Agree x100. I would pay a premium to get rid of it. I know that sounds sick and irrational, but I would do it.
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After 1 year with the Touchbar
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That's my take as well..
I'm just curious if people that "like" the TouchBar are willing to pay more for it - or have just sort of adapted to it being there with no option to "not have it".
I would. The Touchbar macros I use with BTT are big productivity boosters.
(Not that I think it costs Apple anywhere near that much to include it. It's run by the T2 chip which is there already, and a touch-OLED display of that size is not expensive.)
I would choose the touchbar model. For these reasons in no particular order.
- Because that is not a lot of extra money.
- After using the touchbar for even dumb things like volume control, the old system of having fixed steps and dedicated up and down buttons seems like the 1980s.
- I prefer my controls to be programmable touchscreens. I am the same way with my car, a Tesla. Most of the controls in the car are on a touch screen and Tesla can alter them or add new ones that control new features with a software update. And when I get in a more normal car, with fixed controls, it is back to 1980s again.
Install Better Touch Tool, then get the Golden Chaos customization program for it. It makes it so you can customize the touch bar, do cool macro stuff with it, and to me after setting it up with some handy macros, is way more valuable than the function keys for my use.
Your attitude could benefit from improvement.. I was only trying to help.
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Same, I’ve had my 2018 MBP w TB for almost a year. I changed the TB to a fixed layout mimicing the function keys. I have never used the touchbar beyond that. Totally unnecessary and a gimmick if you ask me. Prime example of a solution for a non-existent problem
I think you assumed a negative tone in my post. I didn’t write it that way. I was simply asking you if there was an update to brightness in the 2019 model.
I got the first touchbar MBP on launch week. 3 years later all I can say is that I neither love it nor hate it. Some shortcuts can be useful (e.g. cancel, ok, change font, overwrite etc.) but it's definitely not world-changing.
I have two major issues with it
1) It's a touchscreen, I can't blind type on it! Screw that, I don't want to look at my keyboard to hit a key. And no, a friggin escape key is not enough.
2) If I find anything useful to do with it, I can't use it on ANY other keyboard, as Apple never made an external version of it
It's a useless, expensive piece of tech that makes no sense for A TON OF USERS. Just make it optional already. Macs work great without it, as the new MacBook Air shows.
1) It's a touchscreen, I can't blind type on it! Screw that, I don't want to look at my keyboard to hit a key. And no, a friggin escape key is not enough.
2) If I find anything useful to do with it, I can't use it on ANY other keyboard, as Apple never made an external version of it
It's a useless, expensive piece of tech that makes no sense for A TON OF USERS. Just make it optional already. Macs work great without it, as the new MacBook Air shows.
I am not understanding why people are so strongly against the TouchBar.
The physical keys on the old MBP showed you controls for volume, brightness and more. I believe the Touch Bar with the sliders actually works better for this scenario, and anyhow you would not touch type on these controls, or?
If you set the function keys as default, the situations is a bit more complicated. I am a user of "vi" (old unix guy). So I have really missed the physical escape key.
Otherwise not so much, but I guess it depends on your exact use case. I do development in Visual Studio with Resharper in a Fusion VM. The most used shortcuts do not use function keys (apart from maybe F12). I have instead used BetterTouchTools to program what I use most as TouchBar buttons. However I note that I still tend to type Ctrl+Shift+T, or use the context menu, rather than go for the TouchBar.
I miss haptic feedback, BTT partially fixes that. I also think that Apple could try to add more functionality to the TouchBar.
The physical keys on the old MBP showed you controls for volume, brightness and more. I believe the Touch Bar with the sliders actually works better for this scenario, and anyhow you would not touch type on these controls, or?
If you set the function keys as default, the situations is a bit more complicated. I am a user of "vi" (old unix guy). So I have really missed the physical escape key.
Otherwise not so much, but I guess it depends on your exact use case. I do development in Visual Studio with Resharper in a Fusion VM. The most used shortcuts do not use function keys (apart from maybe F12). I have instead used BetterTouchTools to program what I use most as TouchBar buttons. However I note that I still tend to type Ctrl+Shift+T, or use the context menu, rather than go for the TouchBar.
