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Maybe people just disagree that it's an obvious downgrade? There are benefits to the touchbar, and yes people who prefer the touchbar over the function keys do
by relix 7y ago
Maybe people just disagree that it's an obvious downgrade? There are benefits to the touchbar, and yes people who prefer the touchbar over the function keys do exist - I'm one of them. Have you tried really using it, or did you write it off and ignore it as much as possible?
For example, the fact you're talking about tap-tap-tap to change the volume leads me to believe you're not aware of the swipe-to-change function. You don't have to tap the volume button, you just swipe over it in one go. A single tap-swipe. In my opinion that is a superior experience than indeed having to tap the correct F-key a few times. Is that so hard to believe?
- throwanem 7y agoI had no idea that existed and I've been using a touchbar Mac for years. What other neat features does it have, for which the UI designers appear to have given no thought to discoverability? edit: Apparently on the 2017 model it doesn't exist. Neat.
- ryuukk_ 7y agobecause you are a liar, you have an old lenovo with a malware built into your bios https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/lenovo-rootkit-malware.html https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/lenovo-rootkit-malware.htm...
- relix 7y agoYou can customise it to a larger degree than you realise, with tools such as BetterTouchTool. You can script it. It takes some work to setup but it allows for extremely cool things to happen. This should be right up every hacker's alley! Regarding discoverability - it's a touchscreen, why wouldn't you swipe it? No one complains about two-pinch zoom not being discoverable. It requires a single a-ha moment which you could've had from taking a cursory look at the Touchbar documentation. As a hacker news reader, it's on you for not checking out the powerful possibilities before categorising it as bad. Edit: I'm finding articles explaining the swipe-to-change from 2017, so it should be on that model (I believe it's on every model since the beginning).
- throwanem 7y agoTurns out it's a separate control, not enabled by default. Only took me three web searches to find that out, and find out how to find the configuration UI for the control strip so I could replace the default controls with the swipeable ones. I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe I was wrong to assume that Apple knows how to build discoverable user interfaces. I guess I should've spent a lot more time reading manuals and dinking around with the keyboard on this machine, instead of letting myself be distracted with trivialities like building software, solving problems, and getting work done.
- karakot 7y agoit's not consistent though, sometimes it just doesn't work and I have no idea why. Yesterday I've been only using chrome and safari browsers, VS code and spotify, and I had three different ways of changing volume all working in slightly different way.
- lukifer 7y agoI consider it a downgrade, at least in the sense that I had something I liked (F-keys) that it's impossible to get back. My two most common use-cases for the previous F-keys (changing brightness, music/sound controls) are precisely those things that I want to be able to do without breaking flow or looking away from the screen. What used to be muscle memory now requires looking down, hunting, targeting, making sure to not the hit the wrong thing, swiping to the correct value. It's a tiny annoyance, but it's the kind of thing I used to do constantly, reflexively, and now there's friction every time. The Touch Bar would be great if it were optional or lived in a new row, but as it stands, it's been 3 years, and it's still a regression for my workflow.
- mirekrusin 7y agoThere's enough space to put this iphone stripe above normal keys, why kill the row?
- addisonl 7y agoThe issue with the touch to slide is you cannot go from 0 to 100 without running out of touch bar space. Unless I have it configured wrong...