Craig Federighi Says Touch Bar on New MacBook Pro Has 'So Much Potential' For Developers

YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee has shared an exclusive interview with Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi. The pair chatted about the new MacBook Pro and its customizable Touch Bar, which Federighi said is "going to be great" and has "so much potential" for developers.

touch_bar_hero
Touch Bar is a Multi-Touch strip of glass that replaces the standard row of function keys on the new MacBook Pros, providing users with system-level and app-specific controls that contextually change. For example, when a user types text in a document, the Touch Bar might include controls for adjusting the font face and size.

MacBook Pro users can interact with the Touch Bar using gestures. Tapping activates a control, such as a button, or selects an item, such as an emoji. Touching and holding initiates a secondary action on a control, such as a button. Panning moves an element, such as a slider of photos or emojis, from side-to-side.


The questions and answers below were edited slightly for clarity and brevity.

"Why now? Why 2016 for us to arrive at the Touch Bar?"

A lot of it came together in terms of the technology being just right to really pull this off in this kind of form factor — such as Touch ID and the quality of the display. We wanted it to feel just completely native to the keyboard and completely real — and be so responsive. We were able to take so much that we've learned in the hardware for iOS devices — and even so much of the security model of iOS, like for Touch ID — and incorporate some of our custom silicon to make it happen. A lot of things had to come together to make this possible. It’s exciting to finally have it out.

"Similar to Touch ID in the iPhone, Touch Bar will get better with time, right? What are you most looking forward to seeing, maybe in a year from now, when we have these and developers get their hands on it? What kind of stuff should we expect to see?"

What's been really awesome is that we've brought some developers in over the past month — and we just showed a small subset of the ones that had come in and already started doing work — and they have a lot of great ideas. Look at djay Pro. It's so exciting when we develop a product and we have a vision of what we can do with it with our apps. We know inherently this is a device with so much potential because it's just a versatile Multi-Touch display. When you get it in the hands of these developers and it's like, "we didn't think of that, but that's just awesome."

I’m really excited about what we've seen so far. I think, of course, a lot of people will do buttons and sliders, but I think there will be this next wave where people say, "hey, this is like custom hardware." You can create the control that supports the best mechanic for whatever it is you want to do in your app, whether that's a game doing something really novel or music, which is so awesome for those kind of real-time capabilities. It's going to be great, but I'm really excited about how fast it's already happening. I think day one, you get one of these, and it's going to be great.

touch_bar_labeled
Apple's newly published design guidelines refer to the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, not the display. Apple does not want developers to include display alerts, messages, scrolling content, or static content in their Touch Bar extensions, but rather controls that resemble the appearance of the physical keyboard keys in terms of size and color.

Although technically it’s a screen, the Touch Bar functions as an input device, not a secondary display. The user may glance at the Touch Bar to locate or use a control, but their primary focus is the main screen. The Touch Bar shouldn’t display alerts, messages, scrolling content, static content, or anything else that commands the user’s attention or distracts from their work on the main screen.

The guidelines also tell developers not to include functions solely in the Touch Bar to ensure backwards compatibility with older Macs. There must always be a way to perform tasks using the keyboard or trackpad. Apple also tells developers not to use Touch Bar for well-known keyboard shortcuts such as find, select all, deselect, copy, cut, paste, undo, redo, new, save, close, print, and quit.

Popular Stories

apple watch ultra 2 new black

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Finally Coming After Two-Year Hiatus

Monday June 16, 2025 8:45 am PDT by
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve). The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...
iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

iPhone Driver's Licenses: These 17 U.S. States Offer Them or Will Later

Thursday June 19, 2025 11:28 am PDT by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, providing a convenient and contactless way to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. Unfortunately, this feature continues to roll out very slowly since it was announced in 2021, with only nine U.S. states and Puerto...
iOS 18

