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I guess this HN post will inevitably turn into about the MacBook Touch Bar, so I would like to contribute my opinion on this: I've said this multiple times her

I guess this HN post will inevitably turn into about the MacBook Touch Bar, so I would like to contribute my opinion on this: I've said this multiple times here now, but the Touch Bar is really a joy to use and very useful if you're not the person who's always using only Vim. My personal feeling is that the people who dislike the Touch Bar heard the bad things about it, tried it for a time and two, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word. Text suggestion is super useful, the emoji selector is useful very much, text formatting controls are very useful, debugging controls are super useful (and much superior than fn keys), moving between tabs are super useful, etc... Really I can't understand all of the hate that the Touch Bar gets on HN. And yes, you can touch-type on the Touch Bar, it's not context-sensitive enough to develop muscle memory. You can just reach out your finger from your keyboard without seeing when you're using a particular app. You get muscle memory on how to trash the files on the Finder, comment out a line or rename a variable in Xcode, control display or volumes, move between videos... (And you can type esc super-reliably without looking at all, so really 'You can't use Vim with the Touch Bar' is a bit exaggerated.) One tip for all of the Touch Bar MBP users - you might want to install the app HapticKey[0], which is a very super useful app that provides haptic feedback on every Touch Bar touch. I consider this the biggest mistake on Apple's part - with haptic feedback it's much easier to develop muscle memory (although I did develop muscle memory without this app too). [0]: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey - or you might like 'brew cask install haptickey'.

