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Apple says no fun allowed on the Touch Bar
- dvcc 10y agoI await the first few apps to put ads on the Touch Bar. It seems all but inevitable.
- Razengan 10y agoIf I understand correctly it's like the Menu Bar, so only the application that's currently in focus will get to display stuff on it; they won't be able to hijack it from the background. Frankly, if an app insists on showing me ads while I'm using it, I'd rather that they be on the Touch Bar instead of the main screen.
- stcredzero 10y agoHow long before some application hijacks focus by only pretending to give it up, just so it can display ads? (Also, maybe record keystrokes.)
- eridius 10y agoApplications cannot do that. You cannot prevent the user from switching to another app, and even if you could, you can't show that other app's menubar or make its windows appear to have focus when they don't. The closest you can come to preventing app switching is using old-style fullscreen capture plus disabling global hotkeys (you know, like how a lot of old games work), but when you're doing that, the user can't even see other apps, much less think they've got focus.
- Razengan 10y agoAs far as I know, to do things like record keystrokes or interfere with the UI of other processes, an app on macOS has to be manually permitted through System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility. Steam's in-game overlay feature and even some functions of the built-in Automator utility have to be allowed from there.
- mortenjorck 10y agoDoubtful, mostly because there just isn't that much ad-supported software on OS X / macOS. And Safari certainly doesn't expose any access to it.
- Terribledactyl 10y agoI believe with safari open, you see a representation (favicon? I don't know) of your open tabs and favorites. I bet something could leak through there, at least with a desperate enough site.
- guywithabike 10y agoHow would that be different than just putting ads right on the main display?
- awesomerobot 10y agoI mean honestly it would be preferable to ads on the main display. Either way, if I didn't want to use an application with ads I'd just uninstall it.
- Razengan 10y agoGood, sensible guidelines from Apple, and it's not like you can't ignore them and distribute your app outside the Mac App Store.
- curiousgal 10y agoYet another huge FU to developers.
- st3v3r 10y agoNo, it isn't. Nothing on this laptop is anywhere near an "FU" to developers.
- budde 10y agoAs a macOS user, I'm pretty pleased Apple is discouraging the use of the Touch Bar as yet more real estate for 'innovative' developers to plaster unwanted notifications or other distracting garbage. Besides, if you have a compelling non-approved use of the touch bar nothing is stopping you from distributing it outside of the Mac App Store. Now if only they could take a look at the user-hostile default "allow" option on the dialog Safari presents when a website wants to start sending you push notifications...
- rayiner 10y ago> Who wouldn’t want a stock ticker there, or a Twitter feed, or a progress bar for downloads and file operations? There are plenty of possibilities to explore here, and it seems a disservice to insist that things remain monochrome, key-shaped and static. No Mac user has ever thought "gee, this third party design is so much more tasteful than something that follows the HIG!" Apple is right to keep designers on a tight leash.
- c54 10y agoI can't tell if this comment is sarcastic. Are you saying that apple's specified design is always better than anything else?
- gaze 10y agono, but averaging over most developers it's way better.
- mfoy_ 10y agoSo... because some developers might use it tastelessly, no one should be allowed to use it creatively at all?
- smallnamespace 10y agoThere is value in consistency and uniformity. If all developers follow the guidelines, then once you understand the conventions, any app should be predictable for the user. If devs all go off in their own direction, then users have to re-learn the UX for every single app.
- dntrkv 10y agoIs this surprising to you? This has always been Apple's approach. I'd say it is the most defining difference between Apple products and everything else. One of the main reasons people commit to the Apple ecosystem is that you get a more consistent user experience over Google's or Microsoft's.
- kemiller2002 10y agoReally? You know what I expected on the keyboard? The escape key, but clearly Apple didn't have a problem with violating that expectation.
- eridius 10y agoThis is getting really old really fast. Plus, the Touch Bar does actually have an escape key by default.
- tjohns 10y agoSeveral screenshots show that a escape key can be placed on the touch bar by apps that need it (e.g. Terminal). There's certainly a good argument that physical keys are better, due to tactile positioning and response. But there's still a virtual escape "key". (And on a related note: Folks could make the same argument about the F13/F14/F15/Help buttons that are traditionally on a Mac keyboard. Or the lack of Print Screen/Break/Scroll Lock from Apple keyboards in general. Keyboard layouts actually do change with time. Heck, look at the "Space Cadet Keyboard" from an MIT Lisp machine to see how much things have changed.)
- wesleytodd 10y ago"Don't be creative with this new tool we made for creative people" -Apple Typical Apple restricting the ecosystem. Guess we all knew what we were getting ourselves into.
- fabrika 10y agoHow are they going to control this for non-App Store apps?
- mazlix 10y agoI'm pretty sure its only talking about App Store apps.
- baefage 10y agoBut maybe they'll make it hard or even impossible for apps outside the MAS to use the touch bar.
- xenadu02 10y agoThese are just guidelines. You can submit apps to the App Store that violate them if it makes sense for your app; people do it on iOS all the time.
- st3v3r 10y agoThey're not going to control it for any apps, App Store or non. It's a guideline. They're just saying, "Based on our research developing this thing, these are the things you do and do not want to do when developing for it." Same as any other company that makes any other thing does.
