3 ms·

With the extra space maybe include the touchbar above a row of physical function keys?

ianai 7y ago
I want more of this thinking. Make the most of the space available instead of shrinking form factor like the xps line. Ie go for a 16” class chassis and fit the largest, bezel-free display in there they can. Instead of fitting the smallest machine around a 16” display. I realize his is how they’ll do it, and it’s annoying. I think, similarly, a touch bar in addition to a full keyboard would be useful.
melling 7y ago
I have a 2013 MacBook Pro so I haven’t tried the Touchbar. With the exception of the ESC key, with I use a lot, I’m not sure I’d miss the rest of the function keys. The idea of a touchbar seems like it could work if done right. Did Apple do something wrong or it just doesn’t work in practice?
- ianai 7y ago
  If you want to use a function key then you may be out of luck. But you definitely have to take your eyes off the screen and hunt and peck for the right option. It’s a net negative for a power user.
- threeseed 7y ago
  The Escape key is on the Touchbar and you do get used to it. The problem with Touchbar is the tooling. Get something like BetterTouchTool and it changes everything. You can customise buttons for each app and each button can link to a menu item or perform a sequence of commands.
- kgermino 7y ago
  I like it - I have it show the function keys in the few apps I know the keyboard shortcuts for, and the app specific buttons in other apps. I makes it nicer to adjust system settings (brightness, etc) and has helped me with new shortcuts in several apps that I use regularly but not daily. Biggest con is the escape key, I mapped Caps Lock to esc and haven’t looked back. 2nd biggest is that you have to look at the touchbar to hit the “keys”, but I was never able to touch type function keys on laptops anyway so that doesn’t affect me.
- ak217 7y ago
  I recently went from a 2015 MBP to a 2018 MBP with Touchbar. There is a utility called BetterTouchTool (https://folivora.ai/ https://folivora.ai/) that adds lots of great features to the Touchbar and made it worthwhile. The Touchbar is a good idea, though it's not a killer feature - mostly because of issues with Apple's software support for it (same story as Force Touch). The biggest issues with it are the lack of a physical Esc key (a mistake, especially because the virtual Esc key is broken in some apps), lack of tactile/haptic feedback (BTT actually has an option to shake the force trackpad as a haptic feedback substitute), and poor customization support (you can show app-specific keys or "control strip" keys, but can't mix the two - there are artificial limitations to what's available created by Apple's idiosyncracies).
  - r00fus 7y ago
    Here’s hoping that Apple will do what they did in the Air 2018 to the new mbp 19.
- sirn 7y ago
  I had few hopes for the Touch Bar to be actually useful when it was announced. So far it hasn’t been any more useful than physical function keys, and I do miss physical button for volume up/down/mute. It was kinda nice to scroll through a video timeline or media library. In the end, I don’t mind it being there, but it’s not useful enough to swap physical buttons for. It might be different if they add haptic feedback and Force Touch. Though, I’ve been running Catalina for some development work, and have found Touch Bar to make a lot of sense in Sidecar context (where you cannot use finger to navigate around, but it shows the Touch Bar at the bottom, so it sort of become the primary navigation for touch)
- have_faith 7y ago
  The biggest problem with the touchbar for me, which can't be solved I think, is that you can accidentally graze a button and trigger something without realising what you've done. I do this constantly by accident and I can only stop it by severely slowing down my typing.
  - ed 7y ago
    I had this issue too and used BetterTouchBar to remove all buttons except for a big ESC in the upper left. (I show the system Touch Bar if I hit the fn key, so I can still control brightness and volume.) Unfortunately BTB is buggy and occasionally stops hiding buttons, but it’s the best solution I’ve found so far.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  I think better functionality and UX could be achieved with iPod, iPhone or iPad integration. Use it as a touchscreen numpad / macro interface with context changed around the ‘focused’ application running on OS X. Come up w cutesy mounts for desk, traveling, etc. Or, get rid of the mechanical keyboard and touchpad, and make the entire bottom half a lower fidelity touchscreen.
- innocentoldguy 7y ago
  I personally like the touchbar and I always map the Esc key to my Caps Lock key anyway, so the touchbar Esc key has never been an issue for me.
BurningFrog 7y ago
There is tons of space to the sides of the trackpad. Mostly thinking for the fingerprint reader. Don't use the rest of my touchbar.

