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> The Touch Bar is fantastic to adjust tuneables in GarageBand, without the gorilla arm or wobbly screen effect you get on touchscreens. I futzed around with t

> The Touch Bar is fantastic to adjust tuneables in GarageBand, without the gorilla arm or wobbly screen effect you get on touchscreens. I futzed around with the touch bar in Logic when I got one and wrote it off almost immediately. Logic Remote (which works with GarageBand, AFAIK) already exists and works with an iPad. Clear labels, clear text, manipulating multiple elements easily at once--it's a better solution than what they tried to wedge in with the touch bar. The bigger problem with the touch bar is that, as a developer, I end up hitting the touch bar controls all the time. VSCode "helpfully" has previous tab/next tab buttons on it--and so when I try to hit 2 or 3 on the keyboard, sometimes I brush against them and suddenly I'm disoriented and typing in a completely different tab. This machine is a work laptop. (Typically my music stuff is done on a 2012 rMBP, which is why I already had Logic and Logic Remote set up.) When I started, I asked for a half-the-price Thinkpad on which to run FC30 and was denied because "everyone else uses a Mac." I love the job but between the garbage touchbar and the hand-wreckingly shallow keyboard travel the computer they gave me it's easily the worst part of my day.

coldpie 7y ago
If you work at fixed locations most of the time, is getting real (i.e. external) keyboards an option?
- eropple 7y ago
  My preferred external keyboard only has a PC layout. Having my fingers confused by having none of my shortcuts work is a bummer. The real answer for me is going to be swapping for an X1 Yoga or an X1 Extreme, I think.
  - Roboprog 7y ago
    I have “recycled “ Dell keyboards for both home and work macs. The window keys map to command. Maybe there are some shortcuts / combos I’m not aware of???
    - eropple 7y ago
      The modifier keys are out of place. Which can be fixed with Karabiner. What can't be fixed is mapping every keyboard shortcut to things that make sense to my hands with that keyboard. It isn't practical to rebind everything off of Command to Control even where it's possible, for example. I'm a keyboard-based person, though I don't use tiling window managers or the like. I've got a system (he said half-ironically). Some shortcuts are more comfortable to do with my left hand on the modifier. Some, the right. All of them are hosed on a Mac and fixing them would take longer than what I did today, which is ask my boss to let me give the Mac to the new guy and go order myself an X1. So this story has a happy ending!
SkyMarshal 7y ago
> Logic Remote (which works with GarageBand, AFAIK) already exists and works with an iPad. Clear labels, clear text, manipulating multiple elements easily at once--it's a better solution than what they tried to wedge in with the touch bar. This suggests a fun and interesting way forward for Apple UI design - layered augments from additional devices. Let OS X be the core of the system, but enable big apps like Logic or Photoshop to have connected supplementary UI's in iPad or VR/AR that provide a high-quality interface to some specific functionality. Reduce alt-tabbing on the main screen.
- eropple 7y ago
  I agree, and a lot of what I do for fun (live video production) is kinda exactly that. Not iOS- or Mac-specific, but I've got multiple iPads talking to vMix at all times.
nawgszy 7y ago
> hand-wreckingly shallow keyboard travel Now, I don't disagree with your sentiment, touch bar is definitely a nuisance without any superior use case over the buttons that were there before... But why do you think this keyboard wrecks hands? It is definitely the fastest keyboard I've typed on, and shallow keyboards are definitely inherently easier on the hands by any metric I can think of
- eropple 7y ago
  I'm a keyboard pounder; it's just the way I've always typed. The best laptop keyboard I've found is the Alienware 13/15. The next best are any of the standard-travel Lenovos. 1mm travel keys just leave me thumping my fingertips off the laptop chassis all the time. It hurts.

coldpie 7y ago

If you work at fixed locations most of the time, is getting real (i.e. external) keyboards an option?

eropple 7y ago
My preferred external keyboard only has a PC layout. Having my fingers confused by having none of my shortcuts work is a bummer. The real answer for me is going to be swapping for an X1 Yoga or an X1 Extreme, I think.
- Roboprog 7y ago
  I have “recycled “ Dell keyboards for both home and work macs. The window keys map to command. Maybe there are some shortcuts / combos I’m not aware of???
  - eropple 7y ago
    The modifier keys are out of place. Which can be fixed with Karabiner. What can't be fixed is mapping every keyboard shortcut to things that make sense to my hands with that keyboard. It isn't practical to rebind everything off of Command to Control even where it's possible, for example. I'm a keyboard-based person, though I don't use tiling window managers or the like. I've got a system (he said half-ironically). Some shortcuts are more comfortable to do with my left hand on the modifier. Some, the right. All of them are hosed on a Mac and fixing them would take longer than what I did today, which is ask my boss to let me give the Mac to the new guy and go order myself an X1. So this story has a happy ending!

SkyMarshal 7y ago

> Logic Remote (which works with GarageBand, AFAIK) already exists and works with an iPad. Clear labels, clear text, manipulating multiple elements easily at once--it's a better solution than what they tried to wedge in with the touch bar. This suggests a fun and interesting way forward for Apple UI design - layered augments from additional devices. Let OS X be the core of the system, but enable big apps like Logic or Photoshop to have connected supplementary UI's in iPad or VR/AR that provide a high-quality interface to some specific functionality. Reduce alt-tabbing on the main screen.

eropple 7y ago
I agree, and a lot of what I do for fun (live video production) is kinda exactly that. Not iOS- or Mac-specific, but I've got multiple iPads talking to vMix at all times.

nawgszy 7y ago

> hand-wreckingly shallow keyboard travel Now, I don't disagree with your sentiment, touch bar is definitely a nuisance without any superior use case over the buttons that were there before... But why do you think this keyboard wrecks hands? It is definitely the fastest keyboard I've typed on, and shallow keyboards are definitely inherently easier on the hands by any metric I can think of

eropple 7y ago
I'm a keyboard pounder; it's just the way I've always typed. The best laptop keyboard I've found is the Alienware 13/15. The next best are any of the standard-travel Lenovos. 1mm travel keys just leave me thumping my fingertips off the laptop chassis all the time. It hurts.