Is this virtual pet on the Touch Bar the best use for it yet?
The MacBook Pro Touch Bar is a wonderful and versatile thing that's ideal for making any designer's life easier by providing instant, easily-identifiable shortcuts for all of your creative apps. But when you're not using it for Photoshop CC shortcuts, don't you ever wish that you could turn it into the home for a virtual pet? One that you can feed and nurture and cherish and then forget about for a few days then find that it's died?
If you ever had a Tamagotchi and you miss the incessant demands of a virtual charge that depends on you for its continued existence, then you're in luck, as you can now get your very own virtual pet for your Touch Bar. It's the perfect excuse for adding a Touch Bar to your criteria when hunting for the best Black Friday MacBook deals.
twitter did someone want a touchbar tamagotchi? pic.twitter.com/Z44uxbOtgeNovember 18, 2019
Touchbar Pet is the work of Grace Avery, and while it's a work-in-progress that's getting updated every few days, it's available to download and install right now. Currently on version 0.5, Touchbar Pet already has some of the key features that helped make Tamagotchi a global phenomenon back in the 1990s.
Your pet starts as a baby and grows through a childhood stage into an adult, and requires regular care and attention: you'll need to feed it (but not too much), clean up after it and pet it (although it'll get grumpy if you pet it while it's having a nap).
Why walk around with one of these in your pocket when you can just put one in your Touch Bar? (Image credit: Tomasz Sienicki)
Touchbar Pet runs on MacOS 10.14 or higher and it's notarised by Apple, so once you've downloaded it, you should be able to simply double-click the file to make your own pet appear in the Touch Bar. There's a display that keeps you informed of your pet's health and hunger levels; if you want to feed it, just tap anywhere in the Touch Bar to drop some food. Similarly you can pet your adorable little bundle of pixels by tapping on it, and you can probably guess how to clean up the inevitable droppings.
If your pet gets sick you can nurse it back to health by giving it food and letting it have plenty of uninterrupted naps. There's not much to get the hang of, really, but keep checking back for updates as Avery plans to add more features in future versions.
Jim McCauley is a writer, performer and cat-wrangler who started writing professionally way back in 1995 on PC Format magazine, and has been covering technology-related subjects ever since, whether it's hardware, software or videogames. A chance call in 2005 led to Jim taking charge of Computer Arts' website and developing an interest in the world of graphic design, and eventually led to a move over to the freshly-launched Creative Bloq in 2012. Jim now works as a freelance writer for sites including Creative Bloq, T3 and PetsRadar, specialising in design, technology, wellness and cats, while doing the occasional pantomime and street performance in Bath and designing posters for a local drama group on the side.
