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> I feel like the people that complain about this are the ones who have a hard time changing their workflows to use the TouchBar, and still do things the old sc

> I feel like the people that complain about this are the ones who have a hard time changing their workflows to use the TouchBar, and still do things the old school way using function keys This was particularly painful to read. The mandatory new option that is the touchbar upended what was working fine for something that, for touch typists, is totally inferior. There's no feedback! This is a foundational aspect of usability; for apple to ignore this is a huge mistake.

issa 6y ago
I could not agree more. Taking away the volume buttons seems like such a small change, but I mess with volume 100x times a day and it went from something that requires one touch without looking to multiple touches and a lot of activating SIRI by mistake. I get why people make fun of such complaints, but it's a very front-and-center pain point.
- ladberg 6y ago
  Protip: You can control the volume in one touch by starting at the volume icon and swiping left or right!
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    Yeah. Press on it and start moving and it gives you a volume bar to fine tune the volume, same with brightness. Most other scale-like or timeline controls are similar (versus toggle controls) if they show up in the touch bar for an application.
  - dstick 6y ago
    Protip: you can press a button and train muscle memory, oh - wait.
  - issa 6y ago
    I've been suffering through the touchbar for a few years now and I STILL cannot do this properly. I certainly can't do it without stopping what I am doing and looking at the bar. I tend to either hit mute, Siri, or (if I'm at an unusual angle) I dim the screen. And this happens a LOT of times per day. When I'm on a system with actual buttons it is never, ever an issue.
- sohooo 6y ago
  Also not a fan of the touchbar, but since I learned that you can tap on volume and immediately slide left/right, it's ok for me.
  - geerlingguy 6y ago
    Even there, I don't know if it's a brain-finger disconnect or something, but about 10% of the time when I hit and slide, apparently I miss, because I slide my finger around and nothing happens. If it were <1% of the time, no problem. Also, the fact I have to glance down to do it (on my external keyboard I just jab my pinky up really quick, don't have to look at all) makes me angry every time.
- dpkonofa 6y ago
  How do you figure? Press and slide to your desired volume in one motion. The new volume control is one of the reasons I now prefer the Touch Bar (in addition to scrubbing through media). I used to have to tap the volume button multiple times to get to my desired volume level but now I just tap/swipe and I'm done. Edit: Looks like everyone else already said the same thing. Sorry!
  - issa 6y ago
    It's interesting to me that people have such different reactions. I'm much more concerned with mute/unmute than with volume level. Not sure if that makes a difference. I don't mind a slight delay to change the volume of a youtube video or something, but when I need to respond on a conference call, I want to be able to instantly mute my volume.
    - dpkonofa 6y ago
      You can still do that. If you just tap the volume button, it toggles between mute and unmute.
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    Without looking?
    - dpkonofa 6y ago
      Why does that need to be a qualifier? Having to look at it doesn't bother me and, if I want to rely on muscle memory, I just plugin an external keyboard. When I'm editing media or coding, I don't mind needing to look at the Touch Bar at all.
- rurp 6y ago
  > Taking away the volume buttons seems like such a small change I honestly wouldn't even say it's that small of a change. Apple took an extremely common activity that worked without a thought and turned it into something you constantly have to look at and think about. This is especially annoying in the context of the posted article, where saving fractions of a second opening an app is one of the biggest pluses listed. At least to me, the former is much worse than the latter is beneficial.
- Tsiklon 6y ago
  Very first thing I did with my machine was remove Siri from the Touch Bar, you can customise the layout in the keyboard preferences if you haven’t already. But I agree, real bad default
ravedave5 6y ago
The touch escape button is the worst thing ever. I accidentally touch it, or when you need it because something's locked up, it's locked up too.
- lyptt 6y ago
  I'm glad Apple reverted this with the second incarnation of the touch bar. You get a physical escape key on all M1 machines.
lowbloodsugar 6y ago
I am so glad my M1 Air does not have a touch bar. I use my i9 pro almost exclusively with a magic keyboard (which has function keys). Die Touch Bar, die!
