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'The MacBook Pro's One-Year-Old Signature Feature Touch Bar Has No Future, But Users Are Required To Pay a Premium For It' (chuqui.com)

Posted by msmash on from the reality-check dept.

Chuq Von Rospach, a former Apple employee and commentator, has criticized the MacBook-maker to force consumers to pay extra for the Touch Bar -- a signature feature of the last year's MacBook Pro lineup -- in order to have the highest-end MacBook Pro currently available. He writes: The current [MacBook Pro] line forces users to pay for the Touch Bar on the higher end devices whether they want it or not, and that's a cost users shouldn't need to pay for a niche technology without a future. So Apple needs to either roll the Touch Bar out to the entire line and convince us we want it, or roll it back and offer more laptop options without it. [...] So what's the future of the Touch Bar? I don't know. I'm not sure Apple does, either. I was fascinated that when Apple released the iMacs earlier this year not one word was mentioned about the Touch Bar or Touch ID and support for them via an updated keyboard or trackpad was nowhere to be found. I'm taking that as an indication that after the lackluster response to this with the laptop releases, they've gone back to the drawing board a bit before rolling it out further.

3 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Nothing has really changed... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apple has always made its customers pay for high-end features that they did not want.

    I agree. Back when I owned Macs it was sad to see how many features they forced down our throats.

    First it was USB. They took away my awesome ADB, Modem and Printer ports.

    Then they added Gigabit ethernet to all of their machines.

    Finally they shoved out this thing they called 'Airport' back when I was happy dragging around my 10-BaseT ethernet cord around the dorm room.

  2. Former employee by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I know why he is a former employee: he lacked Courage.

  3. Click-Bait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    This post is 100% Click-Bait. No where in the article did the author say anything remotely like the headline for this post. So why is it in quotes? Author was actually pretty neutral overall. Said he wants to give the touchbar more time to develop and would either make it ubiquitous among all macs or optional on high end.