Is the touch bar on the new MacBook Pro a revolutionary experience or just a waste of time?

For the quiet PC industry, the two press conferences held by Microsoft and Apple this week have brought a lot of topics to talk about: especially Microsoft's "accidental" release of an all-in-one computer, Surface Studio; and Apple's "unsurprising" upgrade of the MacBook Pro, adding a Touch Bar to replace the traditional function keys. This can be said to be a relatively important change for the Mac series, which has not had much upgrade or change in 2 years. After all, this is the 25th anniversary of the Mac series of notebooks.

However, the industry is more concerned about whether this functional change can really stimulate consumers to shift their focus to the PC industry again. There are already many rumors that the PC industry is in a cold winter and has become a sunset industry, and from the data, PC sales have been declining.

Is the touch bar on the new MacBook Pro a revolutionary experience or just a waste of time?

In fact, for Apple, although the Mac series is not the main revenue contributor, Apple’s latest financial report shows that Mac shipments and revenue have declined most seriously, and Apple urgently needs a product that can re-stimulate users’ purchasing desire.

Is the Touch Bar a waste of time or a revolutionary experience?

Apple's press conference was not long. In addition to introducing some iOS 10 activated users and Apple TV, the press conference directly cut to the point: the new generation of MacBook Pro. Cook said that this week is the most important week for Apple, as it is the 25th anniversary of Apple's first Apple laptop. Therefore, the Mac notebook series, which has not undergone much innovation and change for more than two years, has undergone a major upgrade.

The biggest highlight and change is the design of the touch bar. The new generation of MacBook is equipped with a touch bar to completely replace the traditional function keys. Apple named this design "Touch Bar", which can be touched and dragged at will. Consumers can also customize its function buttons, and add the Touch ID function, which can perform fingerprint recognition and payment operations.

In addition, the MacBook Pro has become thinner, lighter, smaller, and has upgraded configurations. What consumers are most interested in is the appearance of the "Touch Bar". The design of this feature slightly comforts the regret of not being able to experience the touch screen of Apple notebooks.

For consumers, the "Touch Bar" can improve the efficiency of switching between full-screen apps and enable fingerprint payment on computers. For Apple, which has been promoting Apple Pay, it has achieved another product extension. The industry believes that the emergence of the Touch Bar has brought Apple into a new dimension of interaction between notebooks and people.

However, some consumers believe that the functional design of the touch bar is too useless, the traditional function keys are not used very frequently, and the touch bar cannot bring a more revolutionary experience.

In fact, the touch bar feature used on the MacBook Pro is not Apple's first. Two years ago, Lenovo used a virtual function keyboard on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, but due to severe complaints, Lenovo abandoned this feature a year later. Apple's "touch bar" has a more extreme experience than Lenovo's previous design, which is also what Apple excels at. Whether this change of Apple can be accepted by consumers or whether it is another useless design remains to be tested by the market.

Apple urgently needs a product to boost the Mac market

Whether the market will accept it is crucial for Apple now, and also for the current PC market.

Data from Gartner shows that PC shipments in the third quarter of 2016 were 68.9 million units, down 5.7% year-on-year. In the same period of 2015, PC shipments were approximately 73 million units, a slight decline from the previous quarter. This marked eight consecutive quarters of decline and also set a record for the longest period of continuous decline in the history of the PC market.

The PC winter theory and the argument that the PC has become a sunset industry are all the rage. In order to arouse consumers' enthusiasm for purchasing, PC manufacturers have also put a lot of thought into it, and various forms of notebooks have appeared: two-in-one, convertible notebooks, etc. There are also some new manufacturers coming in, such as Huawei's MateBook and Xiaomi's notebook. The industry also hopes that new elements and manufacturers will come in to break the stagnation of the PC.

Lenovo's Tong Fuyao also believes that consumers like new things. This comes from the continuous changes of manufacturers and new entrants. More importantly, it is an expectation for new products. The PC industry hopes that a hundred flowers will bloom, but in the end, the strong will survive.

For Apple, the new MacBook Pro also shoulders an important mission. iPhone sales and revenue, which account for more than half of Apple's revenue, are declining, especially in the Chinese market, where it is impacted by domestic mobile phone manufacturers Huawei, OPPO and vivo. Apple's innovation ability has been questioned by the outside world. Although the Mac series is not a major contributor to revenue, as one of Apple's "three major items", if it continues to decline, it will also drag down Apple's market.

According to Apple's latest financial report, Mac shipments in the fourth quarter were 4.886 million units, down 14% from 5.709 million units in the same period last year. Revenue from Mac was $5.739 billion, down 17% year-on-year. Among Apple's three major products: iPhone, Mac and iPad, Mac has declined the most. Moreover, according to statistics from authoritative market research institutions such as IDC, Apple's personal computer sales plummeted by 13%, ranking first among major computer manufacturers. Therefore, Apple urgently needs a product to boost the downward trend.

Whether the new MacBook Pro can take on this important task depends on whether consumers buy into the new feature of the touch bar. In particular, Microsoft has also released a series of new hardware products, and they have received good reviews, which puts a lot of pressure on the new Mac.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.