99%+ of my usage of the touchbar is pressing escape, adjusting screen brightness, speaker volume, or accessing music controls.
All of these worked flawlessly when I had physical keys, but now it's hard to know what I'm pressing without looking, and sometimes the controls become unresponsive to touches or drags.
I'm a programmer/business owner, so perhaps it's useful for other sorts of creative professionals, but it feels like a total gimmick to me.
I applaud Apple's innovative spirit, but the touchbar wasn't useful at launch, it isn't useful now, and they don't seem to have put any effort into making it better. I hope they kill it with the next Macbook pro release and just go the touchscreen route like everyone else.
Scroll down to "Design Considerations": "Use the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, not as a display."
But what I really want is for the touch bar to be a display and input device for things normally elsewhere: time, date, maybe CPU usage, etc. This to me is not a hardware problem, but one with policy.
Edit: what I really want is for Apple to let people experiment with new hardeware, rather than impose their vision on how it should be used. Unlike many others I don't actually hate the touch bar and see some potentials, but not if Apple restricts its use.
Why on earth do I need to tap twice to adjust the screen brightness? I couldn't find a way to just have two increase/decrease buttons. Why can't I adjust how long the touchbar stays active for? Why does it disappear at all? I can't imagine the touchbar would exist in its current form if Steve were alive.
It could have worked so much better as a display above the function keys. An extra long-and-thin screen that showed stuff and happened to be touch enabled.
App specific stuff, window-manager customisable stuff, all kinds of things. This would have given app developers an opportunity to do stuff with it that you can't do on a PC.
Developers could have liked it instead of feeling mightily pissed off and betrayed by the company they had given so much money to over the years.
I agree with all this. However, even though I still use Macs for everything, it's been clear to me for a while that Apple 'Pro' users are not tech people. There is a big difference in keyboard necessity between a developer and any 'Pro' user. Key travel, actually having real keys, are all a big deal to devs.
I think Apple lost their function and form way a while ago. It's never coming back. The new Mac Pro is the latest example of this. I bought a 2018 MB Pro 13" last year and the touch bar is a waste of space in my mind. We see now that Apple is ditching the scissor keys, but regardless, their design decisions for a while have just been wanting to have something look cool instead of a balance of looking good and functioning great.
Part of an innovative spirit is trying things, and letting them breathe even under criticism. But then killing them if they don't work out. You need to adjust to feedback.
The touchscreen is even worse on laptops. Windows is a horrible touch screen OS, the interface itself is a mismatch of operating systems seemingly going back to Windows 95.
MacOS wouldn’t fare any better as a touch screen OS.
I really don't know why Apple doesn't do the typical Apple thing here: make it a $600 add-on item. If they can transform 3.5mm headphone jacks into a huge upsell opportunity, I don't know why they'd miss out on that opportunity for something like the Touch Bar. People can then have their standard keyboard with function keys AND an external controller if they make use of an application that would make it useful.
If you check the lates "innovations" you see almost all of those are like that (previous version was better).
- magsafe vs new charger
- ports on 2015 MBP vs now
- keyboard on 2015 vs now
- physical keys vs touchbar
The only improvement that is really an improvement is CPU speed and memory, which I could not care less about. In the same timeframe (2015 to 2019) Apple went from the most innovative company to the 17th position.
Yeah, in my opinion actually Asus has gone in better direction with placing touch screens inside the touch bar. That makes more sense imho and doesn't reduce keyboard capabilities/make it weird to use.
and here I am always on the look out for a good external keyboard that has separate buttons for volume, brightness, and more. This is because on the desk top front Apple long ago decided that multi-key combinations was better than separate keys for some functions and too many vendors followed suit.
This thread is going to dissolve into a pile-up on the Touch Bar, so I wanna jump in front of this.
Readers of this site are mostly “hackers,” however mutated or dumbed-down that term has become over the years, correct? Everyone here has their windows and spaces just so, a full complement of shortcuts and trackpad gestures, and if they're serious about the Macintosh tools like TextExpander.
As standard as GUIs are, we've all experienced a moment of disorientation when borrowing another person's computer. The more experienced and skilled that other person is, the greater that disorientation due to the amount of “hacking” they've done on their own environment.
