7 ms·

It's not possible to buy it without the TouchBar any more :( I really wanted to like it, and the concept could perhaps eventually be good, but the current impl

by pornel 8y ago

It's not possible to buy it without the TouchBar any more :( I really wanted to like it, and the concept could perhaps eventually be good, but the current implementation is infuriatingly bad: • I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. • The buttons are in different locations depending on context, so it's not possible to use it by muscle memory. • TouchBar automatically goes to sleep, making the previous two points worse. • It's not even that good for its intended purpose. Previews of things on it are too tiny. Most actions still require multiple taps, and it's in the uncanny valley between direct and indirect manipulation. Fingerprint sensor is convenient, but the TouchBar ended up being a gimmick, not a pro feature.

mcrider 8y ago
My favorite is when my hands naturally come to rest near the top of the keyboard at least once a day they land on the brightness control in the touchbar and dim my screen to black.
- nojvek 8y ago
  Or that I try to press delete, and if my fingers are a tiny bit off, the computer goes to sleep since the touch bar is really sensitive. Even the edge of my finger triggers it.
- rsync 8y ago
  Just an aside ... I set my lower-right "hot corner" to "sleep screen" on all macs I use - including desktop imacs ... That way you can just drag the mouse to the lower-right corner and black the screen anytime you like ...
  - matwood 8y ago
    Lower right for me is Mission Control, and has been for years. It would be a tough unlearning experience on your computer ;)
- matwood 8y ago
  I learned that while reading email and using "e" to archive that my pinky rests on the escape key. Took me a bit to realize why weird things were going on. Other than that, I like the 2017 keyboard (assuming mine doesn't break) and touch bar.
mFixman 8y ago
> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. > > The buttons are in different locations depending on context, so it's not possible to use it by muscle memory. You can add Volume/Brighness Up/Down buttons to the "always-on" touchbar by going to View -> Customize Touch Bar on the finder. You can also start sliding from the "open slider" button without releasing your finger, which is more granular and IMO much nicer than having to press many times to adjust volume. If they only removed that giant pop-up on the screen with the current brightness and volume it would be a big improvement.
- wepple 8y ago
  That’s really good to know, thanks! The lack of direct volume control really annoyed me. I probably should have poked around the config instead of just being annoyed about it.
imron 8y ago
> but the current implementation is infuriatingly bad: You left out how easy it is to accidentally brush with a finger and trigger various actions that you didn't want to do. Especially infuriating when using Calculator and clear a result or turn a multiplication in to an addition.
madeofpalk 8y ago
> • I need more than one tap to change the brightness, For what it's worth, if you tap and hold the brightness and volume buttons, it turns into a slider under your finger that you can immediately use. One tap + drag. It's the one thing I miss about the Touch Bar after leaving it for the MacBook Escape.
princekolt 8y ago
Wasn't the Touch Bar-less model 13" only? That's hardly a Pro machine anyway, since it has no discrete graphics.
- jaxondu 8y ago
  The touchbar-less 13” is last year model with 7th gen CPU and old keyboard design.
- wilsonnb2 8y ago
  There are a huge number of pro users that don't require integrated graphics. Most developers don't need them.
  - ryanisnan 8y ago
    Most web developers, maybe.
    - focal-point 8y ago
      Hence most developers. But discrete graphics aren't needed for lots and lots of other software either.
- dijit 8y ago
  depends what your definition of "pro" is, even if it's 50% of all users who do pro work that need a GPU (Video, photo, CAD) there's at least as many who need a lot of memory/CPU for various other things. Programming/compiling not-withstanding there are many tasks today that are CPU intensive. Plus, real professionals use slack, so that extra memory is needed.
  - andoma 8y ago
    Yup, The 32GB version should really be called Slackbook Pro.
    - 8y ago
Signez 8y ago
> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. I discovered recently that you could just do a "quick swipe" (very fast) on the button in the right direction on both the volume and brightness virtual button to apply the expected effect. Good enough for my usage.
- jvzr 8y ago
  No need to "quick swipe," you can just tap-and(-hold-and)-swipe. This is really easy and allows for fine-grained control
  - levesque 8y ago
    Wow, makes the whole thing much more pleasant to use. Pretty bad that I only discover this now, after a year and a half.
- issa 8y ago
  This comment was the best thing to happen today. This is still not as good as hard buttons, but it improves the experience tremendously.
sincerely 8y ago
>I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. this is the dealbreaker for me. :( i hope they release a model without the touch bar in the future