djxfade 6y ago
I agree. Shameless plug, but I made a small utility that I use everyday. It let's you create a few handy shortcuts that you can use to paste text. https://github.com/thomas-alrek/TouchMemes/ https://github.com/thomas-alrek/TouchMemes/
bedbot 6y ago
I never comment, and I appreciate your view, but suffice it to say that I hate the Touch Bar enough that your comment has spurred me to post. My company-issued laptop has a Touch Bar, and I can only imagine that it was invented and distributed by some kind of malicious clique of saboteurs within Apple who hate both (1) users and (2) Apple and want both to fail. Brushing the Touch Bar accidentally with a finger leads Siri to interrupt me, silencing whatever video call I'm on or music I'm listening to. Instead of being able to adjust the volume manually or pause what I'm listening to with a key that I can press without looking, I have to flatten and retract my hands, peer down at the touchbar, and then poke through several options just in order to do a simple operation, all the while terrified that Siri will interrupt me.
- dvcrn 6y ago
  Just remove Siri from the TouchBar then?
  - geerlingguy 6y ago
    I’ve removed every control besides volume and mute... and I still accidentally brush them every now and then. The Touch Bar is way too sensitive.
    - sjwright 6y ago
      If the Touch Bar was adjustable sensitive to force, it would be almost perfect in my book. My biggest objection to it is that it establishes a different UX between laptop and desktop.
    - dexterdog 6y ago
      Yeah the only time I notice it is when I brush the mute which is a key I rarely want to hit. Also when I want to hit escape I often miss because it is oddly indented.
      - spockz 6y ago
        The escape button is actually quite large. At least on my 2018 MBP, the whole empty left also acts as the escape button so no need to try and hit the escape in the middle of the label.
        wingworks 6y ago
        I used to have this, that I could tap anywhere on and to the left of the esc touch button and it would trigger esc. But after one of the OS updates (i forget which) it stopped working, now I have to hit the etc touch button, if I hit the blank aria to the left, nothing happens anymore. It bugs me so much! Just curious, what OS version are you using? I'm on Big Sur (but same issue in Catalina). I've got the 2017 MBP 15" EDIT: I should add, I mean that I could hit the far left blank aria of the touch bar any time in any touchbar mode and it would trigger the esc action. They "fixed" that in an update. I can still press to the left of the esc and trigger esc when the esc button is visible. But often I'll have spotify touch bar "app" open and the esc key won't show, so I have to close the app just to access the esc key, super annoying.
caymanjim 6y ago
I despised the early incarnation of the TouchBar. I live in Vim, and while I use a 'jj' binding for most Esc scenarios, I still need an actual Escape key. Beyond that, I had three brand-new MacBooks die in the first year with TouchBar failures. It also coincided with the disastrous new keyboard (multiple failures there too). It was enough to make me buy a ThinkPad and swear off literally all Apple products for a few years. My new job just sent me a new MacBook, and I was dreading it. I'm happy to report that it has a physical Escape key (smaller and imperfect, but sufficient), and the keyboard feels better overall. I still don't want the TouchBar, and still get no use out of it, but it no longer enrages me. I'm open to accepting and even embracing it if I ever see a good use case. One thing that continues to bother me is that it changes as I'm typing, and I don't want that. But I can see a path for apps to use it in a positive way.
- bargle0 6y ago
  I mapped caps lock to escape.
  - caymanjim 6y ago
    That's where Control belongs!
    - rovr138 6y ago
      Thank you!
    - draebek 6y ago
      FYI there are various utilities (Hammerspoon and Karabiner Elements, off the top of my head) that can make caps lock act as escape if pressed and released, control if used in conjunction with other keys. This took some getting used to, but thanks to the Touch Bar, I got used to it and now I find it invaluable. YMMV of course.
    - jrib 6y ago
      I agree with both of you :) https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ has an option that maps caps lock to control when press in conjunction with another key and as escape when pressed alone
Someone1234 6y ago
> My personal feeling is that the people who dislike the Touch Bar heard the bad things about it, tried it for a time and two, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word. That's a very roundabout way of saying "people tried it, hate it, and told others: UNFAIR." In essence that argument can be used to dismiss anyone who dislikes the Touch Bar because they MIGHT have read something negative about it at some point, and therefore have been corrupted from forming their own first-hand opinion (???). I'd love to ignore the Touch Bar, but since they stole the F key row for it, I cannot. I am forced to use it to interact with software that once worked fine. Since there's no physical feedback, and the virtual keys aren't correctly aligned with the physical ones: it is a frustration. At least we regained the escape key. As to why I don't actively use it: I look at the screen, not the top of my hands. The content is on the screen, if you can touch type you shouldn't ever be looking down, so the Touch Bar is an anti-feature put in completely the wrong location (i.e. above the keyboard, instead under the screen) for people who struggle to type.
- raindropm 6y ago
  I think he just means some people just spend little time with it, and with whatever reason, maybe it cannot enhance their productivity like their trusty automated scripts or keyboard macro - said aloud that it sucks. Honestly, the most loudest voice against Touchbar is usually us geeky people and not really general users. I think the touchbar is superb for general non-techie users who are not keyboard shortcut wiz, and there are A LOT of them. The thing I found sad is the lack of push from Apple, to make it more useful and versatile. It's nearly the same since its inception. People have to rely on 3rd party app, say, BetterTouchTool(which is excellent) to make Touchbar more useful.
- pcr910303 6y ago
  > That's a very roundabout way of saying "people tried it, hate it, and told others: UNFAIR." Hmm, I'm not a native English speaker so I might have not exactly conveyed my intentions. I'm definitely not trying to argue that other people are unfair, but more just that people should try it out a bit more. > I'd love to ignore the Touch Bar, but since they stole the F key row for it, I cannot. I'm genuinely curious about this F-keys every time I write about the Touch Bar - I've never encountered use for those keys that are really useful. > Since there's no physical feedback Yeah, that part I agree. If you're still suffering about it (regardless whether you use Touch Bar regularly or not), you might want the HapticKey app that I've mentioned it previously. > The content is on the screen, if you can touch type you shouldn't ever be looking down Well, because the Touch Bar's layout is pretty stable, I find that I can touch-type the Touch Bar without looking down the screen. It becomes muscle memory, just like a usual keyboard.
stanmancan 6y ago