So how come this impulse stops at the Touch Bar?
I've hacked the hell out of mine. I've mapped inscrutable keyboard commands like cmd-opt-ctrl-D to context sensitive buttons, included globals for quick terminal visors and development tools and password managers… it's slick as hell and I hate giving it up when I occasionally opt for the external keyboard at home.
The Touch Bar is amazing, you just need to hack the damn thing. Yeah, Apple should have done a better job making it more useful out of the box, but it's possible to do some really wild stuff with it.
I’m not sure why you couldn’t do the same with the Fn keys instead.
What you’d lose in being able to look down and see what a key does at the moment, you’d gain in having more tactile response allowing for easier pressing without looking.
Also, when I find an inscrutable keyboard shortcut I use frequently, I simply remap it. There are enough KB shortcut combos possible that running out of keyboard shortcuts is rarely an issue. And bonus, you can touch type those shortcuts in.
I am a touch typist. I never look down at the keyboard, ever. The only time the Touch Bar is involved is when I accidentally switch tabs because the Touch Bar buttons trip even while you're pressing the 2 or 3 key on the keyboard, and then I'm lost in a different tab than the one I was working on in the first place.
Is there a preset that never shows anything on the touch bar, ever, except for the Escape key and the "global" brightness/volume buttons? Can this be done in, like, five seconds?
If not, then I might Frisbee this computer straight out the window. If so, I would love to know how.
I can't type on the keyboard without accidentally triggering the Touch Bar. I really wanted to hack it, but wow is it annoying. I have to relearn typing because of it.
If there was a small gap between the top of the physical keyboard and the touch bar, that might be enough to prevent false taps. Or I have to hack the Touch Bar to figure out where I'm accidentally hitting it, and don't put any buttons there.
I'm also triggering false taps on the Touch Pad, which never used to happen. I suspect if there was another gap between the bottom of the physical keyboard and the top of the Touch Pad, this wouldn't happen.
I touch type therefore don't look at my hands while using a Mac. It doesn't matter how much I can hack/mod a screen I simply am not looking at, because it distracts from the screen I am looking at. I'd find a customizable "touch bar" below the dock I can use with my mouse more useful than where it is currently located.
I think the Touch Bar is an interesting tool with plenty of potential. My objection is that I'm forced to forego physical function keys to get it. When I'm stepping through code, I want physical keys with tactile feedback.
I would be thrilled if Apple offered an alternate "developer's configuration" with a row of physical function keys and a Touch Bar above it. There is plenty if room; they'd only need to shrink the almost comically oversized touchpad (which would still be plenty large).
Maybe it depends on how you type and rest your hand over the keyboard. For me I've had a macbook pro with touch bar for the last 6+ months and it hasn't gotten better at all. But in all honesty it's not just the touch bar, it's also the extra sensitive touchpad. For example you may notice extra spaces int his message or spaces in the middle of the words, that because of the touch pad, I think (I can't even be sure of what's going on but I've never had any typing issues like this in the past 30+ years since I've been using computers, starting with really crappy non-PC 8 bit computer keyboards all the way to fancy gamer keyboards).
It's not getting better over time, it's forcing me to constantly have to correct my spelling so now I just keep typing at a minimum on this computer and I'm waiting to get rid of this crappy device at the earliest possibility.
I don't mind the touch bar, I don't get why they couldn't of kept the old keyboard which was more reliable and the Function Keys.
I'm writing this on a MBP purchased earlier this year that has nothing but room for both with it's oversized trackpad that is nothing but a waste of space to me. I get more out of a trackball personally, but even if I am exclusively using the trackpad, I don't need all this wasted space, it is even bigger than my phone.
I like physical keys, I can get used to them and never have to look down to use them. You cannot deliver the same experience with a touch-anything (at least not in 2019).
I think 'hacker' is too generic. Fiddling with the OS is just one form of hacking. Not every hacker enjoys doing that. One aspect of hacking the OS is dealing with the breakage when you end up with a system state that isn't part of some devs text matrix. I think a 'Pro' or 'Workstation' or similar badge should mean that the system is conservative from a UX standpoint, and delivers on performance and reliability. Maybe Apples gamble was that this new UX would cause a revolution in productivity.
