“Putting a little more iOS in macOS, Apple intends introducing a MacBook Pro equipped with a responsive OLED function control strip, according to Bloomberg,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “As described, the new OLED strip replaces the Function control strip you find on current MacBook Pros. What makes the strip interesting is that it will change the keys available to you to reflect the context, so if you are in a movie-editing app you may be presented with a different set of Function keys than you’ll find in iTunes, and these will change again if you enter a different app.”
“The report also claims Touch ID support in these machines. This will enable Apple Pay, online payments and support for third party apps supporting Touch ID authorization,” Evans writes. “Will Apple create API’s to enable Mac support for such features ported over from iOS? Not only this, but is Apple planning to introduce Touch ID support across every Mac, if so, how? (Apple Watch may be one way to enable such features through older Macs).”
“The report adds: ‘The display also allows Apple to add new buttons via software updates rather than through more expensive, slower hardware refreshes,'” Evans writes. “This rather begs the question of what kind of additional control elements the company intends deploying in Macs (A Siri key, for example?)”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We would expect Apple to provide developers with API access to such a touch strip, so developers can make app-specific use of that input area. And, yes, a Siri softkey would be a welcome addition.
These Mac notebooks are going to be very desirable!