What you need to know
- Microsoft Teams will soon support the Touch Bar on MacBooks.
- People will be able to perform quick actions in meetings by tapping along the Touch Bar.
- The feature is currently planned to release in January, though that may change.
Microsoft is working on Touch Bar support for Microsoft Teams. The feature appears on the Microsoft 365 roadmap and is currently scheduled to come out in January 2021 (via MSPU). The roadmap is subject to change, meaning we might not see the feature in January, but it's likely not far off.
The Touch Bar is like a contextual set of function keys that developers can adjust to perform certain tasks within apps. For example, a photo editing app might allow a person to slide the brightness of a photo up or down by dragging along the Touch Bar. What icons appear can also change depending on what you're doing within an app.
The description for Touch Bar support within Teams lists a few actions that people will be able to do within Teams meetings:
Teams Meeting controls for MacBooks with Touch Bars that allow users to mute/unmute, start/stop video, open sharing tray, open the view participants panel and raise or retract their hand.
Since MacBooks don't support touch, Touch Bar support will add a quick way to control Teams without having to use a mouse or trackpad. When optimized well, the Touch Bar can be more useful within an app than a static set of function keys, so it's nice to see Microsoft working to support it.
Microsoft Teams allows you to collaborate with colleagues, upload files, send messages, and chat through video. It integrates with Office 365 and several other cloud services.
