11 ms·

I know it's trendy to hate on the touchbar... but for what it's worth, I personally find it more useful than the old function keys. Most mac apps don't use fun

by tjohns 8y ago

I know it's trendy to hate on the touchbar... but for what it's worth, I personally find it more useful than the old function keys. Most mac apps don't use function keys as shortcuts, so the old keyboard ended up being used for media keys (volume, brightness, play/pause, etc.). The touch bar gives me a better version of that (I actually get a volume slider), plus more apps actually make use of that space to provide useful shortcuts now. And the scrub bar for media playback is really great when you have audio playing in the background. Yes, you lose tactile feedback. But battery life doesn't seem to be a big problem. At least for me, it's been net positive.

symfoniq 8y ago
I noticed a big regression in battery life (25-35%) between my 2013 and 2017 MacBook Pro. I don't know how much the Touch Bar had to do with it, but the 2017 was definitely worse.
- jclardy 8y ago
  From 2015 to 2016 models the battery capacity dropped from 74 watt hours to 49 watt hours in the new 13" design. The gap was made up for by efficiency gains of the CPU and possibly the display. But the display can also be cranked way brighter now, running it at the full 500 nits will hurt your battery performance for sure. Also if you are running demanding loads it will be worse off as well. The Touch Bar likely sips power, but the real issue with it is the lost battery capacity beneath it (The non-touchbar models have larger batteries at 54 watt hours)
aquamo 8y ago
IMHO the touchbar requires more effort and distraction to control the brightness and volume. What previously was one key-press to dim/brighten or mute/volume - all without me having to take my focus from the screen now requires a multi-stages process with no tactile feedback. No thanks. Plus the keyboard will likely have the same issues my 2016 version has. I’ve had keys replaced 4 times already.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  Also the loss of global prev/pause/next keys was a regression that ensured I ordered the non-touchbar version.
- modfodder 8y ago
  Muting is still one key press. I especially like the way the toucher handles dual screen brightness, 1 press and it brings up a brightness control for each screen.
- jclardy 8y ago
  Just to note because it is non-obvious and not documented - both volume and brightness buttons are one touch. You can just tap and drag up/down to immediately adjust, and you don't have to tap, move over to the slider, tap again, then drag.
  - cytzol 8y ago
    Your tip only works for _decreasing_ the volume. If it’s turned all the way down, and you want to turn it up, you can’t tap-and-drag it because the fingerprint sensor gets in the way.
    - 1123581321 8y ago
      You’re right. It’s just two quick drags to maximize the volume. Or one drag to get about 80% there, which covers most situations. The slider stays open when you lift your finger.
    - Sidnicious 8y ago
      Try moving your finger left, then right, without letting go (video: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVacED7iVnDn7JiHuUT7buAL96iSTzqHB7NTZRBxrAoDX https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVacED7iVnDn7JiHuUT7buAL96iSTzqHB7NTZR...).
      - cytzol 8y ago
        Oh hey, neat.
wwweston 8y ago
> I know it's trendy to hate on the touchbar The touchbar hate is not trendy. It's based in specific complaints. If, on the balance of how you evaluate the problems and benefits of the touchbar, it's useful for you, great. That doesn't mean the primary reason people express a distaste for the touchbar is essentially a social fashion.
- tjohns 8y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that the concerns were unfounded. I know there are real, legitimate complaints with the touchbar. At the same time, I just wanted to point out that there are at least some developers who do prefer it, and that the dislike isn't universal.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    So maybe a nice compromise would be having both... having a touchbar that can be customized in addition to a standard set of function keys.
    - inferiorhuman 8y ago
      Or one model with and one model without. I don't like the touchbar (keys move around and change size depending on context, escape can be triggered by touching areas outside of the escape key, touch bar locks up / crashes) but I'm largely indifferent to it. My primary complaint is the awful butterfly keyboard itself. There's too little travel, the keyboard itself is far too delicate (only took a few weeks for the spacebar to start crapping out on my 2016), and the layout is subpar. My mid-2012 MPB is in need of a replacement, but the butterfly keyboard is a dealbreaker. I'm not thrilled with the touch bar, generally supportive of USB-C (although I miss magsafe), will tolerate the glossy screen and oversized trackpad, and don't give two hoots about the fingerprint reader. If Apple could see fit to provide a current gen MBP with a proper keyboard I'd buy one in a heartbeat. As it is, when my MBP dies for good I'm almost certainly moving to a Linux laptop.
