5 ms·

Apple announces new MacBook Pro with touch strip

17 points by crivabene 10y ago

dchuk 10y ago
I think conceptually this is really neat, but it could potentially suffer from one major flaw: I hardly ever look down at my keyboard. A flat, digital screen containing changing buttons does not cater well to touch typists, of which you can reasonably assume most are who use a macbook pro. Touch ID is sweet though.
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  Yes, the example of autocorrect really doesn't seem likely to me - you'd have to be staring at that bar as you type, and the extra cognitive requirement, coupled with moving one hand way away from the home row, would probably cancel out and benefits.
- timmyd803 10y ago
  I'm on a 2015 MacBook Pro 15" and, just glancing down at the current function row, it seems like it's really not THAT far away from the bottom of the screen. So if you look at the dock routinely, jumping an inch or so to the new Touch Bar might not be such a pain.
JoshGlazebrook 10y ago
Seems to be well thought out and not just a gimmicky feature.
ralusek 10y ago
Nothing particularly new, but I am comfortably in the boat of people that don't feel that laptops need to be reinvented in any major way. 95% of what I do is in the command line, the browser, or an IDE. I've consistently gone back to my MBP to do all of those things after having tried many other form factors. That being said, I have to admit that I am at least intrigued by the Surface Book. I recently tried the Linux subsystem on Windows and was pretty impressed, it's literally just Ubuntu running with file access. The fact that I CAN pop off the tablet portion, and if I'm so inclined for art, have Photoshop, Illustrator, ZBrush actually available to me is pretty tempting. The OS differences between OSX and Windows for me have always existed only in the command line, so as long as Windows gives me bash and Linux, that pretty much disappears. Conclusion is, I don't think Apple is suffering from a lack of innovation in the laptop department. I don't understand why people assume that we haven't yet converged on the optimal form factor. Why I chose an MBP for my current laptop wasn't because it offered anything totally innovative. It was already derivative of 30 years of laptops with the same form factor. I chose it because of the Unix development environment and the great build quality. I've never used a Surface Book, but it seems like Microsoft has stepped up their game in the build quality department. If their trackpad is as good as Apple's (I have yet to use a Windows laptop where this is the case), then I'd start to consider it a serious competitor. If the two have comparable build quality and Unix, then their form factor innovation is going to be the only thing left distinguishing them (for which Microsoft is obviously currently ahead).
pgaddict 10y ago
I wonder whether they'll offer a version without a discrete GPU, and how difficult will it be to install/run Linux on it ... I've been looking for a good 15" laptop laptop for some time, and all other manufacturers only offer 15" models with numpads, which is just awful. The discrete GPUs are just a rather useless nuisance for me. So I wonder whether there's more detailed info about the exact models they'll offer, somewhere.
- Lio 10y ago
  I'm with you on the subject of numeric keypads on laptops. The ergonomics is terrible for anyone who touch-types as your always pushed left from the centre of the screen.
  - pgaddict 10y ago
    I suspect there was a secret meeting where all the manufacturers discussed ways to make the users suffer, and adding the numpads was #1 on their list. The only two vendors absent on that meeting were Apple and Dell, but Dell then attended the second meeting where they agreed to never offer i5/i7 CPU with an integrated GPU. That's the best explanation why the only XPS15 config with integrated GPU only has i3 CPU ...
    - Lio 10y ago
      I'm not a legally qualified medical doctor but that does have a ring of truth to it!
Osmium 10y ago
Would be curious to know if they tested the Touch Bar below the keyboard instead of above it. I wonder if, as the concept further evolves, the bar might become larger or migrate locations. The comparisons they made to the original PowerBook were interesting, in that it really showed how constant incremental changes really add up in the long term. Edit: Another possibility is to integrate an OLED display into the trackpad too, so then you have haptics as well, and could interact with both mouse and touch bar with one hand.
lathiat 10y ago
I had hoped it would be a click bar, rather than a touch bar based on my experience with my Lenovo touch bar. Also hoped for haptic feedback... seems a shame. At least it seems they have a bit of buffer room on both the left and the right so your fingers can sit on the side of the machine without touching something - I guess that does the job. Will be most interesting to find out how the security is working, and if they're making using any of the Intel security features on these new machines. To date, they have been woefully bad at doing so, which is interesting given the security push on iPhones and the controlled hardware platform.
todd8 10y ago
I'm already looking forward to using the touch strip in the "professional" apps like Photoshop, but I really spend a lot more time with IDEs and specifically with Emacs. One of the frustrating things about my various keyboards is that the function keys are located in slightly different places. I already have to look down to use a specific function key. Emacs, by default, uses so many of the possible key chords using control and alt and even command modifiers on the Mac keyboard that users are expected to bind their own functions to some of the function keys. I'm wondering if the touch strip will be capable of simplifying my interaction with a complex interface like that presented by Emacs.
laddng 10y ago
One concern I have is that editing in vim is going to be more annoying since the escape key is so essential to the vim workflow and now it's a touch key. I know that some have mentioned that you can map the escape key to the caps lock key, however, I've already mapped my ctrl key to the caps lock key for more accessibility. vim problems :/
- jodoherty 10y ago
  This is why I've completely switched to using "Ctrl+[" instead of escape. The escape key placement on a lot of keyboards is too inconsistent, plus it's just so far away.