I want more of this thinking. Make the most of the space available instead of shrinking form factor like the xps line. Ie go for a 16” class chassis and fit the largest, bezel-free display in there they can. Instead of fitting the smallest machine around a 16” display. I realize his is how they’ll do it, and it’s annoying. I think, similarly, a touch bar in addition to a full keyboard would be useful.

melling 7y ago

I have a 2013 MacBook Pro so I haven’t tried the Touchbar. With the exception of the ESC key, with I use a lot, I’m not sure I’d miss the rest of the function keys. The idea of a touchbar seems like it could work if done right. Did Apple do something wrong or it just doesn’t work in practice?

ianai 7y ago
If you want to use a function key then you may be out of luck. But you definitely have to take your eyes off the screen and hunt and peck for the right option. It’s a net negative for a power user.
threeseed 7y ago
The Escape key is on the Touchbar and you do get used to it. The problem with Touchbar is the tooling. Get something like BetterTouchTool and it changes everything. You can customise buttons for each app and each button can link to a menu item or perform a sequence of commands.
kgermino 7y ago
I like it - I have it show the function keys in the few apps I know the keyboard shortcuts for, and the app specific buttons in other apps. I makes it nicer to adjust system settings (brightness, etc) and has helped me with new shortcuts in several apps that I use regularly but not daily. Biggest con is the escape key, I mapped Caps Lock to esc and haven’t looked back. 2nd biggest is that you have to look at the touchbar to hit the “keys”, but I was never able to touch type function keys on laptops anyway so that doesn’t affect me.
ak217 7y ago
I recently went from a 2015 MBP to a 2018 MBP with Touchbar. There is a utility called BetterTouchTool (https://folivora.ai/ https://folivora.ai/) that adds lots of great features to the Touchbar and made it worthwhile. The Touchbar is a good idea, though it's not a killer feature - mostly because of issues with Apple's software support for it (same story as Force Touch). The biggest issues with it are the lack of a physical Esc key (a mistake, especially because the virtual Esc key is broken in some apps), lack of tactile/haptic feedback (BTT actually has an option to shake the force trackpad as a haptic feedback substitute), and poor customization support (you can show app-specific keys or "control strip" keys, but can't mix the two - there are artificial limitations to what's available created by Apple's idiosyncracies).
- r00fus 7y ago
  Here’s hoping that Apple will do what they did in the Air 2018 to the new mbp 19.
sirn 7y ago
I had few hopes for the Touch Bar to be actually useful when it was announced. So far it hasn’t been any more useful than physical function keys, and I do miss physical button for volume up/down/mute. It was kinda nice to scroll through a video timeline or media library. In the end, I don’t mind it being there, but it’s not useful enough to swap physical buttons for. It might be different if they add haptic feedback and Force Touch. Though, I’ve been running Catalina for some development work, and have found Touch Bar to make a lot of sense in Sidecar context (where you cannot use finger to navigate around, but it shows the Touch Bar at the bottom, so it sort of become the primary navigation for touch)
have_faith 7y ago
The biggest problem with the touchbar for me, which can't be solved I think, is that you can accidentally graze a button and trigger something without realising what you've done. I do this constantly by accident and I can only stop it by severely slowing down my typing.
- ed 7y ago
  I had this issue too and used BetterTouchBar to remove all buttons except for a big ESC in the upper left. (I show the system Touch Bar if I hit the fn key, so I can still control brightness and volume.) Unfortunately BTB is buggy and occasionally stops hiding buttons, but it’s the best solution I’ve found so far.
dillonmckay 7y ago
I think better functionality and UX could be achieved with iPod, iPhone or iPad integration. Use it as a touchscreen numpad / macro interface with context changed around the ‘focused’ application running on OS X. Come up w cutesy mounts for desk, traveling, etc. Or, get rid of the mechanical keyboard and touchpad, and make the entire bottom half a lower fidelity touchscreen.
innocentoldguy 7y ago
I personally like the touchbar and I always map the Esc key to my Caps Lock key anyway, so the touchbar Esc key has never been an issue for me.

BurningFrog 7y ago

There is tons of space to the sides of the trackpad. Mostly thinking for the fingerprint reader. Don't use the rest of my touchbar.