    - mrkstu 8y ago
      That's what I don't understand- there is plenty of room for both, especially on the 15". Just add the Touch Bar strip above the function keys and call it a day...
reificator 8y ago
My pie-in-the-sky idealized computer experience is a color e-ink display with a decent framerate. Replacing tactile buttons with a second blinding photon emitter is not progress as far as I'm concerned. I understand all the benefits you quote, and I'm not just complaining because it's "trendy". If it was eink, I wouldn't care at all. But it's another backlit screen shining in my face. No thanks.
- roryisok 8y ago
  Were you hoping for pixel qi to make it to market with their tech? I was. I so wanted a machine with that screen so I could work outdoors
- i6Respawns 8y ago
  Marry me
gilbetron 8y ago
The touchbar was what I thought was most idiotic before I got my macbook with it, and is the least idiotic thing after I've had my macbook. It is ok, sometimes kinda nice. If they put a physical Esc key on the far left, and a physical Mute key on the far right, and stuck the touchbar between the two, it would be actually very nice, because I agree the function keys are useless on a mac. But the touchbar utility doesn't make up for not having a physical Escape key.
buu700 8y ago
Question for someone who has a touchbar: is it possible to add app shortcuts to it (like an extension of the dock)? And what about a dedicated escape button? I use F12 throughout the day to open iTerm and Cmd+F2 to open Spotlight, and the escape key is obviously generally useful. Losing equivalent dedicated buttons/shortcuts would be a dealbreaker, but otherwise I could take or leave the function keys. Edit: If yes to the above, are there any situations in which my configured dedicated buttons might conditionally disappear?
- tjohns 8y ago
  The escape button shows up in practically all apps, and extends beyond the area indicated by the OLED screen to the edge of the glass. Basically, the entire left 1" of the touchbar is a large dedicated escape key. System Preferences allows you to do some limited customization of what buttons show up, including adding a dedicated Spotlight button. (I replaced the Siri button with that on mine.) See: https://www.howtogeek.com/303733/how-to-add-or-remove-icons-from-your-macbook-pros-touch-bar/ https://www.howtogeek.com/303733/how-to-add-or-remove-icons-... Beyond that, BetterTouchTool allows more advanced customization of the touchbar. I've never used it, but it's worth a look. See: https://www.howtogeek.com/307468/how-to-add-custom-buttons-to-the-macbook-pro-touch-bar/ https://www.howtogeek.com/307468/how-to-add-custom-buttons-t... and https://folivora.ai/ https://folivora.ai/
  - buu700 8y ago
    Interesting, thanks! Sad that it requires third-party software to add the iTerm shortcut (which was my biggest concern since I use it so often), but sounds like the touchbar will probably be a net positive, or at least not a dealbreaker when I do eventually upgrade.
  - ronyeh 8y ago
    I'm a developer and BetterTouchTool is great. I have terminal shortcuts and others bound to touch bar buttons. BTT even lets you run bash scripts from the touch bar.
  - jrochkind1 8y ago
TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
The majority of my use of my MBPr is in clamshell mode, with a large external monitor, and a mechanical keyboard. Even for people who use theirs open, beside a large monitor, it's usually on a stand. So a Touch Bar is either pointless, or so unwieldy as to be useless, in these situations, respectively.
roryisok 8y ago
Maybe I'm a backwards person but I barely use escape at all. I do however use the function keys, all day, every day. I have them mapped to various apps for screengrabbing, batch copy and paste of files, rename etc. Apps like keymaestro let me add extra functionality to these "spare" keys and I don't want then replaced by any damn touchbar
- Eric_WVGG 8y ago
  In my experience, adding those functions to the Touch Bar via Better Touch Tool was just as easy as making f-key bindings, plus I get easy and visibly-distinguishable per-app bindings. The Touch Bar is great, Apple just isn't going far enough.
  - roryisok 8y ago
    visibly distinguishable is great but IMO tactilely distinguishable is more important
on_and_off 8y ago
>Yes, you lose tactile feedback That's the only part I really can't lose. I like the volume slider fwiw but the regular ones worked fine too.. it is a small bonus with a massive drawback .. of course I don't like it. Not to mention that I don't ever look at my keyboard when typing, so touchbar is just a annoying glow at the periphery of my vision.
- iaml 8y ago
  There is an app called HapticKey that triggers vibration when you touch tb.
Cd00d 8y ago
I wonder why they don't just through haptics into the touchbar to diminish the tactile complaint? My Galaxy S9 has touch haptics that feel rather nice.
- theslurmmustflo 8y ago
