Skype Gets Touch Bar Support As More Developers Prepare Apps For MacBook Pro OLED Strip

Apple introduced its refreshed MacBook Pro laptops late last year and showed off the secondary OLED display as an efficient tool to have access to more options and features of select apps — mostly native. This week, Skype is getting its support for the Touch Bar and many more apps are expected to follow suit.

Last Saturday, Microsoft quietly updated the Skype app for Mac devices by adding support for the new generation of MacBook’s Touch Bar strip. Version 7.48 reportedly allows users to control calls from the Touch Bar, with 9To5Mac saying that the profile picture of the receiver appears on the OLED strip, alongside a Start Video option, a Mute button and a Hang Up button. These new functions do not overlap the standard Touch Bar keys like Siri, Esc and the brightness and volume adjustment controls.

Microsoft indicated that apart from Touch Bar support, general fixes are present in the new version to enhance the overall performance of the video calling and instant messaging app for the MacBook Pro. There are also under-the-hood fixes for certain bugs found in the previous version of Skype.

Aside from Skype, more third-party apps are expected to have Touch Bar support in the coming weeks. Venture Beat has learned that indie developers will now get the chance to modify their apps to have support for the OLED display. This is because the people behind Electron are rolling out a beta software with features that would enable developers to add Touch Bar functionality to their apps. In case you’re wondering, Electron is the open-source software that many app developers rely on when making and tweaking their apps.

“The new Touch Bar API allows you to add buttons, labels, popovers, color pickers, sliders, and spacers. These elements can be dynamically updated and also emit events when they are interacted with,” GitHub developer Kevin Sawicki stated in a blog post. GitHub is the company behind Electron and other open-source software like Atom text editor.

Over 300 apps use Electron, and they include Slack, WordPress.com, Basecamp 3, Tweeten, Tidal, Discord and Yhat Rodeo, among others. It’s possible that the developers of these apps will be releasing updated versions with Touch Bar support very soon.