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Very clever. Basically seems to allow the continuity, notification sharing, proximity and Apple Pay features of an Apple Watch or iPhone by slapping what is eff
by spdustin 10y ago
Very clever. Basically seems to allow the continuity, notification sharing, proximity and Apple Pay features of an Apple Watch or iPhone by slapping what is effectively an Apple Watch right into the chassis. Very little new functionality would have to be written into the OS, because it doesn't have to know about the extra control surface features, it can just pass messages a'la handoff/continuity.
I would imagine this means writing TouchBar (autocorrect on my iPhone hasn't learned that one yet) support into MacOS apps means developing a watchOS extension to bundle with the app, which seems really simple and elegant.
Really makes me wonder if writing similar extensions to macOS that use a secondary control/presentation surface could be that easy. Why not let me write an extension that opens on my iPad when my macOS app is opened to show additional shortcuts/controls for that app? There are a few remote tools that can do some of this (BTT Remote and Alfred Remote come to mind as possible configurable remote control surfaces) but if I was able able to write a purpose-built control surface with bundles for TouchBar, iPhone, iPad and/or Apple Watch, all detected by proximity and using handoff to advertise readiness... that would be amazing.
- JonathonW 10y ago> I would imagine this means writing TouchBar (autocorrect on my iPhone hasn't learned that one yet) support into MacOS apps means developing a watchOS extension to bundle with the app, which seems really simple and elegant. Nope. Apps customize the Touch Bar using AppKit inside their app's code; there's no third-party code running on the Touch Bar's processor at any point. The Touch Bar has a little bit of intelligence (it's responsible for the Touch ID and Apple Pay UIs, and supposedly can display traditional function keys independent of the OS for use in dual-boot situations), but it appears to be mostly just receiving and displaying a framebuffer that's rendered and provided to it by the host machine, then forwarding touch events back to the host machine for interaction with the UI.
- andy_ppp 10y agoJust thinking how awesome that would be for sequencing software, photoshop, 3D rendering software etc! I'm pretty excited about the Touch Bar, new screen and battery life...
- nilkn 10y ago> Very clever. Basically seems to allow the continuity, notification sharing, proximity and Apple Pay features of an Apple Watch or iPhone by slapping what is effectively an Apple Watch right into the chassis. Very little new functionality would have to be written into the OS, because it doesn't have to know about the extra control surface features, it can just pass messages a'la handoff/continuity. Interesting viewpoint that makes me reconsider my thoughts on the Touch Bar. Thanks for writing this comment.