2 years in, is the TouchBar still a gimmick?

[537635]

I've gotten so accustomed to keyboard shortcuts that the Touch Bar just seems pointless.

This. If you need shortcuts, you'll use them on a traditional keyboard.
If you need them occasionally, you'll find them in the menu (dropping your eyes down to touchbar and searching for them isn't much faster).

It looks good though. Minority report, Star Trek style. Touchbar users are the kings and queens of Starbucks. And to be honest, BetterTouchTool adds a lot of functionality, but you really have to be a power user to set it up and understand it.

Bottom line - TouchBar is an ergonomical disaster.

 

[fokmik]

i bet 70% of these people who are saying combo keys are better than one button on the touchbar...are looking down on the keys to press them , so ergonomic its far better than static keys that you are using a lot less

 

[537635]

i bet 70% of these people who are saying combo keys are better than one button on the touchbar...are looking down on the keys to press them , so ergonomic its far better than static keys that you are using a lot less

This might be true, but natural position is left thumb around the CMD button and right hand on the trackpad. So even if you do look down, you just press the thumb on CMD/OPT/CTRL and use one of other fingers to finish the sequence. If you pay attention, you will see, that majority of keyboard shortcuts are on the left side of the keyboard.

For touchbar you have to move the entire hand.

Even then Apple could make something much more "pro" out of the touchbar. If CMD press would instantly change the layout to fixed shortcuts for instance (you cannot do this with 3rd party software). Instead it's been three years and we still have text prediction, tab layout (seriously?!), Siri and emoji. This is the situation with the "Pro" in Macbook currently. Really makes you thing about what's coming next.

Apple really needs to change their attitude towards users, who actually use these machines outside Starbucks environment.

 

[mrex]

no it is not a gimmick... i didnt figure it out before i installed bettertouchtool software and now im able to run commands/scripts globally, app specific etc.

 

[Ploki]

Oh, something tells me that Apple will add it to all laptops eventually. If for no other reason than an excuse to raise prices.

they just released a MacBook Air with touch ID, T2 chip but no touch-bar.
they raised the price regardless.
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i bet 70% of these people who are saying combo keys are better than one button on the touchbar...are looking down on the keys to press them , so ergonomic its far better than static keys that you are using a lot less

lol no.
muscle memory is a thing. you look down for two weeks and then you're set for life.
it becomes painfully obvious when you setup as new and havent reimported your old keysets yet; you start pressing some combos and you can't even remember which keys are those.

(fwiw i like the touchbar, for less often used shortcuts and for sliders, the logic overview window itself is worth it for me.)

 

[haydn!]

I quite like a few little things on the Touch Bar. Like the tap and slide controls for sound/brightness etc. But I’ve not really found myself using any of the other buttons yet.

 

[robvas]

I imagine years from now when I sell my MBP the majority of buyers will prefer models with a Touch Bar. The one touch lock screen has been most convenient for me.

It probably will quit working by then

 

[maflynn]

I imagine years from now when I sell my MBP the majority of buyers will prefer models with a Touch Bar. The one touch lock screen has been most convenient for me.

I won't be one of them. I can only speak about my experiences and my opinion.

 

[cfdlab]

Buttons that keep changing are not good for productivity. If you spend most of the time in one app, it could be useful. So I set it to only show usual buttons and not change at all. This is a waste of money for most users like me. And then the damn things keeps switching off since otherwise it will use up battery and cause burn-in. If you have to change brightness/volume when it is off, it takes more steps. And how it will age is still an open question. For a vim user like me, the loss of escape key is major factor in hating this thing which has brought zero improvements for me and plenty of compromises.

 

[maflynn]

Buttons that keep changing are not good for productivity.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, the lack of tactile feedback, is also a major issue. So its just not that they're changing, but its hard to press the F3 button when there is no button to press. Another example, you want to use an emoji, you can either hit cmd-ctl-shift or take your hands off the keys, eyes off the keyboard and start pressing the touchbar.

Again, the touchbar is a solution in search of a problem. I feel that Apple needed to respond in some computer design to those touch screen laptops that are very popular in the windows world, yet they didn't want to make the MBP touch enabled (for a variety of reasons). So what's the next best thing? Put a little screen on the keyboard that can be touch based. Except its not enhancing the user experience, its not solving a problem, and it removed keys that were very useful to a number of people.

 

[afir93]

If so, why did they not start the expansion with the MacBook Air, instead of leaving it out?

