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> It's way too early to know if the Touch Bar is better UI than function keys. It's not early, most things in UI design are actually very scientific and can pr
by zzzcpan 10y ago
> It's way too early to know if the Touch Bar is better UI than function keys.
It's not early, most things in UI design are actually very scientific and can predict in advance how fast you can use something. Basically touch bar is harder if not impossible to use without thinking and looking because it breaks consistency and is also slower to use because targets are smaller, i.e. you have to be more careful not to touch other targets, etc.
- ceejayoz 10y agoThat sounds like the same sort of arguments we heard when the iPhone ditched the physical keyboard. Guess what we don't see on many phones these days?
- zzzcpan 10y agoYou don't use professional software on iphone.
- zimpenfish 10y agoSurely "professional software" is anything that people use in their profession to get paid for? cf the New Yorker covers drawn on iPhones, Gorillaz producing an album (mostly) on an iPad, etc.
- ceejayoz 10y agoI don't? Huh. News to me!
- jedikv 10y agoExcept apple use that rationale/excuse for not having touch screens on their laptop...yet the touchbar is basically a worse version in someways as now you have to take your eye off ur screen to find the buttons.
- ceejayoz 10y agoWhen has Apple used "there's a keyboard" as a rationale for not having touch screens on the laptops? I'd suspect their objection is more "you'd get fingerprints on the glass", but I doubt they've made that public either. Most users can't touch-type the function keys, so having to look isn't much of a departure for the vast majority of their audience.
- zimpenfish 10y ago> most things in UI design are actually very scientific I cannot say whether Apple have designed and rigorously tested the Touch Bar with UX in mind but they do have a fairly strong reputation for doing such in the past.
- zzzcpan 10y agoYes, I think they know what they are doing, tried to explain this in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13366000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13366000