Meet the MacBook Pro’s new Touch Bar with TouchID

Apple has announced its newest line of MacBook Pro notebooks, and true to the leaks, it comes with an OLED strip instead of function keys. As the company’s Phil Schiller notes, function keys are a decades-old technology that shouldn’t really have a place in a laptop from 2016. In its place, the company is adding a retina display touchscreen (with multitouch) that it’s calling the Touch Bar. As well as contextual menus that change depending on what app you’re in, the power button on the far right now doubles as a TouchID sensor.

These contextual menus will alter depending on what software you’re using, so when you’re inside Mail, you’ll get dedicated send buttons in the strip. In photo editing, you’ll get basic tools including a rotation slider for making minor adjustments. Of course, should you still require the old-fashioned function keys, that’s still possible too — you just have to hold down the Function key. In the demo so far, it looks as if the escape key will remain a fixture on the top left, which will be handy for those would mourn its passing.

Users will also be able to customize their Touch Bar with specific shortcut keys that relate to specific features. For instance, if you wanted to have a screenshot capability right in the keyboard, you can simply by clicking and dragging that icon to the bar. In many ways, the Touch Bar cribs from iOS, since it offers similar buttons that you will have found on the iPhone and iPad — like FaceTime answer controls.

Apple is also talking about how this new technology will make your computer (and, by extension, your personal information) safer. After all, you can now unlock your MacBook Pro with your fingerprint, which is held in a piece of hardware called the T1 chip. That’s the iPhone-esque secure enclave that, the company promises, will keep your identity and payment details safe from nefarious attackers. TouchID will also enable multiple users to keep their partitions on the device separated, useful for budget-conscious businesses.

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