17 points by crivabene 10y ago

dchuk 10y ago

I think conceptually this is really neat, but it could potentially suffer from one major flaw: I hardly ever look down at my keyboard. A flat, digital screen containing changing buttons does not cater well to touch typists, of which you can reasonably assume most are who use a macbook pro. Touch ID is sweet though.

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
Yes, the example of autocorrect really doesn't seem likely to me - you'd have to be staring at that bar as you type, and the extra cognitive requirement, coupled with moving one hand way away from the home row, would probably cancel out and benefits.
timmyd803 10y ago
I'm on a 2015 MacBook Pro 15" and, just glancing down at the current function row, it seems like it's really not THAT far away from the bottom of the screen. So if you look at the dock routinely, jumping an inch or so to the new Touch Bar might not be such a pain.

JoshGlazebrook 10y ago

Seems to be well thought out and not just a gimmicky feature.

ralusek 10y ago

Nothing particularly new, but I am comfortably in the boat of people that don't feel that laptops need to be reinvented in any major way. 95% of what I do is in the command line, the browser, or an IDE. I've consistently gone back to my MBP to do all of those things after having tried many other form factors. That being said, I have to admit that I am at least intrigued by the Surface Book. I recently tried the Linux subsystem on Windows and was pretty impressed, it's literally just Ubuntu running with file access. The fact that I CAN pop off the tablet portion, and if I'm so inclined for art, have Photoshop, Illustrator, ZBrush actually available to me is pretty tempting. The OS differences between OSX and Windows for me have always existed only in the command line, so as long as Windows gives me bash and Linux, that pretty much disappears. Conclusion is, I don't think Apple is suffering from a lack of innovation in the laptop department. I don't understand why people assume that we haven't yet converged on the optimal form factor. Why I chose an MBP for my current laptop wasn't because it offered anything totally innovative. It was already derivative of 30 years of laptops with the same form factor. I chose it because of the Unix development environment and the great build quality. I've never used a Surface Book, but it seems like Microsoft has stepped up their game in the build quality department. If their trackpad is as good as Apple's (I have yet to use a Windows laptop where this is the case), then I'd start to consider it a serious competitor. If the two have comparable build quality and Unix, then their form factor innovation is going to be the only thing left distinguishing them (for which Microsoft is obviously currently ahead).

pgaddict 10y ago

I wonder whether they'll offer a version without a discrete GPU, and how difficult will it be to install/run Linux on it ... I've been looking for a good 15" laptop laptop for some time, and all other manufacturers only offer 15" models with numpads, which is just awful. The discrete GPUs are just a rather useless nuisance for me. So I wonder whether there's more detailed info about the exact models they'll offer, somewhere.

Lio 10y ago
I'm with you on the subject of numeric keypads on laptops. The ergonomics is terrible for anyone who touch-types as your always pushed left from the centre of the screen.
- pgaddict 10y ago
  I suspect there was a secret meeting where all the manufacturers discussed ways to make the users suffer, and adding the numpads was #1 on their list. The only two vendors absent on that meeting were Apple and Dell, but Dell then attended the second meeting where they agreed to never offer i5/i7 CPU with an integrated GPU. That's the best explanation why the only XPS15 config with integrated GPU only has i3 CPU ...
  - Lio 10y ago
    I'm not a legally qualified medical doctor but that does have a ring of truth to it!

Osmium 10y ago

Would be curious to know if they tested the Touch Bar below the keyboard instead of above it. I wonder if, as the concept further evolves, the bar might become larger or migrate locations. The comparisons they made to the original PowerBook were interesting, in that it really showed how constant incremental changes really add up in the long term. Edit: Another possibility is to integrate an OLED display into the trackpad too, so then you have haptics as well, and could interact with both mouse and touch bar with one hand.

lathiat 10y ago

I had hoped it would be a click bar, rather than a touch bar based on my experience with my Lenovo touch bar. Also hoped for haptic feedback... seems a shame. At least it seems they have a bit of buffer room on both the left and the right so your fingers can sit on the side of the machine without touching something - I guess that does the job. Will be most interesting to find out how the security is working, and if they're making using any of the Intel security features on these new machines. To date, they have been woefully bad at doing so, which is interesting given the security push on iPhones and the controlled hardware platform.

todd8 10y ago

I'm already looking forward to using the touch strip in the "professional" apps like Photoshop, but I really spend a lot more time with IDEs and specifically with Emacs. One of the frustrating things about my various keyboards is that the function keys are located in slightly different places. I already have to look down to use a specific function key. Emacs, by default, uses so many of the possible key chords using control and alt and even command modifiers on the Mac keyboard that users are expected to bind their own functions to some of the function keys. I'm wondering if the touch strip will be capable of simplifying my interaction with a complex interface like that presented by Emacs.

laddng 10y ago

One concern I have is that editing in vim is going to be more annoying since the escape key is so essential to the vim workflow and now it's a touch key. I know that some have mentioned that you can map the escape key to the caps lock key, however, I've already mapped my ctrl key to the caps lock key for more accessibility. vim problems :/

jodoherty 10y ago
This is why I've completely switched to using "Ctrl+[" instead of escape. The escape key placement on a lot of keyboards is too inconsistent, plus it's just so far away.