- simonbarker87 8y ago
  OP is incorrect, just tap and hold and then slide left or right to change the volume or brightness. It’s quicker than physical buttons and more granular.
sergiotapia 8y ago
Tap and hold brightness/volume icons then drag to change. Don't know how I figured this one out.
- simonbarker87 8y ago
  I’m fairly sure it was in the demo on stage, it is a publicised feature from day one (when I got mine) but people are so bothered about the escape key and other things that this feature gets lost in the noise.
hrrsn 8y ago
Better Touch Tool addresses almost all of your concerns
jonnyscholes 8y ago
Check our BetterTouchTool it has a 40 day free trial so you give it a proper work out and let's you customise the touch bar completely. It's brilliant and worth every cent.
J0-nas 8y ago
I wouldn't care about the touch bar if the esc+(sleep key) were still regular hardware keys. Those are the only ones that I actually use. But an even bigger problem for me is the price increase. The base TB version costs 200€ more (or 400€ if you'd buy the nTB 128gb version). With ne nTB version not getting the update, the updated MBP is too expensive compared to non Apple machienes.
- dandare 8y ago
  I believe the price increase is purely based on the profit-maximizing strategy. If people will pay that much then Apple has no reason to ask for less. Unfortunately, I can not imagine myself switching to a Windows-based laptop. This is just another example of why monopoly is bad.
  - Arubis 8y ago
    I agree that this is profit maximization, but the only monopoly Apple has is on sucking less than others at particular things that particular niches care about (privacy, UX, ecosystem integration come to mind). A non-Apple device will do all the same stuff. It just might not do it the exact way you like out of the box. I pay the Apple tax (albeit exceedingly infrequently) because I can afford it & it reduces friction in my life, not because I have no other options.
    - dandare 8y ago
      Of course you are right, Apple is dominating the market, not behaving monopolistically in the negative sense of the word.
  - camdenlock 8y ago
    If you have the choice to purchase a comparable competing product, then it’s not a monopoly.
  - kochthesecond 8y ago
    I still request a MacBook for work, but I can no longer buy it for my private use. It's just too expensive compared to their competitors.
ppeetteerr 8y ago
You don't need to worry so much about most of these. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard. Change the Touch Bar shows to Expanded Control Strip. Then go to Customize Control Strip... and set the keys you want to always have displayed. I can guarantee you will be using the touch bar more often then you did the F* keys.
masklinn 8y ago
> It's not possible to buy it without the TouchBar any more :( It is, but they didn't update the model at all.
jihadjihad 8y ago
The touchbar is awesome--you can immediately blow away all the worthless function keys and have a minimalist setup. I keep the escape key and the volume/brightness sliders, that's it. Keeps the entire setup feeling clean. People actually use the touchbar for context-dependent tasks?
- jamiek88 8y ago
  Its great for scrubbing through video. Tap and hold for fast, fine grained control. My only complaint with the touchbar is its too easy to accidentally engage Siri. Other than that it’s a good idea IMO.
  - benwaffle 8y ago
    you can remove Siri from the touchbar System Preferences > Keyboard > Customize Control Strip
  - semigroupoid 8y ago
    > My only complaint with the touchbar is its too easy to accidentally engage Siri. You can remove the Siri shortcut in the system preferences.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - thebluehawk 8y ago
    Literally the first thing I did was remove the Siri button from the touch bar.
  - driverdan 8y ago
    > Its great for scrubbing through video. The touchpad is fine for that. No need for duplicating functionality.
- matchbok 8y ago
  Eliminating the entire keyboard for a touchscreen would also be "clean". Clean != good. These are tools, not pieces of art.
tajen 8y ago
Why didn’t they keep both the touchbar and the F keys. That would have been so awesome for developers, it would have enabled so many usecases without killing existing ones.
lloeki 8y ago
Hopefully see this article? [0] I don't have on-hands feedback on this but it sounded kind of promising (or at least a possible stairway to escape that special circle of hell) [0]: http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/ http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/
lozenge 8y ago
You can swipe the volume or brightness buttons left and right to adjust in a single press.
vosper 8y ago
> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. Happily, you don't - tap and hold the button on the touchbar and drag your finger from there. You do not need to move your finger to the slider. Same works for volume. Tap, hold, drag. Not sure about skipping songs.
Razengan 8y ago
> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume Not true; you can change them by beginning a slide over the brightness/volume (and maybe other buttons that expand into a slider) in a single gesture without lifting your finger.

