The top two tiers of Apple’s newest MacBook Pros have one hell of an eye-catching feature: a touchscreen that runs across the top of the entire keyboard. Known as “Touch Bar,” it changes dynamically depending on whatever application is being used at the time. (Example: type out a text in iMessage and Touch Bar will give you an interactive row of emoji to choose from!) Apple showed off a handful of Touch Bar demos on stage today, but the most curious came from Karim Morsy, CEO of Algoriddim. He used Touch Bar to control his company’s Djay Pro app. As far as Apple event demos go, it fell a little flat. (You can watch it above.)
Early impressions of the Touch Bar from our team on the ground in Cupertino are good. But exactly how useful Touch Bar will be for professionals is hard to discern, especially when they tend to already own accessories that enable the fine control. Professional DJs are a great example — there’s an extremely deep market for DJ equipment, peripherals, and accessories.
At the very least, Touch Bar will probably help in a pickle
Still, Touch Bar will probably get the job done if you find yourself in a pickle. You can’t have those peripherals with you all the time, right? And, after all, isn’t the modern DJ just a ronin wandering the land in search of a club or bar that needs someone to remix the latest Weeknd single with the Aladdin soundtrack?
Okay I clearly have no idea what DJs are like. But since Apple neglected to give us a good reason for a DJ to use Touch Bar, we decided to dream up a few situations where one might actually need it:
- When you’re at an airport during an extended flight delay
- When you’re stuck in an elevator for a few hours
- When you’re stuck in a really long drive thru line
- When you’re waiting in line to vote on November 8th
- If you’re this guy
When your social media manager tells you she needs a great backing track for this really funny VineActually, never mind- If you find yourself seven inches from the midday sun and need a banger
- Earth has been selected for an interplanetary music competition and you have to create a hit song on the spot
- You need to demonstrate the functionality of Touch Bar on stage at an Apple event