I accidentally tap it all the time. All it takes is a key press that’s slightly too high and the edge of my finger grazes the Touch Bar and BAM whatever shortcut was there runs. I wanted to like the Touch Bar. I actually did for the first two weeks. Then I slowly grew to hate it once I realized I accidentally touched it more than intentionally.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Can it be disabled completely? I know I'd miss the F keys, but since you don't have them anyway...
  - koynoyno 6y ago
    You can turn on F keys for displaying in Touch Bar
- ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
  I never accidentally tap the Touch Bar. I guess I’m perfect
sigzero 6y ago
I use Vim and I still like the touchbar. lol
chefandy 6y ago
> My personal feeling is that the people who dislike the Touch Bar heard the bad things about it, tried it for a time and two, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word. Well then your personal feeling is really an untested assumption masquerading as a feeling. I'm a long-time developer, and more recently, a designer of interfaces and graphics. Aside from my 20 years of muscle memory with vim, the primary reason I hate the Touch Bar is the same reason I hate touch screens in cars: if I have to look away from where I'm supposed to be looking because my controls provide no physical feedback, then that's a design failure. If you're going to provide this as an unobtrusive addition to the current features, then super... but they replaced standard functionality with something that was worse in many ways, and kinda neat in other, much less important ways. Much like when they suddenly replaced Google Maps on iPhones with Apple Maps before Google had their iOS app ready. Apple Maps had a much-touted gimmicky 3d flyover feature, but the users lost street view, transit, and bicycle directions and the directions themselves were significantly worse. Sure, it looked cool and the flyover feature was really neat... but who gives a damn if you're losing core functionality. Within months of having my first MacBook Pro, I could turn the volume up and down and mute the audio without looking. Same with the screen brightness... I can't do that anymore. Not only that, but the interface for changing the volume— a core system function— changes depending on the current application's context, making me have to hunt for it. Maybe you don't run up against that, but it's inexcusably poor design. In addition, the Touch Bar isn't big enough to be useful for any serious professional use in media editing apps, which seems to be what it was originally designed for. I can't use it to easily scrub through video clips with any precision, or large amounts of pictures, or anything like that. Sure, it might be a nice-to-have for a less intensive user, but it's certainly not a PROfessional tool for my MacBook PRO. On top of that, it's totally useless for accessibility, it's easy to accidentally touch and do something unintended, and makes simple tap-n-times motions into awkward tap, wait, drag motions. All set. Throw it away. Give me my buttons back.
- pcr910303 6y ago
  > Well then your personal feeling is really an untested assumption masquerading as a feeling. I felt this 'tried it for a time and too, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word' from your comment. Maybe it's not, but the content doesn't really suggest you've used the Touch Bar more than a few times. > Within months of having my first MacBook Pro, I could turn the volume up and down and mute the audio without looking. Same with the screen brightness... I can't do that anymore. Not only that, but the interface for changing the volume— a core system function— changes depending on the current application's context, making me have to hunt for it. Maybe you don't run up against that, but it's inexcusably poor design. I can, my friends that use the MBP can, and even friends that don't have an MBP but occasionally use mine also don't need to look to control the volumes or brightness. I can't buy that argument. Also, in it's default state the buttons are always displayed in the same place - I can't understand about your argument about context-sensitive core system functions, as that's the reason why the control strip is there in the right. (And usually apps that use the Touch Bar strikes the right balance on context sensitivity - you can expect the same functionality on the same place if you're using the same app, or doing the same action, like text editing.) > In addition, the Touch Bar isn't big enough to be useful for any serious professional use in media editing apps, which seems to be what it was originally designed for. > it's certainly not a PROfessional tool for my MacBook PRO. It's big enough to provide shortcuts that allow professionals to be more productive in apps that the user thoroughly knows in-and-out. That's it's purpose, and media professionals as well as programmers can use it very usefully. > it's totally useless for accessibility, Why? > it's easy to accidentally touch and do something unintended, I've personally found that's not the case, but well I'm seeing others that also feel like this so... > and makes simple tap-n-times motions into awkward tap, wait, drag motions. I can't find any example where that's the case - I've never seen an Touch Bar action that need a tap-wait-drag. It's usually drag on the button or just a tap, or two successive taps if you're doing something relatively complex like setting the color of selected text or something.
EamonnMR 6y ago
As a result of the touchbar I changed caps lock to escape so I could keep using vi. I now make that change on Linux too. Never missed capslock.
GeekyBear 6y ago
This is the wrong audience to ask about the touch bar, however there is an entire population of computer users out there for whom standard function keys are less than useless. >About 90 per cent of computer users don't use CTRL-F to search for a word - as they don't know such a keyboard shortcut exists, a Google survey found. The results stunned Google's Uber Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness, Dan Russell. "I think we just all assume that we all know it, but no one actually does." https://www.smh.com.au/technology/only-one-in-10-know-what-ctrlf-does--here-are-shortcuts-you-should-know-20111130-1o69d.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/only-one-in-10-know-what-c... For the 90% of users who don't know that Ctrl-F is find, having a row of contextual command icons for the foreground program instead of a row of useless function keys is a step up. I think they should just continue to make standard function keys available for the minority of users who find them important to their own workflow.
- sgustard 6y ago
  On the one hand, that's entertaining and it's easy to laugh at people who don't know those shortcuts. On the other hand: to this day I don't know if iOS Mobile Safari supports finding text on a page.
  - cnf 6y ago
    Select the address bar, and start typing. At the bottom of the search results it will say “on this page”
- ambyra 6y ago
  So put the Touch Bar on the MacBook Air for non pro users, and the function keys for pro users. They put the training wheels on the Ferrari.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    The Macbook Pro is a "professional" tool in the same way you can buy "professional" hair straighteners: It's the same thing, but a bit better for a bit more money. True professional-only tools are things like Jira and Oracle Financials, and you can recognise them because the users hate them.
spaetzleesser 6y ago