by pornel 8y ago

mcrider 8y ago

My favorite is when my hands naturally come to rest near the top of the keyboard at least once a day they land on the brightness control in the touchbar and dim my screen to black.

nojvek 8y ago
Or that I try to press delete, and if my fingers are a tiny bit off, the computer goes to sleep since the touch bar is really sensitive. Even the edge of my finger triggers it.
rsync 8y ago
Just an aside ... I set my lower-right "hot corner" to "sleep screen" on all macs I use - including desktop imacs ... That way you can just drag the mouse to the lower-right corner and black the screen anytime you like ...
- matwood 8y ago
  Lower right for me is Mission Control, and has been for years. It would be a tough unlearning experience on your computer ;)
matwood 8y ago
I learned that while reading email and using "e" to archive that my pinky rests on the escape key. Took me a bit to realize why weird things were going on. Other than that, I like the 2017 keyboard (assuming mine doesn't break) and touch bar.

mFixman 8y ago

> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. > > The buttons are in different locations depending on context, so it's not possible to use it by muscle memory. You can add Volume/Brighness Up/Down buttons to the "always-on" touchbar by going to View -> Customize Touch Bar on the finder. You can also start sliding from the "open slider" button without releasing your finger, which is more granular and IMO much nicer than having to press many times to adjust volume. If they only removed that giant pop-up on the screen with the current brightness and volume it would be a big improvement.

wepple 8y ago
That’s really good to know, thanks! The lack of direct volume control really annoyed me. I probably should have poked around the config instead of just being annoyed about it.

imron 8y ago

> but the current implementation is infuriatingly bad: You left out how easy it is to accidentally brush with a finger and trigger various actions that you didn't want to do. Especially infuriating when using Calculator and clear a result or turn a multiplication in to an addition.

madeofpalk 8y ago

> • I need more than one tap to change the brightness, For what it's worth, if you tap and hold the brightness and volume buttons, it turns into a slider under your finger that you can immediately use. One tap + drag. It's the one thing I miss about the Touch Bar after leaving it for the MacBook Escape.

princekolt 8y ago

Wasn't the Touch Bar-less model 13" only? That's hardly a Pro machine anyway, since it has no discrete graphics.

jaxondu 8y ago
The touchbar-less 13” is last year model with 7th gen CPU and old keyboard design.
wilsonnb2 8y ago
There are a huge number of pro users that don't require integrated graphics. Most developers don't need them.
- ryanisnan 8y ago
  Most web developers, maybe.
  - focal-point 8y ago
    Hence most developers. But discrete graphics aren't needed for lots and lots of other software either.
dijit 8y ago
depends what your definition of "pro" is, even if it's 50% of all users who do pro work that need a GPU (Video, photo, CAD) there's at least as many who need a lot of memory/CPU for various other things. Programming/compiling not-withstanding there are many tasks today that are CPU intensive. Plus, real professionals use slack, so that extra memory is needed.
- andoma 8y ago
  Yup, The 32GB version should really be called Slackbook Pro.
  - 8y ago

Signez 8y ago

> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. I discovered recently that you could just do a "quick swipe" (very fast) on the button in the right direction on both the volume and brightness virtual button to apply the expected effect. Good enough for my usage.

jvzr 8y ago
No need to "quick swipe," you can just tap-and(-hold-and)-swipe. This is really easy and allows for fine-grained control
- levesque 8y ago
  Wow, makes the whole thing much more pleasant to use. Pretty bad that I only discover this now, after a year and a half.
issa 8y ago
This comment was the best thing to happen today. This is still not as good as hard buttons, but it improves the experience tremendously.

sincerely 8y ago

>I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. this is the dealbreaker for me. :( i hope they release a model without the touch bar in the future

simonbarker87 8y ago
OP is incorrect, just tap and hold and then slide left or right to change the volume or brightness. It’s quicker than physical buttons and more granular.

sergiotapia 8y ago

Tap and hold brightness/volume icons then drag to change. Don't know how I figured this one out.

simonbarker87 8y ago
I’m fairly sure it was in the demo on stage, it is a publicised feature from day one (when I got mine) but people are so bothered about the escape key and other things that this feature gets lost in the noise.

hrrsn 8y ago

Better Touch Tool addresses almost all of your concerns

jonnyscholes 8y ago

Check our BetterTouchTool it has a 40 day free trial so you give it a proper work out and let's you customise the touch bar completely. It's brilliant and worth every cent.

