Just an idea…why don’t you make this useful with Sketchup?
Valid question. Maybe someday they will, depending on how hard it is to program for it. But as the hardware is brand new and its ultimate market share is not known yet, I wouldn’t hold my breath!
I was looking at a new MacBook Pros earlier this week. To be honest, I wasn’t impressed by the TouchBar and wouldn’t pay the extra to get it. If I had to spend the money, I’d rather have the option for an nVidia GPU which doesn’t appear to be available.
kind of thinking about buying another mbpro in the same year i have, and maxing out the processor and ram. no interest in the new ones… but hopefully gen 2 of the new devices will inspire me.
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I followed the launch of the new MacBook Pros very closely and like many pro users was disappointed in the apparent design priorities for the new generation. (although it is a beautiful object, in and of itself)
While smaller and lighter is nice (in a vacuum), better GPU options, higher RAM limits and longer battery life are way more important to pro users. And don’t get me started on dongles 
It remains to be seen how useful the touchbar is — or will become, (depending on the degree of developer support) — so I’m not as down on it yet as Dave. But in and of itself, it’s not compelling enough for me to upgrade, especially in light of the other deficiencies.
The other major issue is the significant price increase — of an already expensive line. In Canada, the combination of price hike and currency exchange means that an upgrade to an equivalent model is almost $1000 more… crazy!
My current MacBook Pro is only 2 years old, and it’s not groaning yet. So, like Mike, I will wait for gen 2 and see if the price comes down and better GPU options (i.e. nVidia) / higher RAM limits are introduced. We’ll see then.
Ok guys, it’s ok talking about the new MacBook and its limits, but I opened the discussion about whether or not Sketchup is going to use the new TouchBar 
You won’t know until it happens.
Of course, but let’s discuss about it.
Could it be useful? I think so. Reducing buttons on the screen gives more drawing space, and I think this is a good point
Problem for me is that almost all of my SU work is done hooked up to a monitor with an external keyboard… so unless they release a new Touchbar Keyboard it won’t be a factor, even if it does eventually become enabled in SU.
In the abstract, yes I think a context-sensitive touchbar could be functional — but I would have to try it to know for sure. For SU per se, I’d have to grow a third hand, since I already use a 3D mouse with my left hand.
Given the general neglect / development lag of SU for MacOS, the discussion is likely moot in any case: can’t see Trimble investing development time in this for such a narrow target market.
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To my mind, it’s more likely a Third party will offer the ability to assign shortcuts with images for these ‘keys’…
It also ‘feels’ like a ‘cheaper’ stopgap before going to a full touch screen for either the monitor or as a keyboard replacement…
IMHO having ‘changing’ values for keys will slow things down for those who use ‘muscle’ memory for keyboard shortcuts…
john
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I can see the touch bar very useful for certain types of UI… video / photo editing, maybe the shadows toolbar in SU where a slider is used for date / time / etc… zoom, etc.
Some of my resistance will be in the muscle memory and mapping of my keyboard to my use case. And that when in the office I have an apple bluetooth keyboard that I use…
When Apple finally updates their desktop Mac line, perhaps they’ll introduce a Touchbar-enabled BlueTooth keyboard.
If so, I would buy one and try it out. Still not totally convinced that it will be result in a net increase in SU workflow efficiency, but I’m open to being convinced.
I had hoped that they would enable with the huge new trackpad to work with the Apple Pencil — then I could have gassed my Wacom tablet.
You know what… I’m sure that Apple will introduce a desktop Keyboard TouchBar in the future, but it won’t be different from the MacBook one, so, let’s just be prepared.
I believe it, the TouchBar, could sostitute the top menu buttons (basic SketchUp palette), giving us more drawing space and freeing up some shortcuts, which would be very useful.
Apple Pencil is for the iPad. You could use app like AstroPad or Duet Display to use the iPad and the Pencil as input device, but I’m still hoping SketchUp will introduce a SketchUp app for iOS one day.
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I’m a dev with experience using AppKit. Adding basic support for the Touch Bar (buttons) would only require a trivial amount of effort.
Could you ask Trimble to hire you?
It’s unlikely that the core of SketchUp is built on AppKit, so I’m not qualified for a job like that.
I’m sure they just need smart people. At least see if you can get into a chat with one of the engineers, to give them tips.
I too have a two-year old McPro with the SS hard drive. Frankly with the only moving parts being the keyboard, there’s not much on this machine to actually wear out. I’d rather have a graphics tablet than another glitzy touchy thing.
You can totally use the TouchBar in SketchUp:
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