I miss haptic feedback, BTT partially fixes that. I also think that Apple could try to add more functionality to the TouchBar.
Because it's worse than what we had before? It's that easy. If there is one thing I never hoped for in a keyboard, it was a touchscreen. Just no. It's a keyboard and I don't want to look down to do stuff. I look at my screen.
People try to make the touchbar useful because it's there. It should be useful in the first place and not a target for modders to get at least some use out of it.
I mean, it's just my opinion of course, and even while I can't understand, I respect others that like it. Good for you. But god damn let me get rid of it, Apple
People try to make the touchbar useful because it's there. It should be useful in the first place and not a target for modders to get at least some use out of it.
I mean, it's just my opinion of course, and even while I can't understand, I respect others that like it. Good for you. But god damn let me get rid of it, Apple
Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course. But I am fairly sure that Apple will not make the TB optional. That would create two variants of the case for one product line like the 16".
The design we have now will likely stay for 3 - 4 years, so in the short term nothing will change. For the future I guess it is a "binary" decision either we will all have TB on the "PRO" Macs or we all have physical keys.
The design we have now will likely stay for 3 - 4 years, so in the short term nothing will change. For the future I guess it is a "binary" decision either we will all have TB on the "PRO" Macs or we all have physical keys.
I had a 2015 15" so never used a TouchBar. I just received my new 16" MBP and I love it. Have to admit I'm enjoying the Touchbar so far. Haven't customized it yet but am using it more and more.
Agreed. The Touch Bar was part of my decision to purchase a MacBook Air instead of a MacBook Pro two weeks ago. Thankfully, my workflow didn't include anything that needed the power of a MacBook Pro or I would have bought a PC and moved over to GNU/Linux or BSD. I love Apple products, but I refuse to buy a machine with the Touch Bar on it.
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Turn your back to your Touch Bar MacBook Pro. Now, with your machine behind you.. reach back and manipulate your screen brightness, volume and all of the other things without looking at the machine - and without tapping the wrong function. At least with the physical function keys we could start at one end and count the keys and know where we were.. and know how much we could push a key before it registered as a press.
It breaks my concentration to have to take my eyes off the screen, find what I need on the Touch Bar, then go back and try and find where I was on the screen. There is no tactile hint of where your function keys are. That's the problem for me anyway.
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I can reach above the number keys, and use two fingers to swipe right or left anywhere across the bar to turn the volume up or down, without looking. That is thanks to functionality provided by BTT. It's more natural than repeatedly pressing up and down keys, IMO.
I actually kind of like it. Sure, in most use cases it's pretty gimmicky. However, one great use case that I have found is I'm on a lot of conference calls using Zoom/Skype/Teams and sharing my screen. I can use the touchbar to quickly mute/unmute without having to pull up the audio controls on my screen. It's very convenient.
Optional! A word that Apple has obviously never heard!
The fact that no one has tried to copy it tells you how people in general think about. When Apple hits something out of the park, everyone copies it.
I'd be interested what the cost and battery drain are from the TB. To me it's a distraction as well when the display changes.
I'd be interested what the cost and battery drain are from the TB. To me it's a distraction as well when the display changes.
I remember seeing when they announced it thinking to myself, why the hell would anyone want to stop what they're doing, look at their keyboard play with some touch screen and then bo back to looking at their screen. Having experienced it now, it's just as unintuitive and worthless as I expected.
With physical keys, I can do things without pausing and without looking at my keyboard. It's not worth the $300 premium which Apple makes everyone pay.
With physical keys, I can do things without pausing and without looking at my keyboard. It's not worth the $300 premium which Apple makes everyone pay.
That was actually the first thing I ever noticed about the TouchBar several years ago when using one and I couldn’t stand it then and I can’t stand it now.
It’s annoying as hell to have stuff flashing down there, particularly in a dim or dark environment.