[kscherer]

While making the "Magic Keyboard with TouchBar" a Mac Pro thing in order to drive a sense of "cool and cadillac-y" might sound cool, it would not work. How many $6000+ Mac Pro's is anyone expecting Apple to sell? 10 million?!

No.

They might sell 50,000 or maybe a touch more, but that's going to be it. A large chunk of those will be upgraded systems and will run into the tens of thousands of dollars. While there is a market for these things, that market is not very large at all.

So, what "killer app" is going to be sold to 50,000-ish people that is going to make everyone want to run out and grab a Mac Pro? The answer is: There isn't one. You think some advancement in Garageband is going to drive people to rush to the Mac Pro? Hardly. And a big niche company like Avid isn't going to sell any additional software because of the Touch Bar.

I say all of that under the following context: A keyboard like this thing you ask for would cost many millions of dollars to develop and build. That development cost would have to be added into the cost of the Mac Pro, which would likely add $500 or more to its cost. Mac Pro buyers might not even shiver at such things, but it would not be the reason that anyone bought one (except maybe that one rich kid who has all the cool things that nobody likes).

With such few numbers out there, what software company is going to say, "Oh, yeah, that's just we were waiting for to launch this super expensive, cool new app! 50,000 customers! Woot!"? It's already not being driven by top-selling laptops.

No, the Mac Pro will not be the driver of that sort of tech, which is why TouchBar exists where it does: On a device that has a built-in power supply. You see, all that fancy OLED screen/Fingerprint thingy requires a lot of internal tech. The TouchBar isn't just some lit up row of buttons. It's a highly advanced system driven by Apple's T2 chip, which is itself part of a larger system. Sure, it might be easy, and it might not draw much power, but my gut tells me that neither of those things is true. It is very difficult, and it draws way more power than a simple keyboard. And in a standalone device like a wireless keyboard, the battery is going to have to be much larger, the security tech is going to have to be much more advanced (the T2 will have to communicate over wireless, and that will create security issues—although I suspect Apple could use the same sort of encription they use with iMessage, but how much would that cost to implement, in both software and hardware?), and the cost is likely going to be $500 or more. That's a stiff price to pay for a keyboard. Hell, even at $300 there will not be very many takers (many of our customer already balk at the $30 upgrade cost for the extended keyboard). And to come with an iMac, the cost will have to rise by that much—or by $250 at least—which will turn off a lot of customers.

In the Mac Pro, the audience is too small and what Touch Bar does isn't driving any innovative features even at the high end, so it isn't going to sell any additional systems. On the low end, the cost will be too high for the majority of customers to justify.

There's a reason why the fool thing doesn't exist yet (or, I should say, reasons).

—

As for haptic touch in the MBP, I see no reason why that cannot be implemented, other than because it's really hard to do. All of the hardware is in there (excepting, of course, pressure sensors in the bar itself). I'm guessing there are several reasons: The software is more difficult than we think, what with sliders and buttons and such. I know from using an iPhone X that the haptic business isn't all that special and Apple cannot seem to figure out what they want to do with it and when it should be invoked. The Touch Bar would add several levels of additional complexity because the system has to sort out when there is a button press vs. a finger just sliding over the surface looking for a button to press vs. actually trying to slide a slider. I suspect it's not easy to do. Right now, the system accepts only touch and slide. There is no "press". Next, the hardware seems difficult to me. The Force Touch trackpad has sensors in each corner, but there aren't really "corners" on the Touch Bar, at least not corners that would generate accurate pressure data from, say, the center of the bar. Thus, there have to be far more pressure sensors spread out, and they cannot be the "touch and press and hold" things that are used in the iPhone and Trackpad. These buttons have to fire immediately, while still being sensitive to differing levels of pressure, and must feel natural—which is the biggest difficulty (hardware wise)—with haptics.

Before you say "just implement it in software", I would say, "not so fast!" Why? Because the electro-magnetic hammer in the MacBook Pro is down under the trackpad, far away from the TouchBar. Haptics feel very natural with the trackpad, and I suspect that is because the "button" is directly beneath the area you are pressing. Same with the Watch and iPhone. But on the Pro, the "button" would be "way over there" and I suspect it wouldn't feel natural. Thus, the need for an additional hammer in an area of the computer currently occupied by GPU, CPU, fan, etc. Effectively, the further away you move from the "button" the less natural it feels, and thus the need for more "buttons". It gets complicated quickly.

In other words, it's very hard to do and make it "feel" right.

—

Now, add all that to a wireless keyboard and the level of complexity skyrockets. This stuff isn't as easy to implement as "why haven't they done this yet?"

I want both devices. I want haptics in the Touch Bar, and I want a wireless Touch Bar keyboard. Neither is coming anytime soon.