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New App Lets You Play Piano on the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar

Friday December 9, 2016 5:57 PM PST by Juli Clover

Most MacBook Pro apps that have implemented support for the new Touch Bar have focused on putting settings, editing tools, and other utilitarian features right at a user's fingertips, but a new app from developer Graham Parks aims to have a little more fun with it.

The "Touch Bar Piano" app is designed to turn the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro into a little tiny touch-based piano that can be used to make music.

Available on Parks' website, Touch Bar Piano is fully polyphonic and offers 128 instruments to play with. It only works with the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, but Touch Bar emulator Touché can be used to try it out if you don't have one of Apple's latest MacBook Pros.

Touch Bar Piano doesn't exactly follow Apple's developer guidelines, which say the Touch Bar should be used as an extension of the keyboard and the trackpad rather than a display, but it's a fun way to show off what the new MacBook Pro can do.

Top Rated Comments

EndlessBuffoonery

119 months ago

Jesus, you people take everything way too seriously. Nobody is expecting a musician to write the next great piano sonata on the touch bar. It's just a goofy thing you can do. Can we not make every minor, silly app an excuse to claim the touch bar is a stupid gimmick and actually judge it on the improvements it's meant to offer now and/or with future app updates?

Score: 66 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Hirakata

119 months ago

Looks handy. I'm sure all the pro musicians are dying to get this machine... :rolleyes:

Score: 39 Votes (Like | Disagree)

garirry

119 months ago

A very expensive piano keyboard indeed - also a very uncomfortable one to use I imagine.

Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jstorm01

119 months ago

Just imagine when a full screen touchscreen can do one day !

Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)

32828870

119 months ago

That is, if the MacBook Pro doesn't overheat and shutdown ('http://bgr.com/2016/12/05/macbook-pro-2016-battery-problems/') or the GPU suddenly stops working ('https://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/02/new-macbook-pro-graphics-issues/'). Courageous Innovation™

Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)

avanpelt

119 months ago

Looks handy. I'm sure all the pro musicians are dying to get this machine... :rolleyes:

Agreed. This looks even more goofy than that DJ looked at the keynote (and I wasn't sure that anyone would be able to top the DJ...until now).

Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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