Skip to main content

Chrome 58 Canary update adds MacBook Pro Touch Bar support

Apple MacBook 13-inch Touch Pad
Bill Roberson / Digital Trends
An upcoming browser update, Chrome 58, looks likely to include support for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar, as a recent Canary release has that functionality included. This represents the first time that Chrome has shown any support for the Touch Bar, but shows that Google now sees it as a worthwhile feature to develop.

When Apple debuted the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, many people weren’t convinced it was a worthwhile feature. There is still some debate on the topic, but bedroom hackers and corporations alike have found a multitude of different uses for it and now Google’s Chrome looks set to join that list of supporting applications.

9To5Mac

In the Canary build of the browser update, the Touch Bar gains support for a number of features. There’s the ability to refresh a page, go forward and back, search, open a new tab and access the the usual Touch Bar media controls.

Recommended Videos

You can also add a website to your list of favorites, though these base functions are all you can expect in this build. As 9to5Mac reports, the controls and options don’t contextually change when you watch a video or open up a new tab.

Still, now that we’ve seen these Touch Bar functions appear in the Chrome Canary build we expect them to show up in the stable Chrome 58 update too. It will likely pass through a couple of additional testing channels first, but MacBook Pro Touch Bar support is almost certainly coming to Chrome, which will be a nice addition for those running the browser on their new laptops.

For anyone not willing to wait though, you can dive into the testing pool and grab yourself the Canary build of the Chrome 58. It’s available via the Chromium repository, where you’ll find all stages of the latest Chrome builds.

For those of you with MacBook Pros with Touch Bars, what are some of the interesting uses you’ve found for the touch interface?

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…
I’m worried Apple will skip its October event – here’s what that means for the M4 MacBook Pro
Apple CEO Tim Cook looks at a display of brand new redesigned MacBook Air laptop during the WWDC22

For months now, we’ve been hearing that Apple is set to announce a boatload of new products -- including the M4 MacBook Pro range, fresh iPads, and more -- at an event this October. Yet a new report suggests that things might not be quite so simple after all.

In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman says that Apple is set to reveal these new products “around the end of October,” with the devices going on sale on Friday, November 1. So far, so expected.

Read more
The M4 MacBook Pro is apparently listed for sale on Facebook — but I don’t buy it
An open MacBook Pro on a table.

According to analysts and industry experts like Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is expected to announce an M4 refresh of the MacBook Pro possibly this month and most likely before the end of the year. No event announcements have come yet, though Apple has historically held an October Mac event. But now, an online leak discovered by Wccftech claims the new model is up for sale on a private Facebook group. The claim is backed up by alleged images of the retail box, but there's plenty to be suspicious about.

While the images were posted by known leaker ShrimpApplePro, the information was sent to them from an unknown source. There are two posts so far, one with an image of the back of the retail box -- with comments from AppleShrimpPro saying to take it with asome skepticism -- and one showing additional images and claiming it's for sale on Facebook.

Read more
Apple just proved it learned from the Touch Bar’s failure
The Ultramarine iPhone 16.

Apple revealed a lot of new products and features at the ‘It’s Glowtime’ event earlier this week, but the best moment of all? For me, it was when Apple showed off the Camera Control, a new touch-sensitive button on the iPhone 16 range that lets you snap photos, change the camera’s focus point, switch between controls for depth of field and zoom, and more. You can press it to take a picture, or lightly press and swipe to scroll through various camera controls. For something so small, it packs in an awful lot.

It perfectly encapsulates that elusive Apple magic inside a button that can do so much in some very clever and intuitive ways. It’s the sort of thing that, like so many Apple features, will spawn a legion of imitators, but none will come close to the original.

Read more