I'm with you. BetterTouchTool introduced me to some pretty cool possibilities with the Touch Bar and it's just been even more awesome as I've customized it more. On top of that, it motivated me, for some reason, to try and get DooM running on it just for shits and giggles even though it's mostly unplayable.
There are two huge low-hanging fruit that Apple could do to make the Touch Bar better and appease (some of) the haters.
First, add half a centimeter of clearance between the touch bar and the number keys. I've never once accidentally hit the Touch Bar, but one of my close coworkers does all the time, after years with this, so I can't deny that it's an issue.
Second, allow users the ability to map any keyboard shortcut or menu item to a Touch Bar button. This would work similarly to how any menu item can be mapped to a keyboard shortcut in the System Preferences.
If they added it _but also didn't steal the fn row_, I'd be all for it. But losing known, solid functionality for the opportunity to maybe hack together something useful is not a fair trade.
I will never ever buy a MacBook Pro if they don't get rid of the TouchBar. The sheer arrogance of Apple to think they know better than their customers infuriates me. I only use a 2018 MacBook Pro because work supplied it, and because my 2015 MacBook battery was dying and the only option the IT department gave me was to upgrade to the 2018 model.
I may simply go back to Windows at home if that's the case, and will use a Windows Laptop at work if possible. Seriously, fuck Apple for this arrogance.
I wasted two hours the other night because of the touchbar.
I had turned my macbook pro's screen brightness down to complete black as I was using an external monitor only, and in a dark environment. Some time later I happened to restart my machine, and both the internal and external displays came up completely black.
The touchbar displayed only "Esc", without the normal brightness control. I had to figure out from memory how to log in without being able to see the screen, i.e. exactly how far I needed to move the pointer on the trackpad to click on my username, without any indication of what state the UI was in. There was no controls on the touchbar to adjust the display brightness and an external Apple USB keyboard which did have the brightness control keys was not recognised. Fixing it required both an SMC and PRAM reset.
I would pay a significant premium for a macbook pro without the touchbar. I've had other cases where the machine appears to be (but isn't necessarily) bricked and there's no indicator lights anywhere to show what's going on, even if the machine has power. I hope with Ive's departure they'll dial it back a bit and start building machines which might be slightly less beautiful but include some of the more practical affordances.
I am a developer. The Touch Bar is useless to me. I remapped Caps lock to Esc expecting to be annoyed, but still hit Esc nonetheless because it works. And I deftly adjust volume using the Touch Bar slider using press-and-slide (not tap then pick-and-slide), relying on the += key for tactile positioning (but the position itself is largely muscle memory by now)
I am also a musician. The Touch Bar is fantastic to adjust tuneables in GarageBand, without the gorilla arm or wobbly screen effect you get on touchscreens.
If it were annoying to me I'd just remap the two or three functions I use as a developer to some keyboard shortcut. After all I'm a developer, I think I can handle that fairly swiftly by myself if no tool were available (and I'm fairly convinced there is).
To me the bigger news here is killing the MacBook. It's a weird product -- crazy overpriced, and with a bunch of concessions in terms of the design, but I like that it's extremely light (33% lighter than a MacBook Air) and has no fan. I had hoped never to buy another laptop with a fan again. Yes, I know performance sucks, which is why I run most of my code on a server instead of locally on my computer. I think really the best other options without a fan are all Chromebooks.
I would guess Apple will revive the fanless model when they switch to ARM processors in 1-2 years.
When the Touch Bar is discussed the discussion often turns into "is the Touch Bar useful or not?" When the crux of the whole issue is that they removed a row of keys (F- keys and escape key), because the new oversized touchpad needed to be 10mm bigger.
If they had simply left all the keys, shrunk the touchpad, and added the Touch Bar above the keyboard, people who didn't like the Touch Bar would simply choose not to use it (or even shut it off) and people who loved it could continue to do so.
That's the issue. Not the Touch Bar itself's benefit, that's a red herring.
Disclaimer: I like the touchbar. I swapped escape and caps lock, installed Pock, and never looked back.
This is my last MacBook. Xubuntu on a Thinkpad x1 carbon works great for everything I do, at a fraction of the price, with a keyboard the doesn't stop working with dust, and with more than just USB-C.
