2. I well for those prices 512GB should be the standard.
Exactly.
I have to admit, I was hugely disappointed with the prices on these. First of all, I feel like the notion of "progress," in general, should provide us with "more"; i.e., new features like Touch Bar should be added as part of the general progress of the platform, not at additional cost to customers. Secondly, a 256GB drive on a machine like this is just embarrassing.
Now, having contributed my mandatory bit of moaning (required by Macrumors membership, afaik), I have to say that these machines look pretty awesome. People calling the Touch Bar useless should really get a grip—it's brilliant, and has massive potential. The launch demo—particularly the Photoshop and DJPro demos—really clarified its potential, for me... Apple has always openly criticized touch panels for laptops, and I think they're right. Ergonomically, they're a bit of a disaster. Touch Bar is really the best of both worlds, because 1) it keeps your hands down on the keyboard, not requiring you to lift from the shoulder, 2) it gives you focused, contextual touchscreen interactions, 3) you don't obscure the screen content with your hand, 4) it keeps your screen clear from fingerprints—a benefit you only need to glance at your phone to appreciate, and 5) for two-handed operation, keeping both hands down on or near the keyboard is far superior to trying to use two hands on a touchscreen, or one on the touchscreen and one on the trackpad.
As far as complaints about having to look down go, there are a couple of additional arguments: 1) a lot of multitouch interactions won't really require you to look down, once you've got used to where they are on the Touch Bar, and 2) in comparison to a touchscreen, what takes more effort to move, your entire arm, or your eyes?
Whine about it all you like, but it's a solid UX innovation.