- SysArchitect 10y agoOnly the currently selected foreground application gets to use the TouchBar and display content on it. Which means apps distributed outside of the app store when they have focus are allowed to put whatever they want on the TouchBar and you are allowed to close and delete the app. Problem solved.
- cphoover 10y agoWould be cool to put a code editor minimap on the touch bar.
- agumonkey 10y agoed is back.
- ccvannorman 10y agoI've read a TON of pushback on HN about the new touch bar. After reading this article it dawned on me -- the reason I hate the touch bar is because it isn't tactile. Instead of feeling for the volume up/mute/lightness up/down buttons, I'll have to stick my face into my keyboard to know what I'm pressing. My solution would be allowing individual pressable physical keys to be changed via LED display, so that I can still feel them, but developers can modify what that key means. Yeah this would disable "sliding" which I don't care about.. is anyone with me on this? I hate having to look at things.
- bcheung 10y agoI like the idea of having physical keys having their own screens but I definitely still like sliding as well. It's extremely useful for scrubbing through video, photo albums, photo adjustment sliders, etc.
- tdb7893 10y agowasn't there an e-ink keyboard on here a little ago?
- strictnein 10y agoThere have been OLED keyboards and Apple replacing the Function keys with OLED keys would have been a great idea. There's a whole bunch of cool keyboard products with various types of screens: http://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/ http://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/
- eridius 10y agoThere's a bunch of external keyboards that do this already. AFAIK, none of them have proved to be particularly popular or have a lot of developer support. As a side note, I don't think I've ever pressed volume up/down or brightness up/down without looking at the keyboard first. I simply don't press them often enough to have muscle memory for their location, and every keyboard I use puts them in slightly different places anyway.
- mi100hael 10y ago
- bcheung 10y agoThere goes my pong controller.
- WiseWeasel 10y agoFWIW, the guidelines suggest not using the Touch Bar as an output device, i.e. as an extension of the screen, not that you shouldn't use it as an input device. Pong paddle control should still be an acceptable use of the bar.
- tn13 10y agoThe primary reason for this may not be that Apple does not want you to do it but it is probably the hardware and software that powers this feature is probably not robust enough to handle that creative potential. In short this is a substandard piece you are buying. I will be surprised if someone does not hack and if apple does not provide a proper API support to modify and have fun with this feature.
- matt4077 10y agoWell they showed a dj using it to control a synthesizer during the keynote, so I think (in short) that was a substandard comment I was reading.
- tn13 10y agoWhat do you think is the delta between orchestrated demo v/s real usability of a particular feature ?
- matt4077 10y agoWell he was using it. I'm quite sure they didn't fake it. I'm absolutely sure I couldn't do it. I'm also remain very certain that Apple is not trying to discourage people from using this thing because it only has a life span of whatever hours of active use. How I know it? Because they have been selling touchscreens for ten years now, under much stronger constraints, without any such shenanigans. And also because it is an incredibly stupid theory.
- stcredzero 10y agoNow, admittedly, some of these things could be annoying or pulled off poorly. This is one of the things that Apple has always been serious about doing right. Generally, devs who complain about this class of things are proved wrong in a few years. (Remember all of the outrage about background processes from the 2nd gen iPhone era?) That said, even Apple is getting less Apple-y in this regard.
- eridius 10y agoI'm not sure the article author really understands how the Touch Bar works. > I for one was thinking of what the first Touch Bar games would look like, or how it could act as a Rainmeter or MenuMeters-like at-a-glance view of my machine. People are going to experiment with toys for the Touch Bar, sure, but nobody's going to actually try and publish a game for one. Not only would the audience be very small, but the Touch Bar itself is so limited that you're not going to be able to make a game for it that's worth buying. However, normal games can and should use the Touch Bar to extend the keyboard to do great stuff (e.g. RPGs could put Inventory, Character Sheet, Skills, etc as buttons on the Touch Bar, or use it as an alternative input for controlling some types of abilities). As for MenuMeters-like at-a-glance, this is why I say the author doesn't seem to understand how it works, because the only way you could have an at-a-glance view in the Touch Bar is if you actually put focus on the app that provides it. You cannot have a background app that provides Touch Bar content (like you can for stuff in the menubar). The foreground app controls what's on the Touch Bar. So the only way to have at-a-glance meters on it is if the foreground app is the one providing those meters. And if you have to put focus on a particular app to see your meters, then it's not really at-a-glance after all, and it would be quicker and easier (and actually usable for people without Touch Bars) to simply have that app show the status on the screen when you give it focus.
- no_wave 10y agoThe RPG idea is something that has been tried for ages - the earliest example I can remember is the "Chocobo World" minigame on specific interactive memory cartridges for Final Fantasy VIII for the Playstation I. More recent examples include the Game Boy integration with the Wii and the default controller screen for the Wii U console. None of these attempts ended up being very successful with the exception of the wildly successful Nintendo DS, which is different in a lot of ways (in that the real estate size between the touch screen and the real screen is equal). The objection that a lot of people here have to the touch bar is that it's a sort-of-nice-to-have, never-essential feature used on very few machines, and these are the sorts of features that developers instinctively smell danger around.