Removal of the function keys actually dates back to Jobs
"When I invited Jobs to take some time away from NeXT to speak to a group of students, he sat in the lotus position in front of my fireplace and wowed us for three hours, as if leading a séance. But then I asked him if he would sign my Apple Extended Keyboard. He burst out: “This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate. It's a battleship. Why does it have all these keys? Do you use this F1 key? No.” And with his car keys he pried it right off. “How about this F2 key?” Off they all went. “I'm changing the world, one keyboard at a time,” he concluded in a calmer voice."
[Steve Jurvetson on Steve Jobs 2011-10-06 By Steve Jurvetson.]
The Touch Bar was what finally pushed me over the edge to remap caps lock to escape. I'm shocked at how much I enjoy ESC being close to the home row (I'm not even a big vim user). For this change alone I am glad to have the Touch Bar.
It’s unfortunate that so many design decisions are made with little regard for the true utility of what’s being designed, of which the touch bar has essentially zero.
Imagine a random manufacturer, let's say HP, was the one bringing a touchbar to their notebooks. Some press, a lot of laughter but quickly, nobody would talk anymore about them and/or buy that notebooks.
With Apple, people keep on complaining OVER years. The touchbar, the prices, the crappy keyboards... the reason? IDK, maybe they are locked-in and can't move to another platform but there is only one single reason to be locked-in on macOS: if you develop apps for iOS, otherwise every other platform is currently way better and switching is a matter of days. Once I had the keyboard trouble on a $4K MBP I switched instantly and never returned to macOS.
The non-touch bar pro that was previously available was a pretty old model, right? First generation butterfly keyboard?
If that's the case I'm not sure it makes sense to read too much into this. They will probably reintroduce a non-touch bar option when they refresh the pro line later this year.
I got a touchbar model immediately when it was released from my job. It arrived shipped next-day-air in the morning, and by lunch, I gave it to another employee who wanted an upgrade. Haven't touched another Mac since then, and this reinforces(to me) that I made the right decision. I don't know any of you work with those things... That design decision solidified for me that Apple wasn't interested in my demographic(sysop/programmer/etc) using their laptops.
That said, I did get a lot of "oohs" and "aahs" from other employees coming to look at it. Those went away when I'd open vim and ask them to take it for a test drive.
One step forward, two steps back. They're finally getting rid of the horrible butterfly keyboard in favor of a more traditional scissor switch, but they're gonna make damn sure you have a touch bar.
There is nothing "Pro" about a touch bar, even for fields outside of software. Apparently Ive's departure means Apple is not returning to function-over-form.
As an oftentimes Emacs user and a sometimes Vim user, I need more keys not less. I especially want more modifiers in consistent locations. Laptops frequently move these around, put a fn key where ctrl normally goes, or don’t even provide a ctrl key for the right hand. Apple does all of this.
Further, why does the spacebar have to be so wide? It makes the Alt and System (mapped to Hyper, Meta, leader keys whatever) harder to reach without looking. Microsoft offers an new ergo keyboard with a split keyboard, but then doesn’t provide a way to map the left and right pieces to separate bindings.
I've asked a lot of non-programmers about the Touch Bar. Musicians, graphic designers, teachers, writers, managers, architects. If I describe the Touch Bar, they are able to confirm that their laptop has one but are not conscious of it as a significant change in design. It's just a different way to change the volume. They are neither aware that it's supposed to be more useful than that, nor aware of why anybody would be bothered by it. To them, having the Touch Bar or not is about as meaningful as whether their gas cap is on the left side of the car or the right.
The Touch Bar is just poorly executed— for the gimmick instead of the experience. It would be good if it had haptic feedback and was activated by a force touch like the trackpad does.
Allow me to touch it without pressing anything. Let me slide my finger and feel a click whenever I "hover" a different button. Add an option to show me an indication on screen of what I'm hovering, so I don't have to look down. Then when I decide to "press" the button, trick my brain into thinking there's moving parts like the trackpad does.
Give me the buttons of the future.
The big problem for me is that it's a touch-screen instead. Keyboards and trackpads are designed to have you rest your hands on them until you press, so it's awkward to have something that doesn't let you "rest" on it. They both are meant to be used while looking directly at the screen, so it's annoying to have to look down to know what you're pressing.