  Smartphones have less mass to move. The touchpad is haptic but the Taptic chip is fairly large and the whole pad is kind of suspended so that you can feel the vibrations. I bet they will do this but it might be tricky since it has a display in it.
- cytzol 8y ago
  I use HapticKey, which makes the Touch Bar slightly less awful by clicking the trackpad when you touch it: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey
zerr 8y ago
> Most mac apps don't use function keys as shortcuts Many buy MBPs for the perceived quality of hardware, and install Windows or Linux as their primary OS.
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  in bootcamp the touchbar continues to function independently and acts like the function row of keys
makecheck 8y ago
Adding media keys did not require the loss of Function keys (“fn” toggle) so low use in apps was not a reason to remove keys entirely. How is a touch volume slider better? Using modifier keys you can achieve any level of precision from keyboard volume keys, without looking down to find and watch what you tap. There are also slider controls already, using the mouse (both in the menu bar and System Preferences).
api 8y ago
My gripe with it is that it's not sufficiently customizable. If it were heavily customizable it could be pretty useful.
yonilevy 8y ago
As a heavy IntelliJ user - I use the function keys all the time. Some examples: F1: show file in project view, F2/Shift F2: next/previous error, Ctrl+F2: stop process, F3/Shift F3: find next/previous, F6: move/rename, different F7 variations: find usages, F9/F10: run/debug options, also F8-F10 - step over/into/out/continue, F12 - toggle maximize editor, etc. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with a touchbar, or how to otherwise remap all of these shortcuts... Sticking to my 2015 MBP for now, but I really hope Apple get their act together and release a developer-friendly model (because otherwise I'm a huge fan).
- gilescope2 8y ago
  Intellij could support the touchbar - I was going to say it's a great way to do debugging until I found that using arrow keys + modifier is a fantastic way to control the debugger. (up=continue, left=step out, right=step in, down=step)
  - earlz 8y ago
    Why have I never heard of this arrow key method of debugging? That would be much more natural than the typical "fn+shift+F8 is step" stuff
  - thought_alarm 8y ago
    I use Control+S,Z,X,C for debugging, mapping Caps Lock to Control. (S=continue, Z=Step Over, X=Step In, C=Step Out). It keeps my right hand free for mousing around, drinking coffee, etc. What modifier are you using for the arrow keys? Aren't they all taken already?
  - polyx 8y ago
    They already do, in the 2018.2 EAP there is support for touchbar. Since it's already in RC state I think the stable version will be out in a couple of weeks.
- iNate2000 8y ago
  Nobody needs to re-map anything, if IntelliJ would just support the touch bar, then they could keep the same shortcuts and rename the keys from "F8" to "Step Over"
ouid 8y ago
Imagine not being able to mute your sound in public because your finger doesn't have enough capacitance for some reason.
- 1123581321 8y ago
  The sound can also be muted by clicking the sound icon in the menu bar. There is a volume slider there.
  - ouid 8y ago
    Trackpads are capacitive, and that’s much too slow anyway. Often your menu will be hidden, or inaccessible until all of your processes have resumed
    - 1123581321 8y ago
      True. I can’t think of many situations where a laptop can be used, but capacitive touch cant, and the laptop can’t be switched off or the lid closed, and the noise will would cause a problem. I guess I thought that would happen, I’d keep a headphone jack handy as a silencer. I don’t think the utility in an unlikely situation outweighs the balance of use.
      - ouid 8y ago
        closing the lid doesn't mute the sound as a hardware switch. Lots of sounds will continue to play through the closing of the lid, including sounds for video. For an example of when capacitive touch wonts work but the laptop would, simply get your finger a little bit wet. The scenario I'm imagining is opening your computer only to discover that had closed it in the middle of a youtube video or something the night before, and it just continues playing where it left off. A crime of the highest order in OS design, to be sure, but hardly a rare occurrence.
        1123581321 8y ago
        Cmd+Q would be my first action in that situation (which I’ve been in!) But I agree not everyone knows that. I was imagining someone wearing a glove, but you are right that a certain amount of water will start causing issues. I think it would be difficult to pool enough water on both the touch bar and the trackpad outside of a catastrophe. I can’t get sound to continue emitting after closing the lid. I’m sure an app can be developed to make that happen, but it wouldn’t be something commonly used. The most likely candidate seems to me to be something like audio performance software, but a person in that situation wouldn’t be using the speakers as an out and would be used to quickly dealing with software/hardware quirks. Researching this conversation has been fun. :)