- jbpnoy6fifty 6y ago
  I'm one of the few many who actually like the touchbar. I use it all the time for changing screenshot capture modes. The volume problem doesn't bother me. I also re-binded escape to caps lock so I don't have the infuriating escape button issue, especially when toggling Vim modes. One issue though, is that the touch app crashes sometimes and I need to cycle it's service. This happens rarely since I have updated to catalina 10.15.7, however, previously I would encounter the issue every month
haswell 6y ago
This was my initial reaction as well, because I absolutely loathe the touch bar. One thing I've been pondering - I've been asking myself: "why on earth would someone actually like the touchbar...ever?". And I wonder if the answer has something to do with the new generation of technologists. The generation that has been using touch on phones/tablets from the beginning of their technology journey. I have no idea if this has merit, but as someone who hasn't looked at a keyboard while typing in two decades (unless it has a touchbar), that's the only thing I can imagine. Maybe I'd be ok with it if I grew up with it.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > "why on earth would someone actually like the touchbar...ever?" Because it's programmable. I'm a programmer. I like things to be programmable. I've got no hope of remembering what a key like F6 means in a given context - it's a meaningless number. The Touch Bar lets me have context-sensitive keys I can actually understand and use.
  - geerlingguy 6y ago
    Back in the ancient times, people would put overlays on their keyboards... some still do, for things like DAW editing stations, video editing, etc. :)
    - eh9 6y ago
      Can’t wait for all the keys to be programmable screens that show shortcuts based on context.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        Yeah that'd probably be the best of all.
  - cosmotic 6y ago
    I know what the commonly used F-keys do for tasks I perform often. They are just as context-sensitive as the touch bar, except they don't display the action on the key. You're trading that display for tactile feedback that there's a key there you can press and that the key press was registered. Seems like putting a screen in the keyboard would satisfy both, but wouldn't satisfy the slider use cases.
mplewis 6y ago
I liked the touchbar, and I worked to make it the best it could be. I used BetterTouchTool and spent tons of time hacking my preferred widgets in – Spotify, weather, calendar, etc. And then I bought a 2021 MacBook Air, without a touchbar, and I found it so much more pleasant. I find the touchbar to be a failed experiment. I no longer want one ever again. I just want buttons for my brightness and music.
hc-taway 6y ago
I have to disable most of the Touch Bar (set it not to change with context, and replace most of it with a blank "spacer") to make it usable. I tend to just barely brush it when striking number keys during normal typing (which happens a lot for parens and such when programming—and just now, in fact) which makes it do crazy stuff like open iTunes (because I "pressed" the media play button). Real buttons don't do that because you have to push down on them to activate them, not ever-so-slightly brush the bottom edge, which is why I'd never noticed, in my 25ish years of touch-typing, that I did that, until I used a TouchBar MacBook. I also have to disable force-touch (or whatever it's called on there) on the trackpad, for models that have that, or else my drag-&-drop success rate is reduced from about 100% to more like 30%. Took me quite a while to figure out why that was happening. Luckily I have no clue why I'd want that feature in the first place, so I don't miss it. I don't have any kind of motor-function disorder, I just can't drag-&-drop while maintaining perfectly even pressure, I guess.
fossuser 6y ago
I'd bet that Apple is killing the touch bar in the next hardware design revision. [0] They kept the same body while changing out the chip, I suspect the next update will bring the end of the Touchbar. The M1 is awesome though - it makes the Intel MBA seem like garbage. I was helping my SO set up some stuff for a presentation (Zoom, Mmhmm) and the Intel MBA fan was screaming, the video had unusable lag, the entire thing was locking up. We switched to my M1 with no fan and everything was fast and flawless. Meanwhile Intel is pushing nonsense like this: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/21/02/08/2221233/intel-benchmarks-say-apples-m1-isnt-faster https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/21/02/08/2221233/intel-b... Intel is in trouble - this is an e-risk for their business. [0]: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/15/apple-removing-touch-bar-rumor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/15/apple-removing-touch-ba...