" My personal feeling is that the people who dislike the Touch Bar heard the bad things about it, tried it for a time and two, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word." I have tried to for two years and still find it useless... With Better Touch Tool I have basically recreated the old Fn key layout and now it's half-ways bearable. If they at least hadn't made it pure touch but something with resistance I wouldn't constantly hit it by accident...
gullevek 6y ago
The touch bar is too sensitive. When just slighly brushing over it activates it then it is useless. Those are keys. And when I want to backspace and accidentically start some other action then this is a design flaw. It needs to have a force touch, so that just hovering or touching it won't activate it. you need to press down. Until this is implemented the whole touch bar is just annoying. Oh and when you need to use BetterTouchTool to actually make the touch bar useful then something is really wrong. Alos use th same too to map fn+<> for volume up down and other things. just because looking for that on the touch bar is just ... stupid.
whoisjuan 6y ago
I like it so much that I want an Apple Keyboard with it. I hope that happens one day.
techslave 6y ago
the emoji selector, yes. everything else you’ve said is downright wrong. all of those are better with keyboard shortcuts and fn keys are better than the touchbar for that. i specifically want to call out moving between tabs. in absolutely no way is the touchbar better than keyboard shortcuts. there is one app where it might be better: safari. because they chose such poor shortcut for switching tabs. i guess there is one more good use case. if you allocated rarely used and hard to locate MS word buttons to the toolbar, that might be perhaps better than monkeying with the ribbon. i have a streamdeck i use for IDE shortcuts. it’s far far better than the touchbar.
ldavison 6y ago
For me it's not Vim (remapped caps lock to ESC, plus newer MBPs have a physical ESC key again), it's JetBrains. The number of frequent operations that use F-keys makes the touch bar a truly frustrating experience. I switched to a Matias keyboard to avoid the touch bar. An added benefit is their placement of the fn key, which is really nice if you use various OSes.
siquick 6y ago
> [0]: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey - or you might like 'brew cask install haptickey'. This is great, thanks for posting.
draebek 6y ago
Thanks for this contrary opinion. :) I have been using a Touch Bar MBP for about 18 months. I have my Touch Bar configured for function keys all the time. I touch type fairly quickly, so I rarely look at the keyboard. I spend all day in the terminal, Emacs, Vim, or my browser (which I navigate using the Vimium extension). Unlike you, I run into problems with the Touch Bar on a daily basis: * I still hit the function keys at least a half dozen times a day by accident. * I still manage to not register fast key presses to the Touch Bar at least half a dozen times a day by accident. * About once a month, it seems, the Touch Bar gets stuck on its volume or brightness widget. Previously the only way I found to fix this was to reboot. Last night I may have discovered that touching other, seemingly blank parts of the Bar may get it out of this state, so at least the Touch Bar may no longer force me to reboot. Text completion on my laptop usually slows me down, but in any case, my editor offers that for me inline, without me having to look down at the keyboard. I know all the shortcuts to delete files in Finder, comment out lines, rename variables, control volumes, change tabs, and control text formatting. All this is to say that I guess I am not the target demographic for the Touch Bar—and, since all the new MBPs seem to have it, I guess I'm no longer the demographic for the MacBook Pro? I am inclined to agree with the comment from 'GeekyBear that I am probably in the vast minority of users, and most people will find use for the Touch Bar. I am glad you find the Touch Bar useful. For my part, I hate it, and it's one factor that's got me looking for the exits on macOS. I would like to second your suggestion to add haptic feedback to the Touch Bar. I use BetterTouchTool for this, and it helps me to know when I have accidentally hit the Touch Bar. Also, I hate the Touch Bar, but Sampler looks really cool.
PostThisTooFast 6y ago
The emoji bar is a disgraceful, embarrassing gimmick that cements Apple's reputation as a company that has given up on real computers. What a useless piece of shit.
Juliate 6y ago
I hear you. However, there's also a class of users that _do not look at the keyboard_ (if only, for very specific complex actions which only require lookup and execution, not reflexion). For this class of people at least, the _visual_ touch bar introduces an uncontrolled* modal change to the keyboard which is a true nature change of the role and expectations one can have of the keyboard. That, in turn, may be a good enough reason to be very frustratred with it, and not use it at all. As for me, I'm happy for, although I don't understand, people that appreciate the touch bar. And I don't use it. And I expect to get my next laptop without one. * uncontrolled, because not triggered by the user.
- ambyra 6y ago
  Yeah! If they were to have a Touch Bar, put it at the bottom of the screen. You are already looking at the screen. Keyboard is for keying, screen is for looking. It would have been cheaper to make, instead of having two screens. They were really proud that they could angle the pixels on the Touch Bar to face the user. THE SCREEN IS ALREADY FACING THE USER!!! Anyway, I still wouldn’t use it :)
nl 6y ago
I love the touch bar. I did find I had to customise the Firefox touchbar shortcuts so I don't brush them accidentally. But I love things like how VS.Code puts common shortcuts as buttons instead of trying to make me remember them. I have better things to do with my memory than remember keyboard shortcuts.
- koynoyno 6y ago
  > I have better things to do with my memory than remember keyboard shortcuts. Actually you can memorize unlimited number of shortcuts. I remember roughly 500 shortcuts for different programs and OS, it's just a matter of time. As touch typing, this investment pays off very satisfactory over time
jerryzh 6y ago
As a guy that started to use vim since 15-year-old and use it all the time, touchbar is still a joy to use. It took me less than half an hour to get used to the virtual esc and I hardly fail to press it correctly. iterm2's support of touchbar is charming and helps a lot even when using vim
yc-kraln 6y ago
Easily explained: It's a keyboard, not a screen. I don't look at the keyboard when I use a computer, so a random, context-sensitive action which occurs when I randomly miss the number keys is extremely distressing.
- Angostura 6y ago
  It's neither, and both.
hashmal 6y ago
Interestingly enough, my experience has been the opposite. I liked the concept of the Touch Bar at first, then got one with a new macbook. I liked it at first, but the more I use it, the more I hate it. Yes I spent time using it, yes I customized its icons, yes, yes, yes. It's been more than 2 years I use it all day long. My next macbook will be the Air one, just so I don't have to use the Touch Bar again. And I'm not even using F keys on regular keyboards.
- koynoyno 6y ago
  > My next macbook will be the Air one Beware of overheating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IULkXAHjL_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IULkXAHjL_s
deltasquared 6y ago
For Vim use, I map caps lock to esc. This is built into osX under settings -> keyboard -> Modifier Keys...