by tjohns 8y ago

symfoniq 8y ago

I noticed a big regression in battery life (25-35%) between my 2013 and 2017 MacBook Pro. I don't know how much the Touch Bar had to do with it, but the 2017 was definitely worse.

jclardy 8y ago
From 2015 to 2016 models the battery capacity dropped from 74 watt hours to 49 watt hours in the new 13" design. The gap was made up for by efficiency gains of the CPU and possibly the display. But the display can also be cranked way brighter now, running it at the full 500 nits will hurt your battery performance for sure. Also if you are running demanding loads it will be worse off as well. The Touch Bar likely sips power, but the real issue with it is the lost battery capacity beneath it (The non-touchbar models have larger batteries at 54 watt hours)

aquamo 8y ago

IMHO the touchbar requires more effort and distraction to control the brightness and volume. What previously was one key-press to dim/brighten or mute/volume - all without me having to take my focus from the screen now requires a multi-stages process with no tactile feedback. No thanks. Plus the keyboard will likely have the same issues my 2016 version has. I’ve had keys replaced 4 times already.

wild_preference 8y ago
Also the loss of global prev/pause/next keys was a regression that ensured I ordered the non-touchbar version.
modfodder 8y ago
Muting is still one key press. I especially like the way the toucher handles dual screen brightness, 1 press and it brings up a brightness control for each screen.
jclardy 8y ago
Just to note because it is non-obvious and not documented - both volume and brightness buttons are one touch. You can just tap and drag up/down to immediately adjust, and you don't have to tap, move over to the slider, tap again, then drag.
- cytzol 8y ago
  Your tip only works for _decreasing_ the volume. If it’s turned all the way down, and you want to turn it up, you can’t tap-and-drag it because the fingerprint sensor gets in the way.
  - 1123581321 8y ago
    You’re right. It’s just two quick drags to maximize the volume. Or one drag to get about 80% there, which covers most situations. The slider stays open when you lift your finger.
  - Sidnicious 8y ago
    Try moving your finger left, then right, without letting go (video: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVacED7iVnDn7JiHuUT7buAL96iSTzqHB7NTZRBxrAoDX https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVacED7iVnDn7JiHuUT7buAL96iSTzqHB7NTZR...).
    - cytzol 8y ago
      Oh hey, neat.

wwweston 8y ago

> I know it's trendy to hate on the touchbar The touchbar hate is not trendy. It's based in specific complaints. If, on the balance of how you evaluate the problems and benefits of the touchbar, it's useful for you, great. That doesn't mean the primary reason people express a distaste for the touchbar is essentially a social fashion.

tjohns 8y ago
I didn't mean to imply that the concerns were unfounded. I know there are real, legitimate complaints with the touchbar. At the same time, I just wanted to point out that there are at least some developers who do prefer it, and that the dislike isn't universal.
- munk-a 8y ago
  So maybe a nice compromise would be having both... having a touchbar that can be customized in addition to a standard set of function keys.
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    Or one model with and one model without. I don't like the touchbar (keys move around and change size depending on context, escape can be triggered by touching areas outside of the escape key, touch bar locks up / crashes) but I'm largely indifferent to it. My primary complaint is the awful butterfly keyboard itself. There's too little travel, the keyboard itself is far too delicate (only took a few weeks for the spacebar to start crapping out on my 2016), and the layout is subpar. My mid-2012 MPB is in need of a replacement, but the butterfly keyboard is a dealbreaker. I'm not thrilled with the touch bar, generally supportive of USB-C (although I miss magsafe), will tolerate the glossy screen and oversized trackpad, and don't give two hoots about the fingerprint reader. If Apple could see fit to provide a current gen MBP with a proper keyboard I'd buy one in a heartbeat. As it is, when my MBP dies for good I'm almost certainly moving to a Linux laptop.
  - mrkstu 8y ago
    That's what I don't understand- there is plenty of room for both, especially on the 15". Just add the Touch Bar strip above the function keys and call it a day...

