According to a recent photo allegedly sent to Cult of Mac, there appears to be evidence of the claims that the next generation 2016 MacBook Pro will indeed sport an OLED touch bar, which will replace the top row of the keyboard.
Speculation on the functionality of the component are not clear at the moment, but there are rumors circulating, in regard to notifications and information relative to the current app on screen, or other selected applications, such as Mail, Calendar, or FaceTime. In essence, rumors say, the OLED touchbar could provide feedback on incoming emails or messages, and offer a shortcut to the application from the touchbar itself, with quick actions, such as the ability to reply to, delete or mark a message as read, or flag it as spam.
(Related: Where to buy the 2016 Apple MacBook Pro This Summer/ Fall)
Apple is expected to dedicate a fair amount of work to the keyboard part of the new MacBook, ensuring that it will be not only far thinner than any previous MacBook Pro, but just as powerful, if not more, as rumors hint to the possibility that the new Mac will be powered by a 7th generation Kaby Lake Intel Core CPU.
It’s very likely that Apple will integrate its patented Butterfly mechanism for the keys, although there have been rumors of a different typing technology being tested, which may make use of some of the working principles of the Force Touch trackpad.
According to the photo sent to Cult of Mac, an aluminum industrial template of what appears to be a MacBook keyboard can be seen with the upper portion above the keys outlined by an empty bezel, which features a hole on the right end side, where a connector plate can be seen, through which we can only assume a connector strip is planned to pass through, and reach the logic board directly beneath the keyboard.