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vmflapem

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 27, 2013
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I don't understand why Apple decided to make a touch bar instead of making a touch screen. It's not convenient for most users to look down at the keyboard while focusing on the screen. I personally think they should make a touch screen and make it apple pencil compatible...
 
In my opinion, the touch bar is far more intuitive and practical than a touch screen. Raising my hands to poke at a screen on a laptop has always seemed a bizarre concept to me. If you want the benefits of a touch screen then consider a tablet in addition to a laptop or a highbred like the Surfacebook. Otherwise the MBP retains the power and tested form of a traditional laptop with some of the shortcut benefits of a touch screen via the TB.

Also, consider the issue of fingerprints on a touch screen *shudder*
 
I would never touch a touchscreen laptop, dont want fingerprints all over the screen, looks horrible on those surface books microsoft does

Would like them to have a good link between ipad pro and macbook pro instead, so it can be used as a wacom tablet with the pencil with screen in photoshop and such
 
I used a touch laptop for a while and also a surface pro 4. I get why they wouldn't want a touch screen on a laptop. I don't want it as well.
 
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In my opinion, the touch bar is far more intuitive and practical than a touch screen. Raising my hands to poke at a screen on a laptop has always seemed a bizarre concept to me. If you want the benefits of a touch screen then consider a tablet in addition to a laptop or a highbred like the Surfacebook. Otherwise the MBP retains the power and tested form of a traditional laptop with some of the shortcut benefits of a touch screen via the TB.

Also, consider the issue of fingerprints on a touch screen *shudder*
perfect. i came here to say exactly this
 
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I don't understand why Apple decided to make a touch bar instead of making a touch screen. It's not convenient for most users to look down at the keyboard while focusing on the screen. I personally think they should make a touch screen and make it apple pencil compatible...

In your imagination touch screen looks like the perfect solution. But I advise you to try a touch screen laptop for a month. The touchability wares off very quick. I see people around me with touch screen laptops using the touching mostly only for scrolling every now and then. But the trackpad is much more intuitive for scrolling. It doesnt make sense to lift the hand 15cm to scroll when I can do it with moving the hand just 5 cm down to the trackpad.

So, I truly belive that Apple looked into touch screens and figured beforehand that these do not make sense at all for laptop use. It is a whole different thing if the screen can turn into a tablet. For tablet use it makes sense, but for the laptop use it doesn't really make sense.

Then we could question why Apple doesnt make the laptop display be removable, but that is a whole different story, it has nothing to do with the topic if a touch screen makes sense on a laptop.
 
I use my ipad all the time and I've never even noticed fingerprints on my ipad... I don't think fingerprint is an issue at all. Also, just because you have touch screen, that doesn't mean you have to use the touch feature. It is not my imagination that touch screen would be a "perfect" solution, which I don't even think is perfect at all to begin with. I've used the surface pro line (not as a tablet but as a laptop) for many years and I loved the touch screen experience. I think OS would make the touch screen experience beteter than windows
 
How about fingerprints on the Touch Bar?
Due to the dark appearance of the touch bar, it doesn't show fingerprints as readily as does a bright touch screen. Additionally, you aren't staring at the touch bar as often, or having to read text on it as often, so any fingerprints there would be less annoying.

Finger travel between the touch bar and the keyboard is minimal, while finger travel between the keyboard and a touch screen would quickly become tiring/annoying.
 
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In my opinion, the touch bar is far more intuitive and practical than a touch screen. Raising my hands to poke at a screen on a laptop has always seemed a bizarre concept to me. If you want the benefits of a touch screen then consider a tablet in addition to a laptop or a highbred like the Surfacebook. Otherwise the MBP retains the power and tested form of a traditional laptop with some of the shortcut benefits of a touch screen via the TB.

Also, consider the issue of fingerprints on a touch screen *shudder*

I bought both the tb and non-tb version of the 13". Maxed out CPU & RAM on each.

The main difference I noticed between the two machines was just how often I had to look away from the screen to perform some action on the touch bar, and then proceed to look back up at the screen to see the result - it's a bit of a behavioral change that takes some getting used to.