reificator 8y ago

My pie-in-the-sky idealized computer experience is a color e-ink display with a decent framerate. Replacing tactile buttons with a second blinding photon emitter is not progress as far as I'm concerned. I understand all the benefits you quote, and I'm not just complaining because it's "trendy". If it was eink, I wouldn't care at all. But it's another backlit screen shining in my face. No thanks.

roryisok 8y ago
Were you hoping for pixel qi to make it to market with their tech? I was. I so wanted a machine with that screen so I could work outdoors
i6Respawns 8y ago
Marry me

gilbetron 8y ago

The touchbar was what I thought was most idiotic before I got my macbook with it, and is the least idiotic thing after I've had my macbook. It is ok, sometimes kinda nice. If they put a physical Esc key on the far left, and a physical Mute key on the far right, and stuck the touchbar between the two, it would be actually very nice, because I agree the function keys are useless on a mac. But the touchbar utility doesn't make up for not having a physical Escape key.

buu700 8y ago

Question for someone who has a touchbar: is it possible to add app shortcuts to it (like an extension of the dock)? And what about a dedicated escape button? I use F12 throughout the day to open iTerm and Cmd+F2 to open Spotlight, and the escape key is obviously generally useful. Losing equivalent dedicated buttons/shortcuts would be a dealbreaker, but otherwise I could take or leave the function keys. Edit: If yes to the above, are there any situations in which my configured dedicated buttons might conditionally disappear?

tjohns 8y ago
The escape button shows up in practically all apps, and extends beyond the area indicated by the OLED screen to the edge of the glass. Basically, the entire left 1" of the touchbar is a large dedicated escape key. System Preferences allows you to do some limited customization of what buttons show up, including adding a dedicated Spotlight button. (I replaced the Siri button with that on mine.) See: https://www.howtogeek.com/303733/how-to-add-or-remove-icons-from-your-macbook-pros-touch-bar/ https://www.howtogeek.com/303733/how-to-add-or-remove-icons-... Beyond that, BetterTouchTool allows more advanced customization of the touchbar. I've never used it, but it's worth a look. See: https://www.howtogeek.com/307468/how-to-add-custom-buttons-to-the-macbook-pro-touch-bar/ https://www.howtogeek.com/307468/how-to-add-custom-buttons-t... and https://folivora.ai/ https://folivora.ai/
- buu700 8y ago
  Interesting, thanks! Sad that it requires third-party software to add the iTerm shortcut (which was my biggest concern since I use it so often), but sounds like the touchbar will probably be a net positive, or at least not a dealbreaker when I do eventually upgrade.
- ronyeh 8y ago
  I'm a developer and BetterTouchTool is great. I have terminal shortcuts and others bound to touch bar buttons. BTT even lets you run bash scripts from the touch bar.
- jrochkind1 8y ago

TheRealDunkirk 8y ago

The majority of my use of my MBPr is in clamshell mode, with a large external monitor, and a mechanical keyboard. Even for people who use theirs open, beside a large monitor, it's usually on a stand. So a Touch Bar is either pointless, or so unwieldy as to be useless, in these situations, respectively.

roryisok 8y ago

Maybe I'm a backwards person but I barely use escape at all. I do however use the function keys, all day, every day. I have them mapped to various apps for screengrabbing, batch copy and paste of files, rename etc. Apps like keymaestro let me add extra functionality to these "spare" keys and I don't want then replaced by any damn touchbar

Eric_WVGG 8y ago
In my experience, adding those functions to the Touch Bar via Better Touch Tool was just as easy as making f-key bindings, plus I get easy and visibly-distinguishable per-app bindings. The Touch Bar is great, Apple just isn't going far enough.
- roryisok 8y ago
  visibly distinguishable is great but IMO tactilely distinguishable is more important

on_and_off 8y ago

>Yes, you lose tactile feedback That's the only part I really can't lose. I like the volume slider fwiw but the regular ones worked fine too.. it is a small bonus with a massive drawback .. of course I don't like it. Not to mention that I don't ever look at my keyboard when typing, so touchbar is just a annoying glow at the periphery of my vision.

iaml 8y ago
There is an app called HapticKey that triggers vibration when you touch tb.