djxfade 6y ago

I agree. Shameless plug, but I made a small utility that I use everyday. It let's you create a few handy shortcuts that you can use to paste text. https://github.com/thomas-alrek/TouchMemes/ https://github.com/thomas-alrek/TouchMemes/

bedbot 6y ago

I never comment, and I appreciate your view, but suffice it to say that I hate the Touch Bar enough that your comment has spurred me to post. My company-issued laptop has a Touch Bar, and I can only imagine that it was invented and distributed by some kind of malicious clique of saboteurs within Apple who hate both (1) users and (2) Apple and want both to fail. Brushing the Touch Bar accidentally with a finger leads Siri to interrupt me, silencing whatever video call I'm on or music I'm listening to. Instead of being able to adjust the volume manually or pause what I'm listening to with a key that I can press without looking, I have to flatten and retract my hands, peer down at the touchbar, and then poke through several options just in order to do a simple operation, all the while terrified that Siri will interrupt me.

dvcrn 6y ago
Just remove Siri from the TouchBar then?
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  I’ve removed every control besides volume and mute... and I still accidentally brush them every now and then. The Touch Bar is way too sensitive.
  - sjwright 6y ago
    If the Touch Bar was adjustable sensitive to force, it would be almost perfect in my book. My biggest objection to it is that it establishes a different UX between laptop and desktop.
  - dexterdog 6y ago
    Yeah the only time I notice it is when I brush the mute which is a key I rarely want to hit. Also when I want to hit escape I often miss because it is oddly indented.
    - spockz 6y ago
      The escape button is actually quite large. At least on my 2018 MBP, the whole empty left also acts as the escape button so no need to try and hit the escape in the middle of the label.
      - wingworks 6y ago
        I used to have this, that I could tap anywhere on and to the left of the esc touch button and it would trigger esc. But after one of the OS updates (i forget which) it stopped working, now I have to hit the etc touch button, if I hit the blank aria to the left, nothing happens anymore. It bugs me so much! Just curious, what OS version are you using? I'm on Big Sur (but same issue in Catalina). I've got the 2017 MBP 15" EDIT: I should add, I mean that I could hit the far left blank aria of the touch bar any time in any touchbar mode and it would trigger the esc action. They "fixed" that in an update. I can still press to the left of the esc and trigger esc when the esc button is visible. But often I'll have spotify touch bar "app" open and the esc key won't show, so I have to close the app just to access the esc key, super annoying.

caymanjim 6y ago

I despised the early incarnation of the TouchBar. I live in Vim, and while I use a 'jj' binding for most Esc scenarios, I still need an actual Escape key. Beyond that, I had three brand-new MacBooks die in the first year with TouchBar failures. It also coincided with the disastrous new keyboard (multiple failures there too). It was enough to make me buy a ThinkPad and swear off literally all Apple products for a few years. My new job just sent me a new MacBook, and I was dreading it. I'm happy to report that it has a physical Escape key (smaller and imperfect, but sufficient), and the keyboard feels better overall. I still don't want the TouchBar, and still get no use out of it, but it no longer enrages me. I'm open to accepting and even embracing it if I ever see a good use case. One thing that continues to bother me is that it changes as I'm typing, and I don't want that. But I can see a path for apps to use it in a positive way.

bargle0 6y ago
I mapped caps lock to escape.
- caymanjim 6y ago
  That's where Control belongs!
  - rovr138 6y ago
    Thank you!
  - draebek 6y ago
    FYI there are various utilities (Hammerspoon and Karabiner Elements, off the top of my head) that can make caps lock act as escape if pressed and released, control if used in conjunction with other keys. This took some getting used to, but thanks to the Touch Bar, I got used to it and now I find it invaluable. YMMV of course.
  - jrib 6y ago
    I agree with both of you :) https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ has an option that maps caps lock to control when press in conjunction with another key and as escape when pressed alone

