Same here. Though it helps a little to customize it - in particular removing Siri from the bar, heh. No more accidentally calling Siri. Another improvement was realizing that you can change volume/brightness with one continuous move (touch -> hold -> slide).
In any case, I'd like to keep Touch ID, but drop the rest.
Agree. I found out that the small MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar still has an escape key and still has a headphone jack! So that is at least something to be excited about.
Not every iteration of a beloved product series ends up a classic. This is a down period for the MBP. I hope the clout of some decision-maker within Apple has taken a hit.
I am not a fan of the Touch Bar. I’m one of those who thinks the 2015 MacBook Pro is the epitome of human achievement.But that being said, one thing that is cool about the Touch Bar is when you are viewing a video and it puts a “smeared” thumbnail onto the Touch Bar making it easy to visually seek. That’s really useful sometimes.
I really like my 2015 MBP, but outside the dated hardware in comparison I still think the 2012 model was "the best". Yes, it was thicker and heavier - but I didn't have to worry about buying as much RAM as I thought I'd ever need at purchase time, or storage for that matter (because while OWC sold replacement SSD's for the rMBP they were the only vendor, why Apple didn't adopt M.2 when it was released is beyond me).
Hell, Dell managed to put SODIMM slots + standard M.2 in the XPS 15 and at it's thickest it's still thinner than the 2015 MBP. You can't even argue that Apple does things for the sake of size when the competition beats them on it while maintaining upgradability.
One day I hope Apple brings back a proper MBP, because at this point I don't buy their products for the hardware but because it's the only sane choice for a *NIX-based workstation that doesn't require I constantly mess with things or give up loads of software to use.
MacBook Pro is a piece of dog shit. Why would you pay $2000-3000 for a computer that has the performance of a $900 PC?
Even the brand new top of the line Mac book pros only have a AMD 555x gpu. That is completely unacceptable for the price. They get utterly and completely destroyed by cheaper PC's in virtually every benchmark.
There are many things in the tech world that have gotten fantastically better in my lifetime (I am 40). GPUs have been amazing, machine learning has made great leaps. virtual reality is now semi-awesome and improving.
But a few things have been getting worse. One of the things I most lament is the move to touch interfaces instead of tactile buttons. See phones, cars, remote controls (apple tv) and now keyboards on laptops. It is a worse interface most of the time. I absolutely abhor it. The trend shows no signs of ever reversing though.
I think the keyboards in 2016 and later MBPs are deliberately terrible so that Apple can say "Our market research shows that customers view hardware keyboards negatively" and use that as a basis for either phasing out the Mac or introducing a new piezo touch keyboard or something.
That's a bit bizarre as a conspiracy theory. Apple certainly isn't focused on their Macs anymore, but if they were going to phase it out they'd simply do so. They've never asked anyone for permission before.
It may be a complete coincidence that Apple introduced crappy keyboards, the idiot bar, and a HUGE trackpad to the MacBook line all at the same time, but I find this difficult to believe.
At the very least, it's a clear message from Cupertino: Apple wants you to touch, not type. Resistance is futile.
My car (2018 Honda HRV) has full touch everything. I hate it. Luckily the volume and track selection controls are on the steering wheel as buttons.
I don't want the Heater and A/C controls to be touch. Once you learn where tactile controls are, you don't have to take your eyes off the road. You build the muscle memory pretty fast to their location. This is many times more difficult, if not impossible to do with touch.
I've surprised the NTSB hasn't found touch interfaces dangerous and forced recalls to disable all of them that are within the drivers reach when the vehicle is in gear. Touch is great for things that are complex enough that you need to stop anyway (I doubt anyone can create an interface for entering the address you are going to that is safe to use while driving). Touch touch should be available to the navigator, but the screen should not be visible to the driver.
When I'm driving give me a minimal number of buttons/knobs so that I can quickly learn them all. Ideally these should be standardized so I don't have to take my eyes off the road to figure out how to control the wipers.
A touch keyboard on a phone is definitely worse than a physical one, I'd agree.
But a phone with a bigger screen is also better than one with a small screen.
And there's definitely some sort of maximum size practical for a handset.
Given these constraints, right now I'll go for the big screen and crappy input method. Even though it annoys me a lot and typing on it is painful, I think of the choices available to get a physical keyboard on there (larger phone, smaller screen) I'd take what we have now.
I suspect we'll see a correction. Often new technologies or interfaces get used for things that don't benefit from it or even make it worse. Then novelty wears off and over time we figure out what things work well and what things don't...
Touchscreens are better for some things, physical interfaces are better for others.
Agree. In summer I want the AC to start right when I get in. I don't want to wait for the car's computer to boot up. (And what if it freezes/has problems?!)
Totally agree with you on the cars part. The other day I rented a Ford Edge at an airport, and I struggled to start it. I had to look up the Ford Edge manual PDF and then find a youtube video to understand what I was supposed to do to get the engine running.
User interfaces that make people feel stupid, are not good user interfaces.
