MacBook Pro Touch Bar can be resurrected as a stripe supporting Apple Pencil.

Apple has been working on ways to get the iPad-centric Apple Pencil to do the old Touch Bar's job on future MacBook Pro surfaces.

It's just a patent, and Apple gets thousands of patents every year, and that doesn't mean there's going to be any actual product. However, sometimes you have to wonder what this idea is, for example patent drawings now show a MacBook Pro with an Apple Pencil holder.

It's a Mac that can hold Apple Pencil. But you can't use Apple Pencil on Mac, or not yet.

Unless Apple is thinking about designing a MacBook Pro for very neat people,

"Installable Tools Computer Input" represents several prompts. It seems unlikely that the inventor of the patent expected people to draw and write on the MacBook Pro screen, but rather that they would sometimes use Apple Pencil.

Specifically, they use Pencil at least roughly where Apple used to include the Touch Bar.

"[Some] computing devices, such as laptops, can have a touch screen installed in or near the keyboard of the device, and the keyboard of the device can be configured to provide more functionality than a traditional set of keys," the patent begins.

"However, in some cases, the auxiliary touch screen may be difficult to use," it continued. "Touch typists may dislike using a touch screen because of its lack of tactile feedback compared to a set of mechanical movement keys. "