For the same reason that the MacBook Air still has Bluetooth 4.2, a much darker maximum brightness than the Pro and even the MacBook, a smaller color space than the MacBook Pro, no True Tone, such a bad (even by Mac-standards) webcam, and probably some other omissions of features that I‘m forgetting. Apple cheapened out in places where they thought or hoped that the average buyer would not notice or care that much in order to maximise profits, and to create additional distinguishing features to the MacBook Pro.

The omission of the TB on the Air is honestly the least surprising of this list when you consider for example that Bluetooth 5.0 SoCs are available for like 5€ a piece, much less for Apple probably who buys in masses. Yet you probably won‘t argue that BT 5.0 or TrueTone or good webcams or 500 nits on displays are „on their way out“ just because they were left out on the Air aswell.

Will they drop the TB? I don‘t know. It‘s hard to predict with Apple these days, with all the things where they have been nickel-and-diming us in the recent past while simultaneously finding reasons to raise prices for things that people oftentimes haven‘t been asking for. But point being, I don‘t think the Air is a very good measure of whether or not they‘ll keep the Touch Bar around.

 

[PeterJP]

For a vim user like me, the loss of escape key is major factor in hating this thing(...)

I have an EU keyboard, which has an extra key next to the Z on the bottom row. I remapped the '/" to that key and remapped the ESC to the top left. Where it's supposed to be: I learned vi on an AT&T SVR4 Unix that had the ESC on the main keyboard block, top left. Once you get used to it, particularly as a vi user, it works much better because you have to move your hand far less.
It's not a reason why the TB would be better. But it's definitely one less reason why the TB would be no good.

 

[revmacian]

I am sure your plea will be heard in the halls of Apple and your wish will be granted




If so, why did they not start the expansion with the MacBook Air, instead of leaving it out?

To see how it would be welcomed by professional users.

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At the risk of beating a dead horse, the lack of tactile feedback, is also a major issue.

I totally agree!

Yes.. I'm still beating a dead horse.

 

[unglued]

Is it all MacBook Air’s that don’t have the Touch Bar and is it because of battery drain and they will eventually have it?

 

[revmacian]

Is it all MacBook Air’s that don’t have the Touch Bar and is it because of battery drain and they will eventually have it?

My suspicion is that it is due to battery life. The CPU (Y series) in the 2018 MBA is a low power variety of the Core i5, this is what leads to such long battery life reported by the manufacturer. Adding in the Touch Bar would likely decrease that attractive battery life. It is also my suspicion that battery life was more important during manufacture that they opted for an inferior display panel.

 

[SDColorado]

To see how it would be welcomed by professional users.

I tend to think the stronger market for the Touch Bar is in the prosumer/enthusiast market, rather than the professional one. But Apple has not shown any interest in expanding the touch bar into any other markets. Nor have they shown any interest in improving upon the touch bar in terms of hardware or software. They have left it to better touch tool to make any meaningful improvements.

To me at least, it just appears that Apple is apathetic about the future of the touch bar at best. As I have said earlier in the thread, I may be wrong, but I believe it is either on the way out or perhaps a stop gap. Probably toward a haptic keyboard design.

For the same reason that the MacBook Air still has Bluetooth 4.2, a much darker maximum brightness than the Pro and even the MacBook, a smaller color space than the MacBook Pro, no True Tone, such a bad (even by Mac-standards) webcam, and probably some other omissions of features that I‘m forgetting. Apple cheapened out in places where they thought or hoped that the average buyer would not notice or care that much in order to maximise profits, and to create additional distinguishing features to the MacBook Pro.

I appreciate that the MacBook Air is the product of a price point with a number of cost-cutting decisions made to get it to the price/profit that Apple wanted. Still, I believe if the touch bar was the future, Apple would figure out a way to include it in every model to increase its acceptance and encourage developers to develop for it. Not make it a niche market feature for the pro computers, where these threads show it is clearly a divisive feature? I just don't see Apple showing a lot of interest in the future of it.

no it is not a gimmick... i didnt figure it out before i installed bettertouchtool software and now im able to run commands/scripts globally, app specific etc.

That just seems to me to be an admission that you must look at third-party developers such as Better Touch Tool to make it anything more than a gimmick? In the state that Apple released it, it remains so?

 

[Costino1]

I am sure your plea will be heard in the halls of Apple and your wish will be granted




If so, why did they not start the expansion with the MacBook Air, instead of leaving it out?

The TB is about $200 extra. They want to keep the macBook Air affordable and at a lower price point.