Someone1234 6y ago

> My personal feeling is that the people who dislike the Touch Bar heard the bad things about it, tried it for a time and two, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word. That's a very roundabout way of saying "people tried it, hate it, and told others: UNFAIR." In essence that argument can be used to dismiss anyone who dislikes the Touch Bar because they MIGHT have read something negative about it at some point, and therefore have been corrupted from forming their own first-hand opinion (???). I'd love to ignore the Touch Bar, but since they stole the F key row for it, I cannot. I am forced to use it to interact with software that once worked fine. Since there's no physical feedback, and the virtual keys aren't correctly aligned with the physical ones: it is a frustration. At least we regained the escape key. As to why I don't actively use it: I look at the screen, not the top of my hands. The content is on the screen, if you can touch type you shouldn't ever be looking down, so the Touch Bar is an anti-feature put in completely the wrong location (i.e. above the keyboard, instead under the screen) for people who struggle to type.

raindropm 6y ago
I think he just means some people just spend little time with it, and with whatever reason, maybe it cannot enhance their productivity like their trusty automated scripts or keyboard macro - said aloud that it sucks. Honestly, the most loudest voice against Touchbar is usually us geeky people and not really general users. I think the touchbar is superb for general non-techie users who are not keyboard shortcut wiz, and there are A LOT of them. The thing I found sad is the lack of push from Apple, to make it more useful and versatile. It's nearly the same since its inception. People have to rely on 3rd party app, say, BetterTouchTool(which is excellent) to make Touchbar more useful.
pcr910303 6y ago
> That's a very roundabout way of saying "people tried it, hate it, and told others: UNFAIR." Hmm, I'm not a native English speaker so I might have not exactly conveyed my intentions. I'm definitely not trying to argue that other people are unfair, but more just that people should try it out a bit more. > I'd love to ignore the Touch Bar, but since they stole the F key row for it, I cannot. I'm genuinely curious about this F-keys every time I write about the Touch Bar - I've never encountered use for those keys that are really useful. > Since there's no physical feedback Yeah, that part I agree. If you're still suffering about it (regardless whether you use Touch Bar regularly or not), you might want the HapticKey app that I've mentioned it previously. > The content is on the screen, if you can touch type you shouldn't ever be looking down Well, because the Touch Bar's layout is pretty stable, I find that I can touch-type the Touch Bar without looking down the screen. It becomes muscle memory, just like a usual keyboard.

stanmancan 6y ago

I accidentally tap it all the time. All it takes is a key press that’s slightly too high and the edge of my finger grazes the Touch Bar and BAM whatever shortcut was there runs. I wanted to like the Touch Bar. I actually did for the first two weeks. Then I slowly grew to hate it once I realized I accidentally touched it more than intentionally.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
Can it be disabled completely? I know I'd miss the F keys, but since you don't have them anyway...
- koynoyno 6y ago
  You can turn on F keys for displaying in Touch Bar
ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
I never accidentally tap the Touch Bar. I guess I’m perfect

sigzero 6y ago

I use Vim and I still like the touchbar. lol

chefandy 6y ago

> My personal feeling is that the people who dislike the Touch Bar heard the bad things about it, tried it for a time and two, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word. Well then your personal feeling is really an untested assumption masquerading as a feeling. I'm a long-time developer, and more recently, a designer of interfaces and graphics. Aside from my 20 years of muscle memory with vim, the primary reason I hate the Touch Bar is the same reason I hate touch screens in cars: if I have to look away from where I'm supposed to be looking because my controls provide no physical feedback, then that's a design failure. If you're going to provide this as an unobtrusive addition to the current features, then super... but they replaced standard functionality with something that was worse in many ways, and kinda neat in other, much less important ways. Much like when they suddenly replaced Google Maps on iPhones with Apple Maps before Google had their iOS app ready. Apple Maps had a much-touted gimmicky 3d flyover feature, but the users lost street view, transit, and bicycle directions and the directions themselves were significantly worse. Sure, it looked cool and the flyover feature was really neat... but who gives a damn if you're losing core functionality. Within months of having my first MacBook Pro, I could turn the volume up and down and mute the audio without looking. Same with the screen brightness... I can't do that anymore. Not only that, but the interface for changing the volume— a core system function— changes depending on the current application's context, making me have to hunt for it. Maybe you don't run up against that, but it's inexcusably poor design. In addition, the Touch Bar isn't big enough to be useful for any serious professional use in media editing apps, which seems to be what it was originally designed for. I can't use it to easily scrub through video clips with any precision, or large amounts of pictures, or anything like that. Sure, it might be a nice-to-have for a less intensive user, but it's certainly not a PROfessional tool for my MacBook PRO. On top of that, it's totally useless for accessibility, it's easy to accidentally touch and do something unintended, and makes simple tap-n-times motions into awkward tap, wait, drag motions. All set. Throw it away. Give me my buttons back.

