Did you used to play treasure hunt as a child? I’m sure you remember the rush of successfully cracking a clue and successfully found the next hiding place. Well, Apple fans the world over are experiencing something similar right now, for they’ve cracked the clue to a MacBook OLED touch bar!
Buried somewhere deep within the code of macOS Sierra are a few hints that have the potential to turn your world upside down.
Sorry for sounding so dramatic, but this news is just way too exciting! The MacBook line-up has waited way too long for a decent upgrade. And no, the pink MacBook doesn’t count. If anything, that’s a step backwards!
Anyways, we’ve been picking up reports from a variety of websites on how their coders have cracked the code in the beta version of macOS Sierra. Here are some lines of code that perpetuate that is causing all this excitement:
- kHIDUsage_LED_DoNotDisturb: This hints at the possibility of an LED button for the Do Not Disturb feature we currently access throught the notification panel.
- kHIDUsage_LED: A bunch of lines with this extension suggest the use of a display for Play/Pause/Forward/Rewind.
- kHIDUsage_LED_NightMode: Ha! Night Mode on the Mac! This just keeps getting better and better.
I’m a sceptic at heart and I don’t believe in mere speculation.
It’s more than just speculation, though. CultOfMac has physical proof of the mystical OLED touch bar! Here’s a photo they shared on their website:
The image clearly shows that the engineering at the top of the keyboard is same as the one for the trackpad. So, we figure that space is going to have a touch input functionality. As further confirmation, this picture was followed by a bold quote by CultofMac:
A recent report from reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo promised Apple will introduce an OLED touchpad to the MacBook Pro lineup during the third quarter of this year [2016].
So, a touch bar capable of doing everything the function keys were doing; code lines that hint at it and a physical proof. All seems cool… what else you got?
I see your OLED touch bar, and raise you a Touch ID button!
That’s right you mortals of the stone-age! The new MacBook will also have a Touch ID sensor, just like your iPhone!! Look at this piece of code from macOS Sierra:
Notice how it says “biometric”? Yeah? Well, that’s a world used specifically for security technologies making use of fingerprint/retina scan/voice recognition/face recognition. Now, even I am not that fanatic to assume that Apple will give us retina scan. Same thing applies to voice and face recognition. The only option, therefore, is that this code deals with fingerprint technology.
Come to think of it, that’s not such a crazy assumption to make because we already know that Apple is in possession of such a tech. And, Apple is known to transfer elements from iOS to macOS. The material design, the notification panel, the 3D Touch (Force Touch), even Siri! So it’s not so crazy to assume that the Touch ID will be making a move to macOS as well. I think we can be cautiously optimistic here that we’re on the right track.
So, a lot of exciting stuff happening around. The coming few months are going to be quite eventful. You can be sure that we won’t leave any stone unturned in the pursuit of truth. You can join with us in this quest and be the first to get any (and all) information.
Anyways, it’s a good thing we stick together. Now more than ever. For as you know, Winter has come!