 

[Ploki]

The TB is about $200 extra. They want to keep the macBook Air affordable and at a lower price point.

using 256/8gb config
MBA: 1599€
MB13 ntb: 1749€
MB13 tb: 1999€

Chip price difference is negligible.

 

[SDColorado]

The TB is about $200 extra. They want to keep the macBook Air affordable and at a lower price point.

Do you really think the touch bar cost Apple $200 extra to implement? I am guessing pennies on the dollar. If they wanted it on the MBA and wanted to further its acceptance and encourage developers, it would be there i think.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Do you really think the touch bar cost Apple $200 extra to implement? I am guessing pennies on the dollar. If they wanted it on the MBA and wanted to further its acceptance and encourage developers, it would be there i think.

Not to mention they'd include it, no matter what, if they were concerned about it being a keystone feature for the future and really getting some momentum behind it's development and support.

They don't even support it themselves anymore really.
Why would any third party waste more than a moment of dev time on it at this point?

That new MBA - the Mac for "everyone" - with no TouchBar (not even optionally!) tells us everything we need to know here.

That said - kudos to Apple for getting it right on the layout (mostly - arrow keys still dreadful).
Keyboard with all normal keys + TouchID is sort of the consensus best combo/choice.

 

[SDColorado]

Not to mention they'd include it, no matter what, if they were concerned about it being a keystone feature for the future and really getting some momentum behind it's development and support.

They don't even support it themselves anymore really.
Why would any third party waste more than a moment of dev time on it at this point?

That new MBA - the Mac for "everyone" - with no TouchBar (not even optionally!) tells us everything we need to know here.

That’s pretty much what I was saying. I probably didn’t do a good job of it. But if Apple wanted it to be a widespread feature and gain universal acceptance they would include it in every model. Apple isn’t shy about dictating to the user what they see as the future. (I.e. giving us nothing *but* USB-C ports).

Better Touch Tool and the hard working folks who have submitted their hard work to it have made the Touch Bar somewhat functional and less gimmicky, but what has Apple done to improve it? What improvements did they make between High Sierra and Mojave? They just appear to be apathetic about it, which leads me to believe they don’t consider it a key feature or the future.

But I may well be proven wrong in the end when the new revisions come out

 

[turbineseaplane]

@SDColorado Totally agree with you..

I think the TouchBar was born in the lab in the era where Apple wasn't going to make another MacPro and thought that this Butterfly keyboard was "amazing"...among other strange things..

I think internally the whole Mac plan has changed course over the past 2 years and the new product direction hasn't publicly shown that yet.

If anything, the new MBA, likely due to Intel delays on chips, allowed them to make the first change, which was to make the layout people really wanted, which was "leave the keyboard alone but add TouchID".

 

[Nugget]

The TB is about $200 extra. They want to keep the macBook Air affordable and at a lower price point.

The TB is nowhere near $200 extra. The price jump from the nTB MBP to the TB MBP is $300 and for that $300 you get:

* Upgrade from dual-core 7th gen processor to quad-core 8th gen processor
* Improved retina display (true-tone)
* Two additional thunderbolt 3 ports
* IRIS Plus Graphics 655 (upgrade from 640)
* The touch bar itself

The touch bar is only a portion of the overall $300 price increase. While none of us know for sure what the actual breakdown is, it seems unlikely to me that it accounts for a full two-thirds of the difference given the scope of the other upgrades.

Apple do not offer any way for us to directly compare the pricing differential since there's no current product where you can spec with or without the touchbar with everything else being equal.

 

[SDColorado]

@SDColorado Totally agree with you..

I think the TouchBar was born in the lab in the era where Apple wasn't going to make another MacPro and thought that this Butterfly keyboard was "amazing"...among other strange things..

I think internally the whole Mac plan has changed course over the past 2 years and the new product direction hasn't publicly shown that yet.

If anything, the new MBA, likely due to Intel delays on chips, allowed them to make the first change, which was to make the layout people really wanted, which was "leave the keyboard alone but add TouchID".

I get that some people really like the Touch Bar and that’s fine. My overall preference would be for Apple to give everyone what they want and offer it as an option to those who prefer it, but give those who would prefer to not have it the option as well.

Apple loves to force things on people rather than offer the choice.

 

[537635]

What improvements did they make between High Sierra and Mojave?

They actually made it a bit worse. On Sierra volume and brightness dials went away by themselves after a while. So you could do the setting and get back to what you were doing. In Mojave it stays put, so you actually have to press "X" to go back to basic TouchBar.