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If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? You can easily see how the touc

If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? You can easily see how the touchbar comes across as being gimmicky. Lenovo already ditched their touch bar on the X1 Carbon (2nd generation) because it was a terrible idea. Buttons are useful, particularly for people who touch type.

coldtea 10y ago
>If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? Obviously this is no argument. It basically is: If cake is so amazing why don't we eat cake or day? Cake is indeed amazing to have in moderation, but it's also not the best thing to solely eat. We could thrive on just greens and meet maybe, but we'd do worse with just cake. Standard alphanumeric keys are used far more often, and people rely on them far more than they do on function keys (common people, the 95% of users, don't use debuggers or vim). Without a great haptic feedback story that actually gives the sense of clicking it would be disaster. Plus, it would be way costlier, and just give diminishing returns (since most of the time we just want the alphanumeric keys to be just that, whereas function keys already had a double life as controller keys for sound, etc). Third, even if it was ergonomically perfect and likable, it will obviously be even more power hungry and expensive at this point.
- Patrick_Devine 10y ago
  To make it cheaper, maybe they could just do half the keyboard. Say split it between 5-6, t-y, g-h, and b-n and just make the left half with an OLED screen. The best part is they could then sell you a new MBP in two years which has a full OLED keyboard when the prices have come down. Back to reality, the problem is that more than 5% of common people use those function key buttons on a daily basis, and they need that haptic feedback. I want my computer's volume, playback and brightness controls to be easily accessible. I also want to be able to use my escape key. I don't want to have to switch to some other application in order to turn the volume down or pause my music when I'm interrupted by someone, and it's nice to be able to control the screen brightness without having to switch applications in order to do so.
bostand 10y ago
Funny enough, Lenovo Yoga Book is just that: http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/12/lenovo-yoga-book-review/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/12/lenovo-yoga-book-re...

coldtea 10y ago

>If the touchbar is so amazing, why didn't Apple have the courage to just replace the entire keyboard with one big OLED display? Obviously this is no argument. It basically is: If cake is so amazing why don't we eat cake or day? Cake is indeed amazing to have in moderation, but it's also not the best thing to solely eat. We could thrive on just greens and meet maybe, but we'd do worse with just cake. Standard alphanumeric keys are used far more often, and people rely on them far more than they do on function keys (common people, the 95% of users, don't use debuggers or vim). Without a great haptic feedback story that actually gives the sense of clicking it would be disaster. Plus, it would be way costlier, and just give diminishing returns (since most of the time we just want the alphanumeric keys to be just that, whereas function keys already had a double life as controller keys for sound, etc). Third, even if it was ergonomically perfect and likable, it will obviously be even more power hungry and expensive at this point.

Patrick_Devine 10y ago
To make it cheaper, maybe they could just do half the keyboard. Say split it between 5-6, t-y, g-h, and b-n and just make the left half with an OLED screen. The best part is they could then sell you a new MBP in two years which has a full OLED keyboard when the prices have come down. Back to reality, the problem is that more than 5% of common people use those function key buttons on a daily basis, and they need that haptic feedback. I want my computer's volume, playback and brightness controls to be easily accessible. I also want to be able to use my escape key. I don't want to have to switch to some other application in order to turn the volume down or pause my music when I'm interrupted by someone, and it's nice to be able to control the screen brightness without having to switch applications in order to do so.

bostand 10y ago

Funny enough, Lenovo Yoga Book is just that: http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/12/lenovo-yoga-book-review/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/12/lenovo-yoga-book-re...