I’m in the same place with my personal laptop, however I did use a work-issued 15” with touchbar for a couple months before changing jobs and I actually liked the touchbar shortcuts for Xcode because it exposed stuff that for some reason I’ve never been able to remember the keyboard shortcut. Everything else (especially changing volume) I remember being a pain in the ass
My new work laptop has an idiot bar. It's constantly offering me unwanted autocomplete items and the like. I have sensitive peripheral vision and am easily distracted by "squirrels" that lie outside my field of focus, and that fucking bar is like a constant squirrel generator. Thanks, Apple.
The author used the touch bar for two years and didn't think of removing the Siri button he accidentally clicked so much, or of adding volume controls to the expanded touch strip.
On the other hand, a standard feature that's been nearly unchanged for decades (a keyboard), that suddenly is radically different and has to have multiple customization's made by a user who may or may not know that customization's even exist, should not be considered a user friendly product.
That's what I want to do: configure something that I used to not have to configure before. The touchbar replaced a row of keys that was fine before and required no extra effort. Once you configure something and it's no longer the default then you have to reconfigure every one you use or you have an inconsistent experience. I'm okay with this for many things but for a keyboard is ridiculous.
Inspired by a blog post, which I think made rounds on HN as well, I customised my Touch Bar using a Mac app called BetterTouchTool.
Now I have shortcuts to my most used apps on the left, a Now Playing display connected to Spotify in the middle and audio controls (including a volume slider that you don't have to expand first to use) on the right.
This setup is always displayed, regardless of the app currently on the foreground. This means the controls are once again in a predictable place for my fingers and has made using the touch bar a much more pleasant experience.
I'm still not in love with it, but there are two things that make the touchbar much more tolerable.
BetterTouchTool and HapticKey.
The advantages of BTT are obvious but HapticKey has been a really pleasant surprise. It gives every interaction with the touchbar haptic feedback. I now use the touchbar much more frequently.
Apple's in an awkward spot right now: macOS isn't being iterated on, iOS is where they're putting all their engineering effort, and they're marketing iOS devices s being better than computers.
There is no way they will retrofit proper touch into macOS. Instead, in a few years time, you'll run xCode on an iOS device like any other creation tool, with the whole lifecycle on iOS.
I love it. I programmed it to show my current TODO task, when I am on break as well as my battery and time. So I basically replaced my menu bar with it.
I miss a real ESC key. I can’t tell if I’ve pressed it or not, which is problematic when using vi and touch typing. Haptic feedback would be a nice add-on to make it a little more tolerable.
Also, Apple’s default configuration with Siri in the upper right was a horrible design decision. It only took me a few hours of use to decide to reconfigure the Touch Bar’s layout.
I found it interesting that even an Apple Genius Bar employee was recommending a third-party app to me: BetterTouchTool.
The touchbar is a gimmick, but that’s far from the worst sin of that laptop. For me the credit goes to that keyboard being complete and utter garbage. Typing on it cramps my hands up really badly, and instantly makes me want to go back to my Ergodox.
I find the touchbar kind of clunky to use (like the author), but I believe it's partly because it's suffers from a sort of "gorilla arm" problem ergonomically.
It's a touchscreen, so you can't lay your fingers on the buttons before pressing something (unless they add pressure-sensitive controls), and you have to reach across the keyboard, so you can't brace your hand on the computer chassis while hitting buttons. Instead you have to awkwardly hover your hand over the touchstrip to use it correctly, which is really awkward
Having used a touchbar MacBook Pro for the last year daily (both for developing and casual use) I also agree with the article. For the most part I ignore it as I usually have a tethered monitor and keyboard setup. However for those times when I do work directly off the keyboard I more often than not accidentally hit a button (the worst being accidentally triggering a build and being tied up for 10 seconds trying to frantically cancel).
I think it would transcend gimmick into useful feature if they added haptic feedback of some kind when it is used. I have plenty of memorized keyboard shortcuts so that I do not need to avert my eyes from the screen when typing, something that the touchbar requires to actually properly use. With some kind of physical feedback I would be more easily able to integrate it's use into my workflows, especially so if you could customize haptic feedback based on virtual buttons.
I was surprised they didn't use force touch from the iPhone as the way you interface with it.
It would feel so much better if you had to click the buttons, and it would cut down accidental brushes against it to basically nothing.
In fact, they nailed the haptic feedback on the macbook pro's touchpad so well, i'm still shocked they aren't doing more with it. A touchscreen that has buttons that only "click" when you click right on them, or being able to drag your finger slowly over the pad and feel "taps" when you hit an edge of something. I'm sure there's something i'm missing on why they aren't using it more, but it seems like they have all the ingredients for an awesome experience but just aren't using them all together!
The TouchBar has its uses but I think gimmick status has been confirmed since it never made its way to external Apple keyboards. Like the author, my MBP is mostly docked so I can’t actually use it. That being said, I managed to create useful shortcuts with BetterTouchTool. There is potential.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] thread> "So is the Touch Bar a gimmick? I say yes."
In any case, I'd like to keep Touch ID, but drop the rest.
Basically the '15 model with improved battery, cpu, memory and hdd.