issa 6y ago

I could not agree more. Taking away the volume buttons seems like such a small change, but I mess with volume 100x times a day and it went from something that requires one touch without looking to multiple touches and a lot of activating SIRI by mistake. I get why people make fun of such complaints, but it's a very front-and-center pain point.

ladberg 6y ago
Protip: You can control the volume in one touch by starting at the volume icon and swiping left or right!
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  Yeah. Press on it and start moving and it gives you a volume bar to fine tune the volume, same with brightness. Most other scale-like or timeline controls are similar (versus toggle controls) if they show up in the touch bar for an application.
- dstick 6y ago
  Protip: you can press a button and train muscle memory, oh - wait.
- issa 6y ago
  I've been suffering through the touchbar for a few years now and I STILL cannot do this properly. I certainly can't do it without stopping what I am doing and looking at the bar. I tend to either hit mute, Siri, or (if I'm at an unusual angle) I dim the screen. And this happens a LOT of times per day. When I'm on a system with actual buttons it is never, ever an issue.
sohooo 6y ago
Also not a fan of the touchbar, but since I learned that you can tap on volume and immediately slide left/right, it's ok for me.
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  Even there, I don't know if it's a brain-finger disconnect or something, but about 10% of the time when I hit and slide, apparently I miss, because I slide my finger around and nothing happens. If it were <1% of the time, no problem. Also, the fact I have to glance down to do it (on my external keyboard I just jab my pinky up really quick, don't have to look at all) makes me angry every time.
dpkonofa 6y ago
How do you figure? Press and slide to your desired volume in one motion. The new volume control is one of the reasons I now prefer the Touch Bar (in addition to scrubbing through media). I used to have to tap the volume button multiple times to get to my desired volume level but now I just tap/swipe and I'm done. Edit: Looks like everyone else already said the same thing. Sorry!
- issa 6y ago
  It's interesting to me that people have such different reactions. I'm much more concerned with mute/unmute than with volume level. Not sure if that makes a difference. I don't mind a slight delay to change the volume of a youtube video or something, but when I need to respond on a conference call, I want to be able to instantly mute my volume.
  - dpkonofa 6y ago
    You can still do that. If you just tap the volume button, it toggles between mute and unmute.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  Without looking?
  - dpkonofa 6y ago
    Why does that need to be a qualifier? Having to look at it doesn't bother me and, if I want to rely on muscle memory, I just plugin an external keyboard. When I'm editing media or coding, I don't mind needing to look at the Touch Bar at all.
rurp 6y ago
> Taking away the volume buttons seems like such a small change I honestly wouldn't even say it's that small of a change. Apple took an extremely common activity that worked without a thought and turned it into something you constantly have to look at and think about. This is especially annoying in the context of the posted article, where saving fractions of a second opening an app is one of the biggest pluses listed. At least to me, the former is much worse than the latter is beneficial.
Tsiklon 6y ago
Very first thing I did with my machine was remove Siri from the Touch Bar, you can customise the layout in the keyboard preferences if you haven’t already. But I agree, real bad default

ravedave5 6y ago

The touch escape button is the worst thing ever. I accidentally touch it, or when you need it because something's locked up, it's locked up too.

lyptt 6y ago
I'm glad Apple reverted this with the second incarnation of the touch bar. You get a physical escape key on all M1 machines.

lowbloodsugar 6y ago

I am so glad my M1 Air does not have a touch bar. I use my i9 pro almost exclusively with a magic keyboard (which has function keys). Die Touch Bar, die!

