The Touch Bar on the new Apple MacBook Pro has recently become fresh new territory for hack-a-tons resulting in some interesting applications, some useful, and some plain gimmicky.
The latest, and also one of the first true hacks of the brand new feature, is the ability to run the 1993 video game blockbuster Doom, at the Touch Bar resolution of 2170 x 60 pixels.
At such ultra-squinty aspect ratio, you can’t expect a reasonably exciting experience, or barely any experience at all, outside of strings of pixels suggesting that your character is about to be obliterated, while navigating completely blind.
The developer responsible for this gem, Adam Bell, has also developed a version that shows only the HUD, which is useful while playing the game full screen, for that “arcade game feel”,
While running Doom on the MacBook’s Touch Bar may be considered a gimmick, the potential applications could extend to a whole new level, especially if, or when, developers’s interest to create applications for the tiny touchscreen reaches a certain popularity.
As it stands today, the new MacBook’s Touch Bar supports several applications, especially creative apps, aside from native apps like Apple Music, Garage Band, and Mail.
Adobe Creative Cloud apps are already built to make use of the Touch Bar for a long list of actions available, that allow to work in fullscreen mode, without a desktop full of little windows and options.
When idle, or not used by any application at all, the Touch Bar reverts to a standard function keys row, complete with Escape key, and of course, a functioning Touch-ID sensor, which is embedded into the Touch Bar hardware.
The secret to running Doom, and possibly other classic games in ARM emulation is the fact that the Touch Bar is powered by its own chip, similar to the one powering the Apple Watch. The integrated SoC lifts the system from the responsibility of using CPU resources, better spent on actual desktop applications.
Developing ARM emulation-friendly programs means that dedicated programmers can create applications that run only on the Touch Bar, and are independent from the main screen, such as music players, news tickers, social media plugins, and more.
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