I personally don't think the touch bar makes me more productive - the highest level of productivity I reach is when my eyes are 100% on the screen and I'm using a combination of multitouch gestures and keyboard shortcuts that I have memorized. A touch screen would be nice as I can interact with controls without having to look away from the screen.

The touch bar is a really cool piece of tech, but I think it will just take some time for users to get accustomed to how often the layout and buttons change before it becomes a 2nd nature thing. I can see it being a real productivity enhancer once folks are able to use it the majority of the time without having to look down at it.

But then again, everyone has a totally different take on the touch bar, so ymmv :)
 
I would never touch my screen because of fingerprints, but if you really want to touch things, get one with a touch screen.
Just have the 15" TB for one day but I can't imagine I will use the touchbar more than just volume/brightness settings. It's okay, looks nice but in use it's slower than shortkeys and with no feedback impossible to use while looking at your screen.
Looking down to look at what is available this time will slow you down.
 
Don't now, don't care... just skip the touch stuff?

I don't want to look down at stuff I already know from shortkeys. That is not productive.
It is usefull in a laidback couchsurfing mode using one hand only, but not with two hands at the keyboard.
 
Don't now, don't care... just skip the touch stuff?

I don't want to look down at stuff I already know from shortkeys. That is not productive.
It is usefull in a laidback couchsurfing mode using one hand only, but not with two hands at the keyboard.

Sounds like you need the 2015 MBP. Voila!
 
By making the iPad Pro, Apple has basically admitted that touch screens combined with a keyboard can be useful. I guess they just haven't figured out a good way to implement a touch screen on a Mac. Seems largely a software issue to me. MacOS has no support for touch at all, and iOS is still way too limited for many types of productivity applications. Windows 8 and 10 show that it's not easy to make an OS that does both traditional desktop use and touch well. But once they do figure it out, Apple may end up in a bad situation.
 
Isn't touch screen better than touch bar?
Hell no.

After a meetup of a couple hours where I was showing my website to a bunch of people and getting smudges on the screen, I suddenly realized how much I'd HATE wiping off my screen multiple times every day.

F that.

"But you touch the iPad all the time..." Yeah, and I can wipe it off on my shirt or pants leg, too. Try that with a laptop.

No, a touchscreen doesn't belong on a laptop. Not unless you make all those interface widgets—traffic light buttons, menubar, Dock, Finder windows... shall I continue?—appropriate for clumsy fingertips.
 
I don't understand why Apple decided to make a touch bar instead of making a touch screen. It's not convenient for most users to look down at the keyboard while focusing on the screen. I personally think they should make a touch screen and make it apple pencil compatible...

Gave up; Apple will likely never offer this option, moved to a Surface Book for my 13" class notebook, best portable I`ve owned to date. Offers everything I want in this size of machine and with a superb battery life.

Q-6
 
People call the TB gimmicky. I find a laptop which also features touchscreen gimmicky. It's much more counterintuitive imo.
 
IF the OS is optimized for touch, then yes but at the moment OS X, isn't. MS had a bit of rough go, trying to make windows touch enabled, they made a fair amount of mistakes, hopefully Apple wouldn't repeat those mistakes, but the point remains. There may be rough edges to the OS if Apple were to do this.

As for using a touch enabled laptop vs. non-touch. I find the touch screen to be more intuitive, more useful and more flexible then a non-touch screen. The touch bar thingy doesn't change my opinion. I prefer a touch screen, and I use a Surface Book for that very reason.
 
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First time I played with the Touchbar I thought it was a gimmick. Then I read what others say about the potential and that's how I learned how useful it would be. The problem of touchscreen is it only works on flat devices. If you poke a laptop screen the damn angle will keep shifting.
 
I would prefer a touch screen only in these conditions: 1) You can flip your monitor 360 degree like the Lenovo Yoga. 2) The touch screen has the same responsiveness with the iPad Pro with larger size and works with Apple Pencil :) If Apple can do that, I believe many graphic designer will go for a Macbook as their design tool. Other than that, a touchscreen is a feature that is nice to have, but has no practical usage.
 
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