jbpnoy6fifty 6y ago
I'm one of the few many who actually like the touchbar. I use it all the time for changing screenshot capture modes. The volume problem doesn't bother me. I also re-binded escape to caps lock so I don't have the infuriating escape button issue, especially when toggling Vim modes. One issue though, is that the touch app crashes sometimes and I need to cycle it's service. This happens rarely since I have updated to catalina 10.15.7, however, previously I would encounter the issue every month

haswell 6y ago

This was my initial reaction as well, because I absolutely loathe the touch bar. One thing I've been pondering - I've been asking myself: "why on earth would someone actually like the touchbar...ever?". And I wonder if the answer has something to do with the new generation of technologists. The generation that has been using touch on phones/tablets from the beginning of their technology journey. I have no idea if this has merit, but as someone who hasn't looked at a keyboard while typing in two decades (unless it has a touchbar), that's the only thing I can imagine. Maybe I'd be ok with it if I grew up with it.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> "why on earth would someone actually like the touchbar...ever?" Because it's programmable. I'm a programmer. I like things to be programmable. I've got no hope of remembering what a key like F6 means in a given context - it's a meaningless number. The Touch Bar lets me have context-sensitive keys I can actually understand and use.
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  Back in the ancient times, people would put overlays on their keyboards... some still do, for things like DAW editing stations, video editing, etc. :)
  - eh9 6y ago
    Can’t wait for all the keys to be programmable screens that show shortcuts based on context.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      Yeah that'd probably be the best of all.
- cosmotic 6y ago
  I know what the commonly used F-keys do for tasks I perform often. They are just as context-sensitive as the touch bar, except they don't display the action on the key. You're trading that display for tactile feedback that there's a key there you can press and that the key press was registered. Seems like putting a screen in the keyboard would satisfy both, but wouldn't satisfy the slider use cases.

mplewis 6y ago

I liked the touchbar, and I worked to make it the best it could be. I used BetterTouchTool and spent tons of time hacking my preferred widgets in – Spotify, weather, calendar, etc. And then I bought a 2021 MacBook Air, without a touchbar, and I found it so much more pleasant. I find the touchbar to be a failed experiment. I no longer want one ever again. I just want buttons for my brightness and music.

hc-taway 6y ago

I have to disable most of the Touch Bar (set it not to change with context, and replace most of it with a blank "spacer") to make it usable. I tend to just barely brush it when striking number keys during normal typing (which happens a lot for parens and such when programming—and just now, in fact) which makes it do crazy stuff like open iTunes (because I "pressed" the media play button). Real buttons don't do that because you have to push down on them to activate them, not ever-so-slightly brush the bottom edge, which is why I'd never noticed, in my 25ish years of touch-typing, that I did that, until I used a TouchBar MacBook. I also have to disable force-touch (or whatever it's called on there) on the trackpad, for models that have that, or else my drag-&-drop success rate is reduced from about 100% to more like 30%. Took me quite a while to figure out why that was happening. Luckily I have no clue why I'd want that feature in the first place, so I don't miss it. I don't have any kind of motor-function disorder, I just can't drag-&-drop while maintaining perfectly even pressure, I guess.

fossuser 6y ago

I'd bet that Apple is killing the touch bar in the next hardware design revision. [0] They kept the same body while changing out the chip, I suspect the next update will bring the end of the Touchbar. The M1 is awesome though - it makes the Intel MBA seem like garbage. I was helping my SO set up some stuff for a presentation (Zoom, Mmhmm) and the Intel MBA fan was screaming, the video had unusable lag, the entire thing was locking up. We switched to my M1 with no fan and everything was fast and flawless. Meanwhile Intel is pushing nonsense like this: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/21/02/08/2221233/intel-benchmarks-say-apples-m1-isnt-faster https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/21/02/08/2221233/intel-b... Intel is in trouble - this is an e-risk for their business. [0]: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/15/apple-removing-touch-bar-rumor/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/15/apple-removing-touch-ba...