I'd buy one today if I could!
Hell, Dell managed to put SODIMM slots + standard M.2 in the XPS 15 and at it's thickest it's still thinner than the 2015 MBP. You can't even argue that Apple does things for the sake of size when the competition beats them on it while maintaining upgradability.
One day I hope Apple brings back a proper MBP, because at this point I don't buy their products for the hardware but because it's the only sane choice for a *NIX-based workstation that doesn't require I constantly mess with things or give up loads of software to use.
But a few things have been getting worse. One of the things I most lament is the move to touch interfaces instead of tactile buttons. See phones, cars, remote controls (apple tv) and now keyboards on laptops. It is a worse interface most of the time. I absolutely abhor it. The trend shows no signs of ever reversing though.
At the very least, it's a clear message from Cupertino: Apple wants you to touch, not type. Resistance is futile.
If they wanted to do touch, they'd do a touch screen like everybody else.
I don't want the Heater and A/C controls to be touch. Once you learn where tactile controls are, you don't have to take your eyes off the road. You build the muscle memory pretty fast to their location. This is many times more difficult, if not impossible to do with touch.
When I'm driving give me a minimal number of buttons/knobs so that I can quickly learn them all. Ideally these should be standardized so I don't have to take my eyes off the road to figure out how to control the wipers.
A touch keyboard on a phone is definitely worse than a physical one, I'd agree.
But a phone with a bigger screen is also better than one with a small screen.
And there's definitely some sort of maximum size practical for a handset.
Given these constraints, right now I'll go for the big screen and crappy input method. Even though it annoys me a lot and typing on it is painful, I think of the choices available to get a physical keyboard on there (larger phone, smaller screen) I'd take what we have now.
Touchscreens are better for some things, physical interfaces are better for others.
touch interfaces
* requires visual focus
* no feedback
* low information density
hardware
* death of repair (everything is hyper-fragile, glued or soldered)
* death of expansion options (battery, storage)
* "de-contenting" or removing features to sell more accessories
* focus on vanity aesthetics over function
* ever-increasing prices for less YoY improvement
software
* death of QA
* death of stable releases (endless hash-barf versions)
* notification spam
abandonment of user control
* os-mandated default applications and services
* lack of security updates (android)
* forced beta testing (apple, windows)
app store model
* no discovery
* no search
* no user privacy
* abusive micro-transactions
User interfaces that make people feel stupid, are not good user interfaces.
Sony would put some animation on the bluetooth handsfree unit that distracts me when I am driving at night.
"Helpful" popups would bounce up and down at the corner of a screen on Mac and Windows.
What is the reason? To look "cool"? To check off a feature in some feature list?
It's like 2000's manufacturers putting blue LEDs everywhere...
This review is worthless.
i solved it by having a static set of buttons and an app that vibrates the touchpad when i touch the bar.
the touch bar is the force touch of macbooks.
Now I have shortcuts to my most used apps on the left, a Now Playing display connected to Spotify in the middle and audio controls (including a volume slider that you don't have to expand first to use) on the right.
This setup is always displayed, regardless of the app currently on the foreground. This means the controls are once again in a predictable place for my fingers and has made using the touch bar a much more pleasant experience.
BetterTouchTool and HapticKey.
The advantages of BTT are obvious but HapticKey has been a really pleasant surprise. It gives every interaction with the touchbar haptic feedback. I now use the touchbar much more frequently.
There is no way they will retrofit proper touch into macOS. Instead, in a few years time, you'll run xCode on an iOS device like any other creation tool, with the whole lifecycle on iOS.
https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-mac-os/tree/master/btt
Also, Apple’s default configuration with Siri in the upper right was a horrible design decision. It only took me a few hours of use to decide to reconfigure the Touch Bar’s layout.
I found it interesting that even an Apple Genius Bar employee was recommending a third-party app to me: BetterTouchTool.
https://github.com/niw/HapticKey
It's a touchscreen, so you can't lay your fingers on the buttons before pressing something (unless they add pressure-sensitive controls), and you have to reach across the keyboard, so you can't brace your hand on the computer chassis while hitting buttons. Instead you have to awkwardly hover your hand over the touchstrip to use it correctly, which is really awkward
I think it would transcend gimmick into useful feature if they added haptic feedback of some kind when it is used. I have plenty of memorized keyboard shortcuts so that I do not need to avert my eyes from the screen when typing, something that the touchbar requires to actually properly use. With some kind of physical feedback I would be more easily able to integrate it's use into my workflows, especially so if you could customize haptic feedback based on virtual buttons.
It would feel so much better if you had to click the buttons, and it would cut down accidental brushes against it to basically nothing.
In fact, they nailed the haptic feedback on the macbook pro's touchpad so well, i'm still shocked they aren't doing more with it. A touchscreen that has buttons that only "click" when you click right on them, or being able to drag your finger slowly over the pad and feel "taps" when you hit an edge of something. I'm sure there's something i'm missing on why they aren't using it more, but it seems like they have all the ingredients for an awesome experience but just aren't using them all together!