Add back the physical top row, but keep the touch bar. Just put it above the physical top row.
I like the idea of the touch bar for customization and various use cases, but I don't do that now, because I want my top row to continue to act as simply and consistently as possible.
For example, the contextual menus for programs. I think the whole concept is really interesting and adds a cool layer of interaction. However, I don't want to give up my quick access to my normal functions like volume, expose, etc. So the end result is that I just turn all the contextual options off. So I've never had a chance to fall in love with the touch bar, because all I use it for is a crappy version of what my top row use to be.
[+] [-] retrac98|6 years ago|reply
All of these worked flawlessly when I had physical keys, but now it's hard to know what I'm pressing without looking, and sometimes the controls become unresponsive to touches or drags.
I'm a programmer/business owner, so perhaps it's useful for other sorts of creative professionals, but it feels like a total gimmick to me.
I applaud Apple's innovative spirit, but the touchbar wasn't useful at launch, it isn't useful now, and they don't seem to have put any effort into making it better. I hope they kill it with the next Macbook pro release and just go the touchscreen route like everyone else.
[+] [-] kkylin|6 years ago|reply
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
Scroll down to "Design Considerations": "Use the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, not as a display."
But what I really want is for the touch bar to be a display and input device for things normally elsewhere: time, date, maybe CPU usage, etc. This to me is not a hardware problem, but one with policy.
Edit: what I really want is for Apple to let people experiment with new hardeware, rather than impose their vision on how it should be used. Unlike many others I don't actually hate the touch bar and see some potentials, but not if Apple restricts its use.
[+] [-] ravenstine|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] takeda|6 years ago|reply
Fortunately I got an external keyboard.
[+] [-] Theodores|6 years ago|reply
App specific stuff, window-manager customisable stuff, all kinds of things. This would have given app developers an opportunity to do stuff with it that you can't do on a PC.
Developers could have liked it instead of feeling mightily pissed off and betrayed by the company they had given so much money to over the years.
[+] [-] equalarrow|6 years ago|reply
I think Apple lost their function and form way a while ago. It's never coming back. The new Mac Pro is the latest example of this. I bought a 2018 MB Pro 13" last year and the touch bar is a waste of space in my mind. We see now that Apple is ditching the scissor keys, but regardless, their design decisions for a while have just been wanting to have something look cool instead of a balance of looking good and functioning great.
[+] [-] jdlyga|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface74|6 years ago|reply
MacOS wouldn’t fare any better as a touch screen OS.
[+] [-] cookiecaper|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StreamBright|6 years ago|reply
- magsafe vs new charger
- ports on 2015 MBP vs now
- keyboard on 2015 vs now
- physical keys vs touchbar
The only improvement that is really an improvement is CPU speed and memory, which I could not care less about. In the same timeframe (2015 to 2019) Apple went from the most innovative company to the 17th position.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/apple-is-no...
[+] [-] babyslothzoo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukaszkups|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manojlds|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Eric_WVGG|6 years ago|reply
Readers of this site are mostly “hackers,” however mutated or dumbed-down that term has become over the years, correct? Everyone here has their windows and spaces just so, a full complement of shortcuts and trackpad gestures, and if they're serious about the Macintosh tools like TextExpander.
As standard as GUIs are, we've all experienced a moment of disorientation when borrowing another person's computer. The more experienced and skilled that other person is, the greater that disorientation due to the amount of “hacking” they've done on their own environment.
So how come this impulse stops at the Touch Bar?
I've hacked the hell out of mine. I've mapped inscrutable keyboard commands like cmd-opt-ctrl-D to context sensitive buttons, included globals for quick terminal visors and development tools and password managers… it's slick as hell and I hate giving it up when I occasionally opt for the external keyboard at home.
The Touch Bar is amazing, you just need to hack the damn thing. Yeah, Apple should have done a better job making it more useful out of the box, but it's possible to do some really wild stuff with it.
map your Caps Lock key to Escape and go to town. https://github.com/vas3k/btt-touchbar-presets
[+] [-] addicted|6 years ago|reply
What you’d lose in being able to look down and see what a key does at the moment, you’d gain in having more tactile response allowing for easier pressing without looking.
