The cool news, as reported before, is that the new 2018 Touch Bar MacBook Pro notebooks feature True Tone displays that can automatically adjust the white balance of the MacBook Pro display to match the color temperature of the light around you, which, as Apple says, provides a more natural viewing experience. The feature is similar to Night Shift, but more dynamic, continuously adapting to the surrounding environment.
If you are standing in a dimly lit room with incandescent light bulbs, for example, the display would appear warmer and yellower. If you are standing outside on a cloudy day, the display would appear cooler and bluer.
Apple has followed up on this and stated that the new 2018 Touch Bar MacBook Pro models feature a multi-channel ambient light sensor, next to the FaceTime HD camera, that can assess brightness as well as color temperature, adding that the display should be open to enable that functionality. Apple added that True Tone does not use the FaceTime HD camera for its operation.
The company has stated that the ambient light sensor in previous-generation MacBook Pro models can only assess brightness, suggesting that True Tone is not a feature that can be enabled on older machines through a future software update.
As such, the True Tone feature will apparently only work on the LG UltraFine 4K, LG UltraFine 5K, and Thunderbolt Display when the display on a connected MacBook Pro is open, rather than in closed-display aka clamshell mode. Apple has yet to officially confirm this, so some testing might be in order, but informal testing has indicated that the True Tone feature does not work on external displays when the MacBook Pro is in clamshell mode/its lid is closed.
If you’ve had a chance to pick up the new Touch Bar MacBook Pro and have any feedback to offer about it, please let us know what you make of it in the comments.
Via Mac Rumors