4 ms·

Trackpad, mouse, etc, is not a good comparable. Unlike a trackpad or mouse, the touch bar is a video display. Being a display implies visual interaction, and

by qyv 10y ago

Trackpad, mouse, etc, is not a good comparable. Unlike a trackpad or mouse, the touch bar is a video display. Being a display implies visual interaction, and the lack of physical feedback will make 'touch typing' the touch bar difficult.

grzm 10y ago
Yes, it has a display component. I don't see how that implies it must always be used by looking at it. Keys (usually) have labels on them, yet many people don't use the labels as reference once they're accustomed to touch typing. Learning key commands can be a chore, requiring use of the manual or discovery through menus. Do you remember cards provided with some applications that included lists of command key commands? The Touch Bar makes things like that instantly available. And once you learn where they are, you don't need to be looking at them. There are probably going to be some interesting interaction possibilities where we're going to want use the Touch Bar in a more visual way. One I can think of is the autocomplete demo during the Hello Again event. I personally think autocomplete would be better served keyboard alone in a manner similar to how the spelling and grammar suggestions work, rather than through the Touch Bar, but again, that's not having used it. I completely agree that it is a new input device. Just not completely new. Some things are going to carry over from the keyboard, the trackpad, and the touch screen. And I agree the lack of physical response may take some getting used to. As I mentioned, I think we'll see improvements on this in the future.
- vacri 10y ago
  You're missing the 'physical feedback' component. People don't need to look at labels on keys, because they can feel the keys. A smooth bit of touchscreen has no 'landmarks' to orient yourself with. > I completely agree that it is a new input device. Just not completely new Yep. Lenovo introduced one a couple of years ago in their X1 Carbons. It was hated so much that it was stripped out of the next gen. Ultimately, the only benefit of the touchbar is the ability to be used as a slider, but you lose discrete keys to get that. How many things would such a slider be useful for? People aren't changing their volume all that often, and what real difference is there between a slider and a pair of volume buttons (media keys) anyway?
  - blktiger 10y ago
    In theory, you wouldn't need landmarks because the keys below are the landmarks. Unfortunately, the dynamic actions don't seem to line up with the number keys so I don't know how that will work in practice.
    - grzm 10y ago
      The size and location of the dynamic actions/custom keys isn't fixed (unlike, say physical keys each with its own display), so I'm not sure if alignment makes sense in this case. Or am I misinterpreting what you mean? That said, I think they can have the same "fixed" location for a given use case. Just like you can remap a keyboard so Caps Lock can mean Control, once you do that, Control will be at the same location (the Caps Lock key). Once you're used to that location, things work fine.
  - jablan 10y ago
    > a pair of volume buttons If any manufacturer would _really_ want to improve usability, they would give us back the volume knob.
  - grzm 10y ago
    "Yep. Lenovo introduced one a couple of years ago in their X1 Carbons. It was hated so much that it was stripped out of the next gen." From the reading I've done this morning on the 2014 X1 Carbon (the only model that had the Adaptive Keyboard replacing the function row), there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the keyboard and trackpad as a whole, not only the strip. Among others, they removed the physical keys from the trackpad, moved the Home and End keys to the Caps Lock location, and removed other keys entirely. I read a lot of complaints about all of these, and all of these were reverted in the 2015 version. Yeah, people are discussing the removal of the ESC key on the MacBook Pro as well. I'm personally going to miss the dedicated volume and brightness keys, and I use the ESC key in conjunction with Command to trigger LaunchBar, which I use heavily. I also think I'll be able to get used to it. There was a time in my life when I didn't use LaunchBar, and before I had dedicated volume and brightness keys. I don't remember it being all that bad. I'll see, when I get around to getting a new machine. I'm sure there are those who use the function row much more heavily than I. In the absence of aggregate data, I really can't comment on much more than my own experience and read about others. Lenovo's decision to revert everything could be seen as them deciding it wasn't in their best interest to determine which changes were worth keeping. This is all speculation, of course. And they could very well have determined that all of the changes were ruinous to some degree. It's really pretty impressive that Lenovo was willing to make so many changes to their keyboard, when, AIUI, the keyboard is one of the features that keeps people coming back to Lenovo in general. In the MacBook Pro, they're only replacing the function row with the Touch Bar. From an experimental point of view, it's a much more focussed experiment. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it's actually had more use.

