Say what? Jony hasn’t been gone a month yet, this wasn’t some decision they made after his announced leaving. This was already in the works. You don’t make decisions and design laptop lines like this in a matter of days or even a couple of weeks. This is something that was thought out and decided on long before Jony’s leaving.
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Apple No Longer Sells a MacBook Pro Without a Touch Bar
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Say what? Jony hasn’t been gone a month yet, this wasn’t some decision they made after his announced leaving. This was already in the works. You don’t make decisions and design laptop lines like this in a matter of days or even a couple of weeks. This is something that was thought out and decided on long before Jony’s leaving.
I'm definitely one of few that seem to like the Touch Bar, but I just wish it had some sort of damn haptic feedback so I know when I'm pressing a button. That's my only grip with it. Still getting used to incorporating it into my workflow when I'm mobile (as I'm mostly a desktop user), but love the options available to switch tools per application and system wide.
I recently purchased a 13 inch MBP with Touch Bar. I’ve found it to force me to rethink how I use my Mac and not in a good way. I’ve accidentally sent emails, turned screen brightness down. However, I think that’s mostly down to the way that Microsoft have implemented touchbar controls in O365. It’s forced me to look for ways to disable the functionality. If I had a choice of latest processor with a normal keyboard I would’ve jumped at it.
Exactly. Apple has to go with what Intel gives them. With the new MacBook Air out and Intel not providing them the necessary CPUs for the MacBook they simply got rid of it. It didn’t make sense to sell a higher priced machine with weaker performance and I/O. Also if they’re really going back to a scissor mechanism design, it was going to be impossible to put a thicker keyboard in that chassis.
The Touch Bar has been out for over 2.5 years and Apple already got enough of a return from selling higher-end 13” and 15” SKUs. They probably would have done this last year but Intel didn’t have a suitable CPU for the $1299 tier.
Keep in mind that Intel was forced by AMD to add more cores after years of offering insignificant gains. The ULV dual-core in the 2018 MBA wasn’t suitable for the base MBP. These need Iris iGPUs but with a lower clock than the $1799 config.
The bottom line is that Apple finally has a straightforward lineup again and more value at the lower end in time for back to school sales.
Jony has checked out since 2015, the same year the MacBook was introduced. So this has been in the works for a while now. But Jony’s clout seemed to have forced the company to bite its lip and kept selling the MacBook.
How is the Touch Bar useless when running Windows? Does it not display the standard Function keys in that case?
Looks like it's one minute of your precious life to make the necessary changes...
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-use-function-keys-in-windows-on-a-new-macbook-1796824928
What Apple should do is offer it as an option in checkout. Because it seems some people love the Touch Bar and some people hate it, make it so we can actually choose if we want it or not. Everybody wins.
Subjective. Really depends on daily use. As a coder, I find the physical keys to be useful, although I don't use F1-F12, but instead the Brightness, Volume, and mostly the Esc key. But that said, the physical keys are easier to use "blind" vs. the Touch Bar that requires you look at it for most things. I'm just thankful they had wisdom with the Esc key, which appears when it can be used (eg. cancelling a dialog box).
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There's a ton of people that hate it, but have never used it. Just like the notch, they see a picture and make a judgment — simply because it's different from what they are used to. They don't realize how easily they'd adapt to these "features" over time.
You don't know this.
Would you be as sanguine if Apple were to replace the entire keyboard with a flat touch panel? Do you think you'd be able to easily adapt to that? Would you want to?
There is an option in Settings to show function keys instead of the default touch bar controls. In that case if you need the touch bar controls you can hold down the function key.
Not if you read the post that I was responding to, where he said “I will never buy a MacBook that has a touchbar” to the point where he would not buy another Apple laptop period. That group represents 28%.
I use Windows and Linux in VMs where “virtual” Fn keys are annoying. But not only that, trying to navigate Excel on Mac is a pain too e.g. F2 to edit contents of a cell. Or use Esc in a console.
I love MacOS, but I’m not a creative user. But, I think for this type of use, the Touch bar is great.
Yes. So, even better, why not give me both a normal set of Fn keys and a Touch Bar!? There’s plenty of wasted space on a Macbook (e.g. unnecessarily large track pad that gets in the way)
This would be the best solution, if they shrink the oversized trackpads and go back to the old size i'm sure they could fit both in.
I needed the top of the line laptop from Apple for work, so while I hate the Touch Bar, I love everything else and I certainly love it more than the alternatives.
Touch Bar is the best courage they made with the MacBook Pro line, the F keys are so outdated to today's standards.
As much as I hated the idea of a Touchbar-only MBP when I replaced my old 2012 with a 2018 model last year, I have to admit that I haven’t had any problems with it. It’s not a physical ESC key, but it actually works just like one -- I've never missed it.
The volume slider’s awkward, but there’s ways to fix that, and I really kinda like it when working w/ apps that make good use of it (FCP, Keyshape, Sketch, for instance).
The volume slider’s awkward, but there’s ways to fix that, and I really kinda like it when working w/ apps that make good use of it (FCP, Keyshape, Sketch, for instance).
I am not a fan of the Touch Bar replacing the function row, but I could see it being a neat addition as an extra row above standard function keys. My fingers are crossed that this is how Apple approaches this feature in the next gen keyboard.
I am not too unhappy about the non-touch bar MBP being dropped, as the Air seems to pretty much match the performance of the old MBP. If the True Tone display also happens to be a bit brighter than the first version then the Air seems like it has found its niche.
I am not too unhappy about the non-touch bar MBP being dropped, as the Air seems to pretty much match the performance of the old MBP. If the True Tone display also happens to be a bit brighter than the first version then the Air seems like it has found its niche.
This:
I thought I'd like the touch bar more than I do now having had one on my work computer for several months. I especially find the "esc" uncomfortable to use since there's only the flat physical feedback of a touch screen and since that's a key I use quite often. Another problem with the touch bar is that all that's required to trigger a button is a slight touch, which means accidental presses are quite common.
In all fairness I haven't giving the touch bar that much time, but so far I definitely don't like it as much as I thought I would. :-/
I thought I'd like the touch bar more than I do now having had one on my work computer for several months. I especially find the "esc" uncomfortable to use since there's only the flat physical feedback of a touch screen and since that's a key I use quite often. Another problem with the touch bar is that all that's required to trigger a button is a slight touch, which means accidental presses are quite common.
In all fairness I haven't giving the touch bar that much time, but so far I definitely don't like it as much as I thought I would. :-/