Get the New MacBook Pro Touch Bar on Any Mac, Sort Of

You need an iPad too

November 8, 2016

If you’re interested in trying the new MacBook Pro Touch Bar, but you don’t want to shell out $1,800, this hack might satisfy your curiosity.

Developers Andreas Verhoeven and Robbert Klarenbeek have created an app called Touch Bar Demo. The app lets you use an iPad alongside any Mac laptop so that you can essentially mimic the Touch Bar found on the new 2016 MacBook Pro.

Here’s a demo of it in action:

Installing the macOS portion of the “Touch Bar Demo” is pretty straight forward so long as you’re running macOS Sierra 10.12.1 build 16B2657. However, getting it to run on the iPad properly requires some developer tools. Luckily, Verhoeven and Klarenbeek have posted the instructions on the Touch Bar Demo GitHub page.