Also, when I find an inscrutable keyboard shortcut I use frequently, I simply remap it. There are enough KB shortcut combos possible that running out of keyboard shortcuts is rarely an issue. And bonus, you can touch type those shortcuts in.
[+] [-] eropple|6 years ago|reply
Is there a preset that never shows anything on the touch bar, ever, except for the Escape key and the "global" brightness/volume buttons? Can this be done in, like, five seconds?
If not, then I might Frisbee this computer straight out the window. If so, I would love to know how.
[+] [-] TYPE_FASTER|6 years ago|reply
If there was a small gap between the top of the physical keyboard and the touch bar, that might be enough to prevent false taps. Or I have to hack the Touch Bar to figure out where I'm accidentally hitting it, and don't put any buttons there.
I'm also triggering false taps on the Touch Pad, which never used to happen. I suspect if there was another gap between the bottom of the physical keyboard and the top of the Touch Pad, this wouldn't happen.
[+] [-] Someone1234|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BonesJustice|6 years ago|reply
I would be thrilled if Apple offered an alternate "developer's configuration" with a row of physical function keys and a Touch Bar above it. There is plenty if room; they'd only need to shrink the almost comically oversized touchpad (which would still be plenty large).
[+] [-] d1zzy|6 years ago|reply
It's not getting better over time, it's forcing me to constantly have to correct my spelling so now I just keep typing at a minimum on this computer and I'm waiting to get rid of this crappy device at the earliest possibility.
[+] [-] jayd16|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petereisentraut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|6 years ago|reply
I'm writing this on a MBP purchased earlier this year that has nothing but room for both with it's oversized trackpad that is nothing but a waste of space to me. I get more out of a trackball personally, but even if I am exclusively using the trackpad, I don't need all this wasted space, it is even bigger than my phone.
I like physical keys, I can get used to them and never have to look down to use them. You cannot deliver the same experience with a touch-anything (at least not in 2019).
[+] [-] la_barba|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpkonofa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostmsu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] na85|6 years ago|reply
I use emacs reasonably often and I reached out to Mitsuharu Yamamoto about touchbar support in emacs and sadly never heard back.
The ability to bind arbitrary emacs functions to the touchbar, programmatically, would be a killer feature.
[+] [-] Eric_WVGG|6 years ago|reply
First, add half a centimeter of clearance between the touch bar and the number keys. I've never once accidentally hit the Touch Bar, but one of my close coworkers does all the time, after years with this, so I can't deny that it's an issue.
Second, allow users the ability to map any keyboard shortcut or menu item to a Touch Bar button. This would work similarly to how any menu item can be mapped to a keyboard shortcut in the System Preferences.
[+] [-] chadlavi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkarmani|6 years ago|reply
Then where will I map my ctrl key? Apple stupidly put the fn key in the corner and i can't map ctrl to it.
[+] [-] docker_up|6 years ago|reply
I may simply go back to Windows at home if that's the case, and will use a Windows Laptop at work if possible. Seriously, fuck Apple for this arrogance.
[+] [-] peterkelly|6 years ago|reply
I had turned my macbook pro's screen brightness down to complete black as I was using an external monitor only, and in a dark environment. Some time later I happened to restart my machine, and both the internal and external displays came up completely black.
The touchbar displayed only "Esc", without the normal brightness control. I had to figure out from memory how to log in without being able to see the screen, i.e. exactly how far I needed to move the pointer on the trackpad to click on my username, without any indication of what state the UI was in. There was no controls on the touchbar to adjust the display brightness and an external Apple USB keyboard which did have the brightness control keys was not recognised. Fixing it required both an SMC and PRAM reset.
I would pay a significant premium for a macbook pro without the touchbar. I've had other cases where the machine appears to be (but isn't necessarily) bricked and there's no indicator lights anywhere to show what's going on, even if the machine has power. I hope with Ive's departure they'll dial it back a bit and start building machines which might be slightly less beautiful but include some of the more practical affordances.
/rant
[+] [-] lloeki|6 years ago|reply
I am also a musician. The Touch Bar is fantastic to adjust tuneables in GarageBand, without the gorilla arm or wobbly screen effect you get on touchscreens.