pcr910303 6y ago
> Well then your personal feeling is really an untested assumption masquerading as a feeling. I felt this 'tried it for a time and too, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word' from your comment. Maybe it's not, but the content doesn't really suggest you've used the Touch Bar more than a few times. > Within months of having my first MacBook Pro, I could turn the volume up and down and mute the audio without looking. Same with the screen brightness... I can't do that anymore. Not only that, but the interface for changing the volume— a core system function— changes depending on the current application's context, making me have to hunt for it. Maybe you don't run up against that, but it's inexcusably poor design. I can, my friends that use the MBP can, and even friends that don't have an MBP but occasionally use mine also don't need to look to control the volumes or brightness. I can't buy that argument. Also, in it's default state the buttons are always displayed in the same place - I can't understand about your argument about context-sensitive core system functions, as that's the reason why the control strip is there in the right. (And usually apps that use the Touch Bar strikes the right balance on context sensitivity - you can expect the same functionality on the same place if you're using the same app, or doing the same action, like text editing.) > In addition, the Touch Bar isn't big enough to be useful for any serious professional use in media editing apps, which seems to be what it was originally designed for. > it's certainly not a PROfessional tool for my MacBook PRO. It's big enough to provide shortcuts that allow professionals to be more productive in apps that the user thoroughly knows in-and-out. That's it's purpose, and media professionals as well as programmers can use it very usefully. > it's totally useless for accessibility, Why? > it's easy to accidentally touch and do something unintended, I've personally found that's not the case, but well I'm seeing others that also feel like this so... > and makes simple tap-n-times motions into awkward tap, wait, drag motions. I can't find any example where that's the case - I've never seen an Touch Bar action that need a tap-wait-drag. It's usually drag on the button or just a tap, or two successive taps if you're doing something relatively complex like setting the color of selected text or something.

EamonnMR 6y ago

As a result of the touchbar I changed caps lock to escape so I could keep using vi. I now make that change on Linux too. Never missed capslock.

GeekyBear 6y ago

This is the wrong audience to ask about the touch bar, however there is an entire population of computer users out there for whom standard function keys are less than useless. >About 90 per cent of computer users don't use CTRL-F to search for a word - as they don't know such a keyboard shortcut exists, a Google survey found. The results stunned Google's Uber Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness, Dan Russell. "I think we just all assume that we all know it, but no one actually does." https://www.smh.com.au/technology/only-one-in-10-know-what-ctrlf-does--here-are-shortcuts-you-should-know-20111130-1o69d.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/only-one-in-10-know-what-c... For the 90% of users who don't know that Ctrl-F is find, having a row of contextual command icons for the foreground program instead of a row of useless function keys is a step up. I think they should just continue to make standard function keys available for the minority of users who find them important to their own workflow.

sgustard 6y ago
On the one hand, that's entertaining and it's easy to laugh at people who don't know those shortcuts. On the other hand: to this day I don't know if iOS Mobile Safari supports finding text on a page.
- cnf 6y ago
  Select the address bar, and start typing. At the bottom of the search results it will say “on this page”
ambyra 6y ago
So put the Touch Bar on the MacBook Air for non pro users, and the function keys for pro users. They put the training wheels on the Ferrari.
- michaelt 6y ago
  The Macbook Pro is a "professional" tool in the same way you can buy "professional" hair straighteners: It's the same thing, but a bit better for a bit more money. True professional-only tools are things like Jira and Oracle Financials, and you can recognise them because the users hate them.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

" My personal feeling is that the people who dislike the Touch Bar heard the bad things about it, tried it for a time and two, decided that it's not something good, and spreading the word." I have tried to for two years and still find it useless... With Better Touch Tool I have basically recreated the old Fn key layout and now it's half-ways bearable. If they at least hadn't made it pure touch but something with resistance I wouldn't constantly hit it by accident...

gullevek 6y ago

The touch bar is too sensitive. When just slighly brushing over it activates it then it is useless. Those are keys. And when I want to backspace and accidentically start some other action then this is a design flaw. It needs to have a force touch, so that just hovering or touching it won't activate it. you need to press down. Until this is implemented the whole touch bar is just annoying. Oh and when you need to use BetterTouchTool to actually make the touch bar useful then something is really wrong. Alos use th same too to map fn+<> for volume up down and other things. just because looking for that on the touch bar is just ... stupid.

whoisjuan 6y ago

I like it so much that I want an Apple Keyboard with it. I hope that happens one day.

techslave 6y ago

the emoji selector, yes. everything else you’ve said is downright wrong. all of those are better with keyboard shortcuts and fn keys are better than the touchbar for that. i specifically want to call out moving between tabs. in absolutely no way is the touchbar better than keyboard shortcuts. there is one app where it might be better: safari. because they chose such poor shortcut for switching tabs. i guess there is one more good use case. if you allocated rarely used and hard to locate MS word buttons to the toolbar, that might be perhaps better than monkeying with the ribbon. i have a streamdeck i use for IDE shortcuts. it’s far far better than the touchbar.

