Apple recently doubled-down on its refusal to add a touchscreen to its MacBook line, but if you’re starting 2017 with a bit of Microsoft Surface envy, you’ll soon be able to turn your MacBook Air’s display into a touchscreen, regardless of what Jony Ive thinks. AirBar is a USB-powered sensor that attaches to the bottom of your screen and enables touch interactions right on the display thanks to the company’s “zForce AIR” light field technology. The company is launching support for the MacBook Air first with support for other models to follow. Interested users can sign up at the company’s website to be notified once pre-orders go live in March. There’s no word on pricing but AirBar already sells a version for Windows laptops for $69.
Check It Out: Defy Apple and Add a Touchscreen to Your MacBook with AirBar
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I think it’d be pretty useful, especially when I’m reading a document. When reading on a Mac, I have to hold my arms uncomfortably close to my body to hit the up and down arrows or click the mouse. On a plane, it’s even worse. It’d be nice to just be able to scroll (and highlight) with the screen.
For experimentation purposes, I loaded a Hackintosh version of the MacOS onto a touchscreen windows AIO PC. I really wanted to get a sense for how touch might work on a Mac, and if it was worth the struggle.
Frankly, the UI on the Mac (arguably the best on the planet) is clearly designed for mouse input, not touch. Unless Apple was willing to rewrite the UI, as Microsoft did with Windows 10, so that it is more useful to fingers, touchscreen on a Mac is not helpful for most everyday users.
Sure there would be some applications in Education and Tourism / Hospitality, but not in general computing.
I assume you have remember to remove it each time you close the lid.