Adobe Photoshop is finally Touch Bar-ready

As you probably know, Apple’s new MacBook Pro does away with physical function keys to make space for the swipe-friendly Touch Bar. Apple claims this will make it easier to do things such as making edits with apps like Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. These apps weren’t ready yet when the new laptops came out but now Adobe’s photo-editing app has finally brought new Touch Bar-ready features to its space.

Photoshop now gives you quick access to tools from the Touch Bar and eve provide a contextual next step depending on the task you just completed. The features introduced with the Touch Bar are divided into three parts: Layer Properties, Brushes, and Favorites. You have access to blend modes, scrubbing through a file’s history, clipping layers, etc. with the Layer Properties section. For Brushes, you get a slider that lets you adjust things such as color, size, and opacity, among others. And Favorites, as the name suggests, brings you the most used Touch Bar features so you can access these quickly. This isn’t the final iteration, though, as Adobe says it intends to “continue to evolve” Touch Bar support, meaning we could be seeing more features in the future.

Source: Engadget

Play the piano on the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar with this app

A new app made by developer Graham Parks adds a bit of whimsy to the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar. Called Touch Bar Piano, the app turns the MacBook Pro Touch Bar into a small touch-based piano. It’s completely polyphonic and offers 128 instruments for you to make music with. If you don’t have a MacBook Pro but want to play around with it, the app works with emulator Touché. You can download the app from his site.

Apple renders some old products obsolete starting next month

When Apple products are labeled as obsolete, these products lose official Apple repair support. Products are usually rendered obsolete five to seven years after manufacturing has been discontinued, making the parts no longer available to repair staff. The products that have been rendered obsolete for Canada starting December 31, 2016 include the MackBook Pro 15-inch (early 2011), MacBook Pro 17-inch (early 2011), Mac mini (early 2009), and MacBook 13-inch (mid 2009).

Source: 9to5Mac

Apple adds Force Touch trackpad to new 15-inch MacBook Pro, releases new Retina iMac

The Force Touch trackpad feature from the Watch and new MacBook was expected to come to the larger Retina MacBook Pro after Apple started including it in the 13-inch variant and after current iterations of the 15-inch MacBook Pro were being announced as discontinued.

Starting today, the 15-inch MacBook Pro will feature the progressive force touch feature plus faster flash storage, longer battery life and faster discrete graphics to up the performance of Apple's flagship portables. Apple also announced updated 27-inch iMacs with Retina Displays.

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