Cd00d 8y ago

I wonder why they don't just through haptics into the touchbar to diminish the tactile complaint? My Galaxy S9 has touch haptics that feel rather nice.

theslurmmustflo 8y ago
Smartphones have less mass to move. The touchpad is haptic but the Taptic chip is fairly large and the whole pad is kind of suspended so that you can feel the vibrations. I bet they will do this but it might be tricky since it has a display in it.
cytzol 8y ago
I use HapticKey, which makes the Touch Bar slightly less awful by clicking the trackpad when you touch it: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey

zerr 8y ago

> Most mac apps don't use function keys as shortcuts Many buy MBPs for the perceived quality of hardware, and install Windows or Linux as their primary OS.

DennisAleynikov 8y ago
in bootcamp the touchbar continues to function independently and acts like the function row of keys

makecheck 8y ago

Adding media keys did not require the loss of Function keys (“fn” toggle) so low use in apps was not a reason to remove keys entirely. How is a touch volume slider better? Using modifier keys you can achieve any level of precision from keyboard volume keys, without looking down to find and watch what you tap. There are also slider controls already, using the mouse (both in the menu bar and System Preferences).

api 8y ago

My gripe with it is that it's not sufficiently customizable. If it were heavily customizable it could be pretty useful.

yonilevy 8y ago

As a heavy IntelliJ user - I use the function keys all the time. Some examples: F1: show file in project view, F2/Shift F2: next/previous error, Ctrl+F2: stop process, F3/Shift F3: find next/previous, F6: move/rename, different F7 variations: find usages, F9/F10: run/debug options, also F8-F10 - step over/into/out/continue, F12 - toggle maximize editor, etc. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with a touchbar, or how to otherwise remap all of these shortcuts... Sticking to my 2015 MBP for now, but I really hope Apple get their act together and release a developer-friendly model (because otherwise I'm a huge fan).

gilescope2 8y ago
Intellij could support the touchbar - I was going to say it's a great way to do debugging until I found that using arrow keys + modifier is a fantastic way to control the debugger. (up=continue, left=step out, right=step in, down=step)
- earlz 8y ago
  Why have I never heard of this arrow key method of debugging? That would be much more natural than the typical "fn+shift+F8 is step" stuff
- thought_alarm 8y ago
  I use Control+S,Z,X,C for debugging, mapping Caps Lock to Control. (S=continue, Z=Step Over, X=Step In, C=Step Out). It keeps my right hand free for mousing around, drinking coffee, etc. What modifier are you using for the arrow keys? Aren't they all taken already?
- polyx 8y ago
  They already do, in the 2018.2 EAP there is support for touchbar. Since it's already in RC state I think the stable version will be out in a couple of weeks.
iNate2000 8y ago
Nobody needs to re-map anything, if IntelliJ would just support the touch bar, then they could keep the same shortcuts and rename the keys from "F8" to "Step Over"

ouid 8y ago

Imagine not being able to mute your sound in public because your finger doesn't have enough capacitance for some reason.

1123581321 8y ago
The sound can also be muted by clicking the sound icon in the menu bar. There is a volume slider there.
- ouid 8y ago
  Trackpads are capacitive, and that’s much too slow anyway. Often your menu will be hidden, or inaccessible until all of your processes have resumed
  - 1123581321 8y ago
    True. I can’t think of many situations where a laptop can be used, but capacitive touch cant, and the laptop can’t be switched off or the lid closed, and the noise will would cause a problem. I guess I thought that would happen, I’d keep a headphone jack handy as a silencer. I don’t think the utility in an unlikely situation outweighs the balance of use.
    - ouid 8y ago
      closing the lid doesn't mute the sound as a hardware switch. Lots of sounds will continue to play through the closing of the lid, including sounds for video. For an example of when capacitive touch wonts work but the laptop would, simply get your finger a little bit wet. The scenario I'm imagining is opening your computer only to discover that had closed it in the middle of a youtube video or something the night before, and it just continues playing where it left off. A crime of the highest order in OS design, to be sure, but hardly a rare occurrence.
      - 1123581321 8y ago
        Cmd+Q would be my first action in that situation (which I’ve been in!) But I agree not everyone knows that. I was imagining someone wearing a glove, but you are right that a certain amount of water will start causing issues. I think it would be difficult to pool enough water on both the touch bar and the trackpad outside of a catastrophe. I can’t get sound to continue emitting after closing the lid. I’m sure an app can be developed to make that happen, but it wouldn’t be something commonly used. The most likely candidate seems to me to be something like audio performance software, but a person in that situation wouldn’t be using the speakers as an out and would be used to quickly dealing with software/hardware quirks. Researching this conversation has been fun. :)