Apple Releases iOS 18.6 Public Beta

Wednesday June 18, 2025 10:24 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 updates to public beta testers, with the betas coming just a few days after Apple provided the betas to developers. Testers who have signed up for beta updates through Apple's beta site can download iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. When the...
ios 26 call holding

iOS 26 Beta is Hiding a New Ringtone — Here's What It Sounds Like

Thursday June 19, 2025 7:25 pm PDT by
Apple is hiding a new ringtone within iOS 26. The new ringtone is an alternative version of the existing Reflection ringtone, which has been the default ringtone since the iPhone X was released in 2017. It was discovered within the code for the first developer beta of iOS 26, but it remains hidden, so you will not find it in the list of ringtones available in the Settings app for now. It...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Apple Says iOS 26 Won't Be Available on These iPhone Models

Tuesday June 10, 2025 6:58 am PDT by
Apple this week revealed that iOS 26 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer. That means that iOS 18 is the end of the road for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR, which were all released in 2018. However, those devices will continue to receive security updates for at least a few more years. iOS 26 is compatible with the following iPhone models: iPhone 16e iPhone...
new iphone lockscreen ios 26

iOS 26: Five Changes Coming to Your iPhone Lock Screen

Tuesday June 17, 2025 8:46 am PDT by
With iOS 26, Apple has made some additions to the iPhone Lock Screen that aim to make it more customizable than ever. Of course, things can always change before the software makes its way to the general iPhone-owning public, but here are five new things iOS 26 can do on the Lock Screen as of the current developer beta. Widgets Top or Bottom In iOS 18, the row of widgets on your Lock...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
Craig Federighi No

John Gruber Reacts to Apple Declining His Interview After His Criticism

Wednesday June 18, 2025 8:10 pm PDT by
Every year between 2015 and 2024, at least one Apple executive agreed to be interviewed by Daring Fireball's John Gruber for a special WWDC episode of his podcast, The Talk Show. Last year, for example, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi, marketing chief Greg Joswiak, and top AI researcher John Giannandrea joined Gruber on stage at the California Theatre in San Jose to discuss...

Top Rated Comments

dixido Avatar
113 months ago
The possibilities are endless...
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Acidsplat Avatar
113 months ago
Wonder if it's too little too late.
I haven't seen this much negative feedback on a Mac portable since the original MacBook Air.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
9081094 Avatar
113 months ago
I haven't tried it myself and although it looks nice, I think its an ergonomic disaster. You go from the trackpad (blindly) to the touch bar (you have to look), use it... look at the screen if it's okay and over and over again... Can't believe Apple comes up with such an ergonomic disaster like this. They really don't get it and are out of ideas. Did this really took 4 years to develop :eek:.

Same for photo's. I don't get the double functions with the trackpad. Multitouch on the trackpad is ergonomic logical in my opinion (you can keep your eyes on the screen and naturally perform certain tasks on the trackpad).

I understand the pricing. Numbers of Apple's iPads are down for years, by upping the price for the notebooks, they hope to sell more iPads. With this pace of innovation they'll sell less from both.
Score: 34 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Leo90 Avatar
113 months ago
Apple starts reminding me Microsoft and Sony of 00's sitting in its throne neglecting all the innovation that's been happening in the industry and simply adding minimal functional innovation to their product lineup. I love my 2016 MacBook as it is a great computer overall but I wish Apple would be brave enough to start thinking outside of the box. What about higher integration between iOS and MacOS? What about augmented reality potentials? I am sorry Federighi, this touchbar looks interesting but you can see straight away it is a gimmick, it is not ergonomic to work with, there will be a point the user will just grab a mouse and do all those tasks quicker. Dont try to fool us with "developers" talk now, this is not iOS, this is macOS, the same OS whose App Store is pretty much dead. I really enjoy Apple products, but somehow I start feeling they are becoming overhyped this day and I cant simply justify spending 2k pounds like this for an additional touchbar and a few improvements. I want Apple to start focusing on their products again and not only sales pitch and marketing.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
colbertnation Avatar
113 months ago
Poor Craig. It feels like him and Phil are the last of the SJ bred senior execs who actually want to innovate and push the boundaries. But they're held back by Timmy's penny pinching ******** and Jony's idiotic quest for an invisibly thin Apple device.

The way Craig says in his first answer, that they've been working on this for years.. to me it sounds like "FFS, Timmy finally let us get this out."
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
garirry Avatar
113 months ago
And so much potential for money.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)