![mac touch bar extensions mac touch bar extensions](https://spin.atomicobject.com/wp-content/uploads/20180104185658/1-yeoman-590x352.png)
The touchbar isn't even an Apple original, the Thinkpad X1 Carbon tried something like it in 2014. Even better if they had made an actual physical sliding-switch or rotating knob mechanism(s) to go with it, but unfortunately Apple is currently all in on the design school of turning everything into antiseptic and immovable sheets of glass (clearly in anticipation of the post-human androids that'll be replacing the current population of squishy meatbags any day now). That's sort of the tragedy of the Touch Bar had they made it as an additional visual-slider control and not as a "dynamic keyboard replacement" (which was really all that Lenovo's horrific implementation could do) I think it would've been much better received. The giant caveat there is that the Touch Bar isn't really a keyboard replacement - it's an entirely different type of control, akin to Microsoft's Surface Dial.
MAC TOUCH BAR EXTENSIONS SOFTWARE
IMHO the Touch Bar is absolutely horrific as a keyboard replacement, at very best being nothing but a crutch for bad software design. ^ Another reason the X1 Carbon implementation failed is because the primary reason you get a Thinkpad is for the keyboard screw with that and they're just another laptop in the sea. It’s also such a unique feature that copying it blatantly screams “copycat” in a brand negative way that other more obvious evolutions do not. which on some level is the central goal of such differentiation efforts.
MAC TOUCH BAR EXTENSIONS MAC
It’s an inherently much more difficult feature to copy that the trashcan Mac Pro. But a feature like the Touchbar requires both hardware and software at the OS level AND ecosystem buyin from devs. Hardware features are easily copied by OEMs. Software features are easily copied by MS or Google. I don’t think the lack of copycats is that instructive in this case. But it suggests mass appeal doesn’t exist. Which doesn’t invalidate your opinion, or the opinion of anyone else who finds it pleasurable or useful: If you like it, you should use the hell out of it, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’ll note the two things Apple insisted on doing “different” that no one bothered to copy: The Trash Can Mac Pro(*), and the Touch Bar. So I guess in that sense, Samsung really did create the perfect copy. (*) = Technically, Samsung did produce a hilariously transparent copy, but it went less than nowhere.
![mac touch bar extensions mac touch bar extensions](https://miro.medium.com/max/1062/1*4drFoYDs9_38RTJ8XfAKcQ.png)
It’s a niche feature for a niche audience, and if there is anything Apple is no longer interested in doing long-term, it would be “niche.” I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually went away, resulting in real sadness to the small audience that cherishes it, and a collective shrug from everyone else. Some of those imitations are interesting evolutions on a theme, some are shameless, many are laughable. When Apple diverts fro the norm and produces something really interesting-that intersection design, function, and quality-resulting in actual emotional desire for their products, it becomes self evident in the fact that you start to see the imitators and the copycats pop up like mushrooms after the rain.