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The Touchbar has been mostly a dud for me, and I don't miss it when using my older MBP. I have customized by touch bar to include my favorite actions such as lo

The Touchbar has been mostly a dud for me, and I don't miss it when using my older MBP. I have customized by touch bar to include my favorite actions such as locking the screen, but it is otherwise static. My 2 biggest issues are: - It turns off after 1 min of inactivity, and find it infuriating that I have to wake it up by before using it. Effectively making everything 2 interactions away. - No haptic feedback. Even having the trackpad click would be useful, since it can be felt throughout the Macbook.

dawnerd 9y ago
Primary reason it turns off is because its oled, and leaving it on would cause burn-in.
- ProfessorLayton 9y ago
  Whatever the reason is, it leads to a poor user experience.
- avhon1 9y ago
  Sounds like a great application for an e-ink display. No burn-in, low power, and can always emit as much light as the keys on the keyboard do (by front-illuminating the bar when the keyboard backlight is on).
  - KillerRabbitt 9y ago
    Do eink displays have decent pixel density yet? The last time I used an eink was in 2012 and looked terrible by modern standards
    - jsheard 9y ago
      They do, the newest e-ink Kindles have 300ppi screens which puts them close to iPhone/iPad Retina display density. Most e-readers were only 167ppi in 2012, with 212ppi just starting to hit the market in premium models.
  - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
    The 2014 ThinkPad X1 Carbon had an e-ink touch strip instead of an F-row (exactly like the MBP does). It didn’t work very well: poor display contrast, hard to see in bright daylight, can’t feel for keys, slow response time, etc. They switched back to real keys for the 2015 model release. ...that’s why Apple’s adoption of it surprised me the most: I saw how it on the ThinkPad added no value, and while Apple has greater integration and will undoubtedly encourage third-party devs to use it - it will still be too fiddly and complicated. I think Apple’s too proud to kill it off in just one project cycle - but I can’t see Apple’s management justifying continued investment of time into maintaining it. The fact they didn’t include it in their latest desktop keyboard (for a Pro users no-less!) says something.
    - Izkata 9y ago
      > hard to see in bright daylight Huh? One of the defining features of e-ink is that it's easier to read in bright light, compared to a regular screen...
      - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
        It had a smooth plastic window over it without any matte-finish or anti-reflective coating. Couple that with how the keyboard area is often in the shade made it hard to see.
    - jchw 9y ago
      I owned one of those X1 Carbons and that was absolutely not e-ink. It was merely some LED lights over a touch surface. All the possible configurations were physically cut out; you couldn't display arbitrary stuff on it. Even for what it did do, it sucked, and made the entire layout more awkward.
  - Pxtl 9y ago
    E-inks respond too slow for good touch feedback though so you'd want to have it be clicky or vibrate or something, which adds a moving part.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Vibration could be added via a speaker, not exactly a moving part. This is how Apple's current vibration scheme works, at any rate.
      - gargravarr 9y ago
        Not entirely accurate, the Force Touch device uses a linear motor to accelerate a small mass to 'thump' into its housing. In principle it's similar to a speaker, but in implementation it's very different (a speaker voice cone never intentionally impacts its housing, for example).
        gargravarr 9y ago
        *Taptic Engine, I think I meant
    - blixt 9y ago
      I thought so too but the Pebble Time had snappy, colorful animations[1] that looked really good, and changed my perception completely on what is possible with e-ink. With regards to touch feedback, MacBooks come with a pretty hefty “haptic engine” already so it should be possible. [1] https://youtu.be/v-vP9D062aM https://youtu.be/v-vP9D062aM
      - joecool1029 9y ago
        >I thought so too but the Pebble Time had snappy, colorful animations[1] that looked really good, and changed my perception completely on what is possible with e-ink. Except they didn't use e-ink. Pebble used transreflective LCD's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...
- untog 9y ago
  It's almost as if they shouldn't have made with with OLED
  - bredren 9y ago
    It is as if they shouldn’t have released it in the first place.
    - DonHopkins 9y ago
      It is as if the only thing you should run on it is Electric Sheep. https://electricsheep.org/ https://electricsheep.org/
_fzslm 9y ago
> No haptic feedback HapticKey fixed this for me: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey
p1necone 9y ago
"It turns off after 1 min of inactivity" Oh wow I didn't know that, I've been kinda leaning on the "it might actually be pretty cool/useful" side of this touchbar thing, but now I'm squarely in the "it's totally useless" camp. What were they thinking?
- FridgeSeal 9y ago
  Well it's essentially running it's own processor and display. It'd have to time out because otherwise it would eat even more of your battery than it already does.
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    You'd think it doesn't use that much, given it's a mostly black oled and the co-processor is from the apple watch. But, that one turns off after a little while too so nothing new there.
    - frabert 9y ago
      The key here is that it's oled: given that it's mostly static as the user above says, it would get pretty bad burn in if it was always on
- primitur 9y ago
  Whats great is when seemingly intelligent apps adopt the Touchbar koolaid, such as .. iTerm. So yeah, now I'm greated with the very nice side-effect of having a massive row of blinking crud all over my vision, just because iTerm wants to show me what command is running, what keys I could use to kill the process, blink back to the shell, oh .. another app is running in the shell, better update the touchbar .. Man, its just .. like .. such an 80's feeling.
  - lysium 9y ago
    At least, you can disable it.
  - 9y ago
uptown 9y ago
It turns off? I had no idea. I'd been waiting for them to release this laptop, but ended up going with a lightly used Mid 2015 after Apple announced the specs and price. It was just a misfit for my needs especially after trying the keyboard. The powering-down of the TouchBar sounds like a horrible user experience.

dawnerd 9y ago

Primary reason it turns off is because its oled, and leaving it on would cause burn-in.