- eridius 10y ago
- comex 10y agoThis article is very misleading. Apple has always had UI guidelines (HIG); that doesn't mean they ban apps that don't follow them. It's a recommendation, not a proscription.
- delinka 10y agoOnly the foreground app gets to put things in the touch bar. Excellent - I don't want some background process putting animated ads there. Beyond that, Apple can't possibly limit what the foreground app does. Distribute your tasteless animating app with a Developer ID cert, and annoy people to your heart's content. I do want a screensaver that also uses the touch bar. Nyan Cat is acceptable in this context.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> Nyan Cat is acceptable in this context. If someone can borrow me a new Mac, I'll happily work on getting nyan-mode for Emacs to display there. ;).
- Spivak 10y ago> I don't want some background process putting animated ads there. If you are legitimately worried about this then I am in horror of what software you're running on your computer. I could understand having it require user approval but forbidding it entirely seems short sighted.
- awesomerobot 10y agoIf I had an application that advertised to me like that I'd just uninstall it immediately, like I do on my phone. I think a lot of people in this thread are getting so riled up about bad design the only alternative they see is totalitarianism. In this case I think if you're giving an application your focus it should be able to use a secondary screen however the user wants it to. If the experience is bad people won't use your app. Apple is instead saying "we know what all the good experiences are, so don't go having any bright ideas" — hopefully they won't strongly enforce any of their "guidelines"
- tinus_hn 10y agoApple does not control the software you put on your Mac. They do not forbid you from doing anything.
- skeptic2718 10y agoGiven they showed some pretty interactive demos in the keynote, I'm thinking it's all allowed if you're Apple but 3rd-party developers should be concerned.
- kprybol 10y agoI'm kind of OK with this. Yea I think that there are a ton of really cool/interesting things that could be done with the touch bar, but given that it serves the important role of being the power button and controlling user access via TouchID, I really wouldn't want to risk either of those functionalities even if it means less "fun".
- orbitingpluto 10y agoGiven that displays favor landscape over portrait, there's a lot of free space above the numbers. My bet is that the next iteration will have the function keys and the touch bar after the alienation of developers becomes apparent to Apple.
- pyrophane 10y agoHow many negative posts about the new MacBook have graced the front-page of HN since the announcement? It feels like a lot. I don't really understand the degree of animosity that the new MBP is drawing. Apple isn't, nor have they ever really been, the makers of the ultimate dev machine. They were always just the company that makes a laptop with decent power that was actually a laptop (not a desktop with a hinge in the back) which ran a unix that was, for many, more pleasant to use than linux. That hasn't changed with this release. Would I like them to maybe be a little less obsessive about thinness if it meant getting a keyboard with a bit more travel? Sure. Do I think that maybe a 32GB of RAM might not be quite the battery-killing trade-off that Phil implies? Kinda. Do I expect Apple to give me the option to make that choice on my own? Not a chance. And when it comes to the Touch Bar, I didn't really expect Apple to make this a free-for-all for developers. They've long had this tendency to want to control how developers use these new features to ensure that it doesn't get away from their vision. But will someone figure out how to hack the Touch Bar and make it do some very interesting things? Oh, absolutely.
- gosubpl 10y ago"obsessive with thinness"? new MacBookPro - 14.9 mm MacBook - 13.0 mm Asus UX305 - 12.3 mm Samsung Series 9 900X3 - 13.0 mm I don't think we can call that obsession. And please note that both Asus and Samsung have keyboards with around 2mm travel - laptop standard.
- pyrophane 10y agoMy biggest concern is that I won't like the keyboard, but I do most of my typing on an external keyboard anyway, so I suppose it won't be the end of the world. Once you get used to a mechanical keyboard it is hard to go back to typing on any laptop keyboard.
- khedoros1 10y agoFor a number of years, a lot of developers considered Apple hardware to be the best-available dev machine (powerful hardware with nice design, good connectivity, pleasant but powerful OS? Nice). I think that it was a result of coincidence. Developers aren't really who they're targeting, but coincidentally computers that were nice for their market were also nice dev machines. I expect Apple to design for their intended customers. I also expect devs that liked the coincidentally-nice Apple hardware to complain when Apple's designs drift away from devs' requirements. I don't expect the complaints to change anything, but I expect them to be loud and all over the place for a little while.
- msane 10y agoThis thing looks terrible. How did "Let's add TouchID to the MacBook!" become "Let's get rid of escape, power, function keys, volume, brightness, media controls ... and replace it with a second tiny screen!" ?
- ksk 10y agoHas anyone here used the touchbar in person? I'm interested to know how easy it is to touch individual controls on the bar. Like can you be in the middle of typing and hit the keys or do you have to stop and poke at it.
- drivingmenuts 10y ago> Who wouldn’t want a stock ticker there, or a Twitter feed, or a progress bar for downloads and file operations? I want function keys there. I have a perfectly good screen to show all that other fluff on.
- tempvc 10y agoIt's an entirely new approach to software, when the hardware manufacturer tells you that certain software"is not allowed". No longer a general purpose computer.