on for all the answers and more …
First things first, the Touch Bar is exclusive to the higher-end 13-inch and
15-inch MacBook Pro models. If you want the Touch Bar, you must have a new
MacBook Pro.
And right now, those models are on one-month backorder so this requires a bit
of imagination. Assuming you unwrap a MacBook Pro for the first time, how
exactly does the Touch Bar interface work in practice?
General Interface and Control Strip
The Touch Bar offers quick access to functions provided by applications and by
the system. The main interface is split into three distinct sections: the area
for app controls, the Control Strip and a system button. The system button is
controlled by macOS Sierra and displays a Cancel, Done or virtual ‘esc’ key
where necessary. It may be the death of the physical esc key but the operating
system guarantees that a virtual button will always be available.
In the middle is the ‘app region’ which is controlled by the currently active
app (the one whose name is displayed on the menu bar). If you are on the
desktop, this is just going to be a blank space. When you click into an app or
select a file, it will light up with contextual buttons and actions.
What about the media keys and brightness controls? These are contained within
the Control Strip. This is another element controlled by the system and it is a
persistent tray on the right hand side with buttons to access sliders for
brightness and volume, mute and Siri. This tray is expandable (or collapsible)
so you can dedicate more screen real estate of the Touch Bar to app content if
you want to. If you hold down the function key, the Touch Bar transforms into a
virtual set of normal function keys. This behavior is configurable in the
preferences.
Touch Bar Tech Specs
The Touch Bar is a 10-point multitouch touch screen located above the keyboard,
replacing the function keys on existing Mac keyboards. It’s also the same
approximate physical size as the row of keys it replaces, a skinny height
rectangle spanning the full width of the keyboard. In technical terms, the
display is 2170×60 pixels. Details on what drives the Touch Bar are not
entirely clear but Apple says it has a custom T1 chip to power the Touch ID and
Apple Pay features (it seems like the T1 is actually a mini Apple Watch SoC.)
The Touch Bar is a @2x Retina display, which makes an effective screen
resolution of 1085 x 30 points for content display. Essentially, there is no
meaningful concept of a Y-axis when interacting with display — controls always
take up the full height. The display also supports a P3 wide color space, just
like the primary MacBook Pro display and the new iPhone 7. This means apps can
make buttons appear on the Touch Bar with strikingly vibrant and saturated
colors.
Developer API
The Touch Bar is supported by a comprehensive API for third-party developers to
add rich controls and interface elements for their apps, in the same way Apple
has done for its own stock apps like Safari and Mail. Typically, initial
iterations of third-party developer integration from Apple are limited and
simplified, and then slowly expand in capability with future versions. The
Touch Bar API is not that, its first version features a very detailed,
customizable and intricate set of APIs.
Developers have full control over what buttons and views they want to show and
how the buttons are displayed. Apple includes a handful of template controls
for consistency between apps but the API enables developers to create
truly-unique controls for their individual needs as well. The main constraint
is that the Touch Bar is very skinny and UI can only be shown in a single
horizontal row (side scrolling is possible).
Developers can display pretty much whatever they want whilst their app is in
the foreground; this includes swapping out views and buttons depending on the
current window of their app (a compose window necessitates different Touch Bar
accessory views than the inbox window). However, the Touch Bar does not allow
persistent widgets, status items or similar features like always-visible news
tickers. These constraints are unlikely to be lifted either; Apple is imposing
the restriction so that the UI under the user’s finger isn’t constantly
changing due to spurious notifications or text messages.
Apple wants the bar to display peaceful relatively-static UI based on the
current task. Major changes to the Bar should only happen when the application
state drastically changes, such as opening a new tab or beginning a new modal
activity. To repeat: once an app’s window is not active, it loses its control
to influence what is shown on the Bar. The system Control Strip sits to the
right in a collapsed state by default, but can be disabled entirely in System
Preferences if desired.
The API also allows developers to make more controls than they might want to
show at any one time, enabling users to customise their toolbar layouts with
options and commands that are most interesting and relevant to them.
Touch Bar Controls
Apple allows apps to make custom views to display unique content but it
provides a rich set of base elements too. Here’s a look at the Apple stock
controls, to give an idea about what kind of interactions are possible. There
are buttons, toggles, multi-option collapsible pickers, segmented controls and
sliders.
There is also the concept of popovers which temporarily swap out the toolbar
with a modal view. For instance, the emoji picker is a character viewer modal
view — a scrolling list of emoji symbols. Apple also has a color picker modal
to select colors from a rainbow spectrum strip.
Combining all of these elements together creates the rich interactions. Marc
Edwards produced a nice image showing a plethora of Touch Bar states for apps
that Apple showed in the keynote itself, showing how all the controls come
together to customize the experience for every app. Microsoft also showed some
good examples of using the Touch Bar with the Office suite, where the buttons
naturally gel with Office iconography and tools.
Design Guidelines
Although Apple cannot enforce Mac apps outside of the App Store to comply with
any guidelines, it is providing documentation to encourage good practice and
consistent experiences. The design documentation is comprehensive and can be
read in full here if you are interested. In summary, the Touch Bar should feel
as responsive as an iPhone to the touch and blend in with the rest of the
keyboard as much as possible. The OLED display provides incredibly high
contrast to make the black backgrounds of the bar mirror the black physical
keys.
The display supports wide color but Apple is generally discouraging the use of
bright colors and imagery apart from where it is essential … although Apple
isn’t exactly leading by example here with the Siri button.
I wish Apple would stop insisting the Siri icon on the Mac has to be
full-colour when all the icons around it are monochrome glyphs.
pic.twitter.com/SXraaXM4B1
— Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) October 28, 2016
Another interesting point is that the Touch Bar should not be the only place to
be able to perform a feature of an app. In fact, developers don’t get to know
if the Touch Bar is present or in use at all. What this means is that the Mac
app toolbars and controls visible on the primary display will not change in the
presence of the toolbar.
The reason behind this decision is the simple fact that the Touch Bar is not
available on most Macs or external keyboards so it can’t be a mandatory part of
the experience. Apple is positioning the Touch Bar as an additive improvement,
a bit like 3D Touch Peek & Pop on the iPhone.
In the same way, Apple is discouraging duplication of functionality where
possible; they don’t want developers to show things just for the sake of it.
The guidelines also say to avoid showing ‘well-known’ keyboard shortcuts like
cut/copy/paste as it’s assumed everyone will still want to do basic shortcuts
like that ‘the old way’ using Cmd+X, Cmd+C, and Cmd+V.
Summary
In summary, Apple has introduced a very powerful Touch Bar in its first
iteration with comprehensive developer integration for the currently-focused
app.
The Touch Bar is really interesting but time will tell if it becomes an
essential part of the Mac, so much that you would miss it if it wasn’t there.
Customers will start getting their hands on the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in
the next couple of weeks, as the products are already backordered around the
world. What do you think of Apple’s latest interface innovation? Let us know
your impressions of the Touch Bar in the comments below.
Guides
MacBook
View THe Guide
MacBook Pro
Apple's high-performance laptop line was introduced in 2006 and was the first
laptop of Apple's lineup to have an Intel chip. The pro lineup were also the
first to get backlit keyboards, unibody aluminum construction, and the
combined, glass, trackpad.
View THe Guide
MacBook Pro (2016)
Apple is rumored to debut a new MacBook Pro in late 2016
View THe Guide
Original Article:
https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/28/new-macbook-pro-touch-bar-details-ui-interactions-screen-specs-control-strip-and-how-third-party-apps-can-use-it/
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