ProfessorLayton 9y ago
Whatever the reason is, it leads to a poor user experience.
avhon1 9y ago
Sounds like a great application for an e-ink display. No burn-in, low power, and can always emit as much light as the keys on the keyboard do (by front-illuminating the bar when the keyboard backlight is on).
- KillerRabbitt 9y ago
  Do eink displays have decent pixel density yet? The last time I used an eink was in 2012 and looked terrible by modern standards
  - jsheard 9y ago
    They do, the newest e-ink Kindles have 300ppi screens which puts them close to iPhone/iPad Retina display density. Most e-readers were only 167ppi in 2012, with 212ppi just starting to hit the market in premium models.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
  The 2014 ThinkPad X1 Carbon had an e-ink touch strip instead of an F-row (exactly like the MBP does). It didn’t work very well: poor display contrast, hard to see in bright daylight, can’t feel for keys, slow response time, etc. They switched back to real keys for the 2015 model release. ...that’s why Apple’s adoption of it surprised me the most: I saw how it on the ThinkPad added no value, and while Apple has greater integration and will undoubtedly encourage third-party devs to use it - it will still be too fiddly and complicated. I think Apple’s too proud to kill it off in just one project cycle - but I can’t see Apple’s management justifying continued investment of time into maintaining it. The fact they didn’t include it in their latest desktop keyboard (for a Pro users no-less!) says something.
  - Izkata 9y ago
    > hard to see in bright daylight Huh? One of the defining features of e-ink is that it's easier to read in bright light, compared to a regular screen...
    - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
      It had a smooth plastic window over it without any matte-finish or anti-reflective coating. Couple that with how the keyboard area is often in the shade made it hard to see.
  - jchw 9y ago
    I owned one of those X1 Carbons and that was absolutely not e-ink. It was merely some LED lights over a touch surface. All the possible configurations were physically cut out; you couldn't display arbitrary stuff on it. Even for what it did do, it sucked, and made the entire layout more awkward.
- Pxtl 9y ago
  E-inks respond too slow for good touch feedback though so you'd want to have it be clicky or vibrate or something, which adds a moving part.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Vibration could be added via a speaker, not exactly a moving part. This is how Apple's current vibration scheme works, at any rate.
    - gargravarr 9y ago
      Not entirely accurate, the Force Touch device uses a linear motor to accelerate a small mass to 'thump' into its housing. In principle it's similar to a speaker, but in implementation it's very different (a speaker voice cone never intentionally impacts its housing, for example).
      - gargravarr 9y ago
        *Taptic Engine, I think I meant
  - blixt 9y ago
    I thought so too but the Pebble Time had snappy, colorful animations[1] that looked really good, and changed my perception completely on what is possible with e-ink. With regards to touch feedback, MacBooks come with a pretty hefty “haptic engine” already so it should be possible. [1] https://youtu.be/v-vP9D062aM https://youtu.be/v-vP9D062aM
    - joecool1029 9y ago
      >I thought so too but the Pebble Time had snappy, colorful animations[1] that looked really good, and changed my perception completely on what is possible with e-ink. Except they didn't use e-ink. Pebble used transreflective LCD's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...
untog 9y ago
It's almost as if they shouldn't have made with with OLED
- bredren 9y ago
  It is as if they shouldn’t have released it in the first place.
  - DonHopkins 9y ago
    It is as if the only thing you should run on it is Electric Sheep. https://electricsheep.org/ https://electricsheep.org/

_fzslm 9y ago

> No haptic feedback HapticKey fixed this for me: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey

p1necone 9y ago

"It turns off after 1 min of inactivity" Oh wow I didn't know that, I've been kinda leaning on the "it might actually be pretty cool/useful" side of this touchbar thing, but now I'm squarely in the "it's totally useless" camp. What were they thinking?

FridgeSeal 9y ago
Well it's essentially running it's own processor and display. It'd have to time out because otherwise it would eat even more of your battery than it already does.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  You'd think it doesn't use that much, given it's a mostly black oled and the co-processor is from the apple watch. But, that one turns off after a little while too so nothing new there.
  - frabert 9y ago
    The key here is that it's oled: given that it's mostly static as the user above says, it would get pretty bad burn in if it was always on
primitur 9y ago
Whats great is when seemingly intelligent apps adopt the Touchbar koolaid, such as .. iTerm. So yeah, now I'm greated with the very nice side-effect of having a massive row of blinking crud all over my vision, just because iTerm wants to show me what command is running, what keys I could use to kill the process, blink back to the shell, oh .. another app is running in the shell, better update the touchbar .. Man, its just .. like .. such an 80's feeling.
- lysium 9y ago
  At least, you can disable it.
- 9y ago

uptown 9y ago

It turns off? I had no idea. I'd been waiting for them to release this laptop, but ended up going with a lightly used Mid 2015 after Apple announced the specs and price. It was just a misfit for my needs especially after trying the keyboard. The powering-down of the TouchBar sounds like a horrible user experience.