by qyv 10y ago

grzm 10y ago

Yes, it has a display component. I don't see how that implies it must always be used by looking at it. Keys (usually) have labels on them, yet many people don't use the labels as reference once they're accustomed to touch typing. Learning key commands can be a chore, requiring use of the manual or discovery through menus. Do you remember cards provided with some applications that included lists of command key commands? The Touch Bar makes things like that instantly available. And once you learn where they are, you don't need to be looking at them. There are probably going to be some interesting interaction possibilities where we're going to want use the Touch Bar in a more visual way. One I can think of is the autocomplete demo during the Hello Again event. I personally think autocomplete would be better served keyboard alone in a manner similar to how the spelling and grammar suggestions work, rather than through the Touch Bar, but again, that's not having used it. I completely agree that it is a new input device. Just not completely new. Some things are going to carry over from the keyboard, the trackpad, and the touch screen. And I agree the lack of physical response may take some getting used to. As I mentioned, I think we'll see improvements on this in the future.

vacri 10y ago
You're missing the 'physical feedback' component. People don't need to look at labels on keys, because they can feel the keys. A smooth bit of touchscreen has no 'landmarks' to orient yourself with. > I completely agree that it is a new input device. Just not completely new Yep. Lenovo introduced one a couple of years ago in their X1 Carbons. It was hated so much that it was stripped out of the next gen. Ultimately, the only benefit of the touchbar is the ability to be used as a slider, but you lose discrete keys to get that. How many things would such a slider be useful for? People aren't changing their volume all that often, and what real difference is there between a slider and a pair of volume buttons (media keys) anyway?
- blktiger 10y ago
  In theory, you wouldn't need landmarks because the keys below are the landmarks. Unfortunately, the dynamic actions don't seem to line up with the number keys so I don't know how that will work in practice.
  - grzm 10y ago
    The size and location of the dynamic actions/custom keys isn't fixed (unlike, say physical keys each with its own display), so I'm not sure if alignment makes sense in this case. Or am I misinterpreting what you mean? That said, I think they can have the same "fixed" location for a given use case. Just like you can remap a keyboard so Caps Lock can mean Control, once you do that, Control will be at the same location (the Caps Lock key). Once you're used to that location, things work fine.
- jablan 10y ago
  > a pair of volume buttons If any manufacturer would _really_ want to improve usability, they would give us back the volume knob.
- grzm 10y ago
  "Yep. Lenovo introduced one a couple of years ago in their X1 Carbons. It was hated so much that it was stripped out of the next gen." From the reading I've done this morning on the 2014 X1 Carbon (the only model that had the Adaptive Keyboard replacing the function row), there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the keyboard and trackpad as a whole, not only the strip. Among others, they removed the physical keys from the trackpad, moved the Home and End keys to the Caps Lock location, and removed other keys entirely. I read a lot of complaints about all of these, and all of these were reverted in the 2015 version. Yeah, people are discussing the removal of the ESC key on the MacBook Pro as well. I'm personally going to miss the dedicated volume and brightness keys, and I use the ESC key in conjunction with Command to trigger LaunchBar, which I use heavily. I also think I'll be able to get used to it. There was a time in my life when I didn't use LaunchBar, and before I had dedicated volume and brightness keys. I don't remember it being all that bad. I'll see, when I get around to getting a new machine. I'm sure there are those who use the function row much more heavily than I. In the absence of aggregate data, I really can't comment on much more than my own experience and read about others. Lenovo's decision to revert everything could be seen as them deciding it wasn't in their best interest to determine which changes were worth keeping. This is all speculation, of course. And they could very well have determined that all of the changes were ruinous to some degree. It's really pretty impressive that Lenovo was willing to make so many changes to their keyboard, when, AIUI, the keyboard is one of the features that keeps people coming back to Lenovo in general. In the MacBook Pro, they're only replacing the function row with the Touch Bar. From an experimental point of view, it's a much more focussed experiment. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it's actually had more use.