How is MagSafe a step backwards?
If anything, excluding it from the 2016 MBP was a step backwards, and bringing it back now would be catching back up.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Full-Size Function Keys Expected to Feature on New MacBook Pro Models
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If anything, excluding it from the 2016 MBP was a step backwards, and bringing it back now would be catching back up.
Late to the Touch Bar -- just replace a 2014 MacBook Pro -- and I keep forgetting it's there. Mainly because of the UX: Apple misfired here. The primary touch interface on the horizontal surface is the KEYBOARD. Everything touchable should be at the same height. Apple decided that the Touch Bar is primarily a touch pad and flat screen and put it at the level of the touchpad. Even though tappable keys are rendered on it. It should've been raised to the level of the keys on the keyboard. Then I'd remember that they're just virtual keys for the most part. Then I'd feel like it was part of the keyboard and not some alien and disjoint new thing I'm supposed to train myself to remember is there.
I definitely appreciate your optimism, after you’ve been here for what, 13 years?
They're about to make a staggering jump in performance -- and you don't need rumors to tell you that. So yeah, price per unit performance is about to be heavily discounted.
Moore’s law probably isn’t what we were looking at but retail price. Getting more performance from a more modern computer is to be expected.
Its a good question and I think the reason were that while they Fn keys were used, they weren't used as frequently on laptops (I think more people use them for shortcuts rather than for Fn) as the other keys so making them half-height provided more space for larger palm-rests which improved ergonomics by moving the keyboard closer to the screen. Think about how big and chunky laptop keyboards used to be so it's just one of those things that became established and no one thought about changing it, just like no one thought about having palm-rests until Apple put them on the Powerbook 100. Be interesting to see if the touch-typing usability improvement is worth the slightly shallower track pad; Macbook trackpads are already massive so I think it should be fine.
I checked and many of the larger gaming laptops do have full sized function keys, heck some really big laptops even have the numeric keypads, but I dont think many 13"/14" laptops have full sized Fn keys.
Last edited:
Remember the "mainframe era" crap that was said to justfiy the touch bar in 2016?
We are back to the mainframe era I guess
We are back to the mainframe era I guess
The current M1 keyboards have a small square touch-id key which is a very un-Apple look; I guess a rectangular key would mean that fingers were less likely to be centered on the ID circle. I wonder if Apple noticed an improvement in authentication from the larger square key.
The problem isn't the "vocal minority" it's Apple itself. They never did anything to make the touchbar more than a gimmick. Developers don't want to spend any more time than they need to in order to get their product out the door. If you have to choose between spending time working on features that only a small percentage of users will even get, or adding features/fixing bugs that affect everyone ... which is the better use of time. The touchbar was only on some of the systems. It wasn't even something that differentiated "pro" users, because the users of the most powerful "pro" systems didn't even have access to the feature because it was never on external keyboards.
It also required dev involvement, many of the apps I use are open source apps that I'm lucky enough to even get Mac ports of, much less features specific to a small subset of the Mac hardware. Most of those open with just a blank touchbar. If there was a more straightforward way for the USER to make custom keys that are app specific, sort of like what bettertouchtool does for other input devices, then you might have something more people would find useful.
So, you ended up with a feature that annoys some users, takes more resources to build, and was never properly used by devs because they couldn't count on it being there.
It isn't complainers that killed the touchbar, it's Apple's inability to standardize it across the productline that did.
(Full disclosure - I almost never use it, as I plug in an external keyboard when at my desk, but I empathize with those that did find it useful.)
It also required dev involvement, many of the apps I use are open source apps that I'm lucky enough to even get Mac ports of, much less features specific to a small subset of the Mac hardware. Most of those open with just a blank touchbar. If there was a more straightforward way for the USER to make custom keys that are app specific, sort of like what bettertouchtool does for other input devices, then you might have something more people would find useful.
So, you ended up with a feature that annoys some users, takes more resources to build, and was never properly used by devs because they couldn't count on it being there.
It isn't complainers that killed the touchbar, it's Apple's inability to standardize it across the productline that did.
(Full disclosure - I almost never use it, as I plug in an external keyboard when at my desk, but I empathize with those that did find it useful.)
Beyond the valid touch-typing issues, the majority of early complaints were about the missing persistent Esc key, which is used by more people than those who rely on Function keys. So if Apple had released the 2020 touchbar setup (which had a physical Esc key) in addition to really promoting the touchbar, imagine if Better Touch Tool were part of the system functionality, it would have had a warmer reception. One of the dumbest things I noticed was that if you reduced the number of shortcut keys displayed, instead of scaling to fit the width they remained left-justified with an open space to the right. It certainly didn't help that most marketing showed it as an emoji bar, instead of being used for work.
Last edited:
Hey this would be really great for running Windows development tools like Visual Studio in Bootcamp or a VM, which...oh. Right.
Can't complain about bigger keys, but most modern cross-platform software has already migrated away from using function keys for shortcuts, for the most part.
Can't complain about bigger keys, but most modern cross-platform software has already migrated away from using function keys for shortcuts, for the most part.
100% this.
Apparently the amount of engineering resources applied to this mini display was ridiculous.
The flawed G4 Cube is now a darling in retro computing. Eventually, a (working) touch bar MBP could achieve the same. Gather 'round grandchildren and marvel at an oddity of the era.
It didn’t - look at the "last edited" timestamp at the bottom of the article.
Hope they keep the touch bar, Pros don't need an ESC or function keys. They should know how to remap the keyboard. My CAPS LOCK serves as a control key, when pressed with another key, and an ESC key when pressed alone.
why can't they make full size arrow keys? they could reduce the size of the right shift key to make them all fit.
I'm a power user of Microsoft Excel—one of those people who doesn't touch the mouse at all. Using Excel efficiently without function keys is a nonstarter. (Actually, using Excel on a Mac is a nonstarter, but that's why I have Parallels.) I realize that the MacBook Pro is designed more for creatives than analysts and finance professionals, but the latter group still represents a large customer base, and one where Apple still has lots of room to capture share.