ldavison 6y ago

For me it's not Vim (remapped caps lock to ESC, plus newer MBPs have a physical ESC key again), it's JetBrains. The number of frequent operations that use F-keys makes the touch bar a truly frustrating experience. I switched to a Matias keyboard to avoid the touch bar. An added benefit is their placement of the fn key, which is really nice if you use various OSes.

siquick 6y ago

> [0]: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey - or you might like 'brew cask install haptickey'. This is great, thanks for posting.

draebek 6y ago

Thanks for this contrary opinion. :) I have been using a Touch Bar MBP for about 18 months. I have my Touch Bar configured for function keys all the time. I touch type fairly quickly, so I rarely look at the keyboard. I spend all day in the terminal, Emacs, Vim, or my browser (which I navigate using the Vimium extension). Unlike you, I run into problems with the Touch Bar on a daily basis: * I still hit the function keys at least a half dozen times a day by accident. * I still manage to not register fast key presses to the Touch Bar at least half a dozen times a day by accident. * About once a month, it seems, the Touch Bar gets stuck on its volume or brightness widget. Previously the only way I found to fix this was to reboot. Last night I may have discovered that touching other, seemingly blank parts of the Bar may get it out of this state, so at least the Touch Bar may no longer force me to reboot. Text completion on my laptop usually slows me down, but in any case, my editor offers that for me inline, without me having to look down at the keyboard. I know all the shortcuts to delete files in Finder, comment out lines, rename variables, control volumes, change tabs, and control text formatting. All this is to say that I guess I am not the target demographic for the Touch Bar—and, since all the new MBPs seem to have it, I guess I'm no longer the demographic for the MacBook Pro? I am inclined to agree with the comment from 'GeekyBear that I am probably in the vast minority of users, and most people will find use for the Touch Bar. I am glad you find the Touch Bar useful. For my part, I hate it, and it's one factor that's got me looking for the exits on macOS. I would like to second your suggestion to add haptic feedback to the Touch Bar. I use BetterTouchTool for this, and it helps me to know when I have accidentally hit the Touch Bar. Also, I hate the Touch Bar, but Sampler looks really cool.

PostThisTooFast 6y ago

The emoji bar is a disgraceful, embarrassing gimmick that cements Apple's reputation as a company that has given up on real computers. What a useless piece of shit.

Juliate 6y ago

I hear you. However, there's also a class of users that _do not look at the keyboard_ (if only, for very specific complex actions which only require lookup and execution, not reflexion). For this class of people at least, the _visual_ touch bar introduces an uncontrolled* modal change to the keyboard which is a true nature change of the role and expectations one can have of the keyboard. That, in turn, may be a good enough reason to be very frustratred with it, and not use it at all. As for me, I'm happy for, although I don't understand, people that appreciate the touch bar. And I don't use it. And I expect to get my next laptop without one. * uncontrolled, because not triggered by the user.

ambyra 6y ago
Yeah! If they were to have a Touch Bar, put it at the bottom of the screen. You are already looking at the screen. Keyboard is for keying, screen is for looking. It would have been cheaper to make, instead of having two screens. They were really proud that they could angle the pixels on the Touch Bar to face the user. THE SCREEN IS ALREADY FACING THE USER!!! Anyway, I still wouldn’t use it :)

nl 6y ago

I love the touch bar. I did find I had to customise the Firefox touchbar shortcuts so I don't brush them accidentally. But I love things like how VS.Code puts common shortcuts as buttons instead of trying to make me remember them. I have better things to do with my memory than remember keyboard shortcuts.

koynoyno 6y ago
> I have better things to do with my memory than remember keyboard shortcuts. Actually you can memorize unlimited number of shortcuts. I remember roughly 500 shortcuts for different programs and OS, it's just a matter of time. As touch typing, this investment pays off very satisfactory over time

jerryzh 6y ago

As a guy that started to use vim since 15-year-old and use it all the time, touchbar is still a joy to use. It took me less than half an hour to get used to the virtual esc and I hardly fail to press it correctly. iterm2's support of touchbar is charming and helps a lot even when using vim

yc-kraln 6y ago

Easily explained: It's a keyboard, not a screen. I don't look at the keyboard when I use a computer, so a random, context-sensitive action which occurs when I randomly miss the number keys is extremely distressing.

Angostura 6y ago
It's neither, and both.

hashmal 6y ago

Interestingly enough, my experience has been the opposite. I liked the concept of the Touch Bar at first, then got one with a new macbook. I liked it at first, but the more I use it, the more I hate it. Yes I spent time using it, yes I customized its icons, yes, yes, yes. It's been more than 2 years I use it all day long. My next macbook will be the Air one, just so I don't have to use the Touch Bar again. And I'm not even using F keys on regular keyboards.

koynoyno 6y ago
> My next macbook will be the Air one Beware of overheating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IULkXAHjL_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IULkXAHjL_s

deltasquared 6y ago

For Vim use, I map caps lock to esc. This is built into osX under settings -> keyboard -> Modifier Keys...