J0-nas 8y ago

I wouldn't care about the touch bar if the esc+(sleep key) were still regular hardware keys. Those are the only ones that I actually use. But an even bigger problem for me is the price increase. The base TB version costs 200€ more (or 400€ if you'd buy the nTB 128gb version). With ne nTB version not getting the update, the updated MBP is too expensive compared to non Apple machienes.

dandare 8y ago
I believe the price increase is purely based on the profit-maximizing strategy. If people will pay that much then Apple has no reason to ask for less. Unfortunately, I can not imagine myself switching to a Windows-based laptop. This is just another example of why monopoly is bad.
- Arubis 8y ago
  I agree that this is profit maximization, but the only monopoly Apple has is on sucking less than others at particular things that particular niches care about (privacy, UX, ecosystem integration come to mind). A non-Apple device will do all the same stuff. It just might not do it the exact way you like out of the box. I pay the Apple tax (albeit exceedingly infrequently) because I can afford it & it reduces friction in my life, not because I have no other options.
  - dandare 8y ago
    Of course you are right, Apple is dominating the market, not behaving monopolistically in the negative sense of the word.
- camdenlock 8y ago
  If you have the choice to purchase a comparable competing product, then it’s not a monopoly.
- kochthesecond 8y ago
  I still request a MacBook for work, but I can no longer buy it for my private use. It's just too expensive compared to their competitors.

ppeetteerr 8y ago

You don't need to worry so much about most of these. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard. Change the Touch Bar shows to Expanded Control Strip. Then go to Customize Control Strip... and set the keys you want to always have displayed. I can guarantee you will be using the touch bar more often then you did the F* keys.

masklinn 8y ago

> It's not possible to buy it without the TouchBar any more :( It is, but they didn't update the model at all.

jihadjihad 8y ago

The touchbar is awesome--you can immediately blow away all the worthless function keys and have a minimalist setup. I keep the escape key and the volume/brightness sliders, that's it. Keeps the entire setup feeling clean. People actually use the touchbar for context-dependent tasks?

jamiek88 8y ago
Its great for scrubbing through video. Tap and hold for fast, fine grained control. My only complaint with the touchbar is its too easy to accidentally engage Siri. Other than that it’s a good idea IMO.
- benwaffle 8y ago
  you can remove Siri from the touchbar System Preferences > Keyboard > Customize Control Strip
- semigroupoid 8y ago
  > My only complaint with the touchbar is its too easy to accidentally engage Siri. You can remove the Siri shortcut in the system preferences.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- thebluehawk 8y ago
  Literally the first thing I did was remove the Siri button from the touch bar.
- driverdan 8y ago
  > Its great for scrubbing through video. The touchpad is fine for that. No need for duplicating functionality.
matchbok 8y ago
Eliminating the entire keyboard for a touchscreen would also be "clean". Clean != good. These are tools, not pieces of art.

tajen 8y ago

Why didn’t they keep both the touchbar and the F keys. That would have been so awesome for developers, it would have enabled so many usecases without killing existing ones.

lloeki 8y ago

Hopefully see this article? [0] I don't have on-hands feedback on this but it sounded kind of promising (or at least a possible stairway to escape that special circle of hell) [0]: http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/ http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/

lozenge 8y ago

You can swipe the volume or brightness buttons left and right to adjust in a single press.

vosper 8y ago

> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume or skip to the next song. Happily, you don't - tap and hold the button on the touchbar and drag your finger from there. You do not need to move your finger to the slider. Same works for volume. Tap, hold, drag. Not sure about skipping songs.

Razengan 8y ago

> I need more than one tap to change the brightness, volume Not true; you can change them by beginning a slide over the brightness/volume (and maybe other buttons that expand into a slider) in a single gesture without lifting your finger.