After seven unhappy years, Apple has lastly killed the MacBook Professional with Contact Bar. What might have been an iconic mark for Apple turned a PR disaster till the corporate moved away from this design totally when it launched the M1 Professional and M1 Max MacBook Professional fashions.
Of all the issues these Macs had, I can guarantee you it wasn’t the Contact Bar’s fault – or at the very least when Apple lastly launched a model of this product with a bodily ESC button, every little thing was excellent for me.
Throughout the seven years of Contact Bar, I owned the 2017 MacBook Professional 13″ and the 2019 MacBook Professional 16″ – earlier than I moved to the M1 Professional MacBook Professional. Whereas utilizing these machines, the characteristic I beloved probably the most was the power to shortly reply with any emoji from this OLED bar or management the music taking part in, show brightness, and extra with the Contact Bar.
Mainly, every little thing I might do with the perform keys I used to be doing with the Contact Bar, and it felt so technological and futuristic. That stated, I perceive that builders and different professionals actually relied on the bodily perform keys, however, for me, it was well worth the change.
That stated, of all the problems these MacBook Professional fashions had, I can guarantee you that Contact Bar was simply high quality.
The downfall of the previous MacBook Professional
Regardless of the Contact Bar, these have been the primary points the previous technology of MacBook Professional had, and Apple nearly solved all issues all through these fashions:
- Lack of bodily ESC key – which was solved
- Poor high quality FaceTime digicam – solely solved with the M1 Professional MacBook Professional
- Butterfly keyboard – solved with the 2019 MacBook Professional
- Lack of ports – solely solved with the M1 Professional MacBook Professional
- No MagSafe charger – solely solved with the M1 Professional MacBook Professional
With that in thoughts, it’s not that the Contact Bar was dangerous, however every little thing else on these computer systems didn’t assist. If Apple have been so as to add the Contact Bar to this technology, I really feel prefer it may very well be well-received – however the firm would want to push builders to combine this panel into their apps as soon as extra, as Cupertino failed to do this the final time.
Wrap up
I beloved utilizing the Contact Bar on the MacBook Professional, and it’s unhappy to see it go. Nonetheless, I really feel like Apple is lastly listening to its clients with the most recent high-end fashions, and I hope the corporate retains following this pattern.