If it were annoying to me I'd just remap the two or three functions I use as a developer to some keyboard shortcut. After all I'm a developer, I think I can handle that fairly swiftly by myself if no tool were available (and I'm fairly convinced there is).
[+] [-] notafraudster|6 years ago|reply
I would guess Apple will revive the fanless model when they switch to ARM processors in 1-2 years.
[+] [-] Someone1234|6 years ago|reply
If they had simply left all the keys, shrunk the touchpad, and added the Touch Bar above the keyboard, people who didn't like the Touch Bar would simply choose not to use it (or even shut it off) and people who loved it could continue to do so.
That's the issue. Not the Touch Bar itself's benefit, that's a red herring.
[+] [-] ngngngng|6 years ago|reply
This is my last MacBook. Xubuntu on a Thinkpad x1 carbon works great for everything I do, at a fraction of the price, with a keyboard the doesn't stop working with dust, and with more than just USB-C.
[+] [-] kirykl|6 years ago|reply
"When I invited Jobs to take some time away from NeXT to speak to a group of students, he sat in the lotus position in front of my fireplace and wowed us for three hours, as if leading a séance. But then I asked him if he would sign my Apple Extended Keyboard. He burst out: “This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate. It's a battleship. Why does it have all these keys? Do you use this F1 key? No.” And with his car keys he pried it right off. “How about this F2 key?” Off they all went. “I'm changing the world, one keyboard at a time,” he concluded in a calmer voice." [Steve Jurvetson on Steve Jobs 2011-10-06 By Steve Jurvetson.]
[+] [-] josho|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtdev|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teamski|6 years ago|reply
With Apple, people keep on complaining OVER years. The touchbar, the prices, the crappy keyboards... the reason? IDK, maybe they are locked-in and can't move to another platform but there is only one single reason to be locked-in on macOS: if you develop apps for iOS, otherwise every other platform is currently way better and switching is a matter of days. Once I had the keyboard trouble on a $4K MBP I switched instantly and never returned to macOS.
[+] [-] sincerely|6 years ago|reply
If that's the case I'm not sure it makes sense to read too much into this. They will probably reintroduce a non-touch bar option when they refresh the pro line later this year.
[+] [-] module0000|6 years ago|reply
That said, I did get a lot of "oohs" and "aahs" from other employees coming to look at it. Those went away when I'd open vim and ask them to take it for a test drive.
[+] [-] Lowkeyloki|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsg75|6 years ago|reply
There is nothing "Pro" about a touch bar, even for fields outside of software. Apparently Ive's departure means Apple is not returning to function-over-form.
[+] [-] todd8|6 years ago|reply
Further, why does the spacebar have to be so wide? It makes the Alt and System (mapped to Hyper, Meta, leader keys whatever) harder to reach without looking. Microsoft offers an new ergo keyboard with a split keyboard, but then doesn’t provide a way to map the left and right pieces to separate bindings.
[+] [-] dkarl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aylmao|6 years ago|reply
Allow me to touch it without pressing anything. Let me slide my finger and feel a click whenever I "hover" a different button. Add an option to show me an indication on screen of what I'm hovering, so I don't have to look down. Then when I decide to "press" the button, trick my brain into thinking there's moving parts like the trackpad does.
Give me the buttons of the future.
The big problem for me is that it's a touch-screen instead. Keyboards and trackpads are designed to have you rest your hands on them until you press, so it's awkward to have something that doesn't let you "rest" on it. They both are meant to be used while looking directly at the screen, so it's annoying to have to look down to know what you're pressing.
[+] [-] andyfleming|6 years ago|reply
Add back the physical top row, but keep the touch bar. Just put it above the physical top row.
I like the idea of the touch bar for customization and various use cases, but I don't do that now, because I want my top row to continue to act as simply and consistently as possible.
For example, the contextual menus for programs. I think the whole concept is really interesting and adds a cool layer of interaction. However, I don't want to give up my quick access to my normal functions like volume, expose, etc. So the end result is that I just turn all the contextual options off. So I've never had a chance to fall in love with the touch bar, because all I use it for is a crappy version of what my top row use to be.