Love TouchBar thread discussion [merged]

[shyam09]

Apple’s version is a clear gimmick. Nothing more, nothing less.

They left it up to the developers to figure out the true use of this new technology. And I think BetterTouchTools sort of figured it out. By opening up the Touchbar to people, you can customize it however way you want.

For example, I have my media controls with album art/title next to it depending on the application. I have my tasks for the day pulled from Things and my events for the day as well.

Some folks assign macros, etc.

You need to figure out what the TB means to you and the best way you can use it. If you leave it as Apple intended, you’re not going to get the best use from it.

 

[LeeW]

They seem to have started something though, anyone seen the new Asus ZenBook. Having it in the trackpad would be more of an annoyance.

https://www.asus.com/uk/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-Pro-15-UX580GD/

 

[poorcody]

They seem to have started something though, anyone seen the new Asus ZenBook. Having it in the trackpad would be more of an annoyance.

https://www.asus.com/uk/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-Pro-15-UX580GD/

Interesting... I would certainly want to be able to turn it off if it was distracting, but I would love to, say, hold down the "Fn" key and get a numeric keypad on my touchpad!

 

[Koh Phi Phi]

Touchbar is a gimmick. I never found a actual use for mine to justify the extra cost monetary and battery cost.

Most actual users label it as a gimmick here in the forums. That speaks volumes.

 

[PhilMacbook]

Touchbar is a gimmick. I never found a actual use for mine to justify the extra cost monetary and battery cost.

Most actual users label it as a gimmick here in the forums. That speaks volumes.

That's why I was interested to hear positive stories. It's easy to find negative ones.

 

[LeeW]

It's a gimmick as it lacks a clear purpose. A bit of functionality here, a bit more there. Whilst I find it somewhat useful at times, not so much to justify it being there. My best use for that row is being able to program it to have specific shortcuts useful to me, my interest in it is such that I have not even looked to establish if that is possible.

 

[Picapau21]

That's why I was interested to hear positive stories. It's easy to find negative ones.

Great post and even though you asked about positives people seem to be giving negatives. The few people who have actually given a positive experience does make it sounds useful.

 

[Koh Phi Phi]

Great post and even though you asked about positives people seem to be giving negatives. The few people who have actually given a positive experience does make it sounds useful.

He is getting mostly negatives because most user's regard it negatively. These are not trolls - these are paying customers who are not satisfied.

 

[afir93]

He is getting mostly negatives because most user's regard it negatively. These are not trolls - these are paying customers who are not satisfied.

The thing is, the people who strongly dislike something are usually much more vocal on the internet than those who are happy and satisfied with it, because the last group doesn't see much of a reason to go on the internet and try to convince others about it. I don't think anyone here believes that the people who hate it are trolls, but we also can't conclude that the majority of MBP users dislike the TB just because a majority of MacRumors posts about it are from people who dislike it.

 

[Nozuka]

We should not turn this into a discussion whether TB is good or not and what is bad about it. There's plenty of those in the forum.

Let's concentrate on the positives here. I'm also greatly interested, because i'll be getting my first TB device soon and will have to find out how to make it useful.

 

[Tmelon]

I don’t get why everyone hates on the touchbar. It’s great for media control, easily customizable and the predictive text works well. It has far more potential than traditional function keys. The argument that it’s gimicky because you can scroll through emojis on it is a bit ridiculous.

 

[Paapaa]

TouchBar is very bad design. The whole point of efficient keyboard usage is to use it without looking the keyboard (ie. touch typing). TouchBar only works if you look at your keyboard. It slows you don't, TB can't be used just by touch. Argh. And trust me, I tried to like it. I have a fully maxed 15" MacBook Pro 2017 which I use daily. And still I find very little use for TB. I miss physical keys, especially esc.

TB sucks and it sucks that Apple is force feeding it to you. I'd gladly pay the same for non-TB keyboard but Apple doesn't let me. I'd get then a Better keyboard and possibly more space for a bigger battery. Instead I have to pay for this crap with smaller battery. :facepalm:

 

[Tmelon]

TouchBar is very bad design. The whole point of efficient keyboard usage is to use it without looking the keyboard (ie. touch typing). TouchBar only works if you look at your keyboard. It slows you don't, TB can't be used just by touch. Argh. And trust me, I tried to like it. I have a fully maxed 15" MacBook Pro 2017 which I use daily. And still I find very little use for TB. I miss physical keys, especially esc.

TB sucks and it sucks that Apple is force feeding it to you. I'd gladly pay the same for non-TB keyboard but Apple doesn't let me. I'd get then a Better keyboard and possibly more space for a bigger battery. Instead I have to pay for this crap with smaller battery. :facepalm:

I’m genuinely curious what you’re doing that is slowed down by the touchbar. You can still touch type and keyboard shortcuts as you would with any other keyboard. If all of the functionality gets in the way, you can easily customize it to perpetually show the shortcuts or just plain function keys.

 

[mmomega]

I took a look at BetterTouchTool, and I find it rather comical that a 3rd party tool makes better use of the 1st party tool.

I just don't use it because using anything on the touchbar takes me more time than a physical button. I like feedback, touch / feel a response.

 

[afir93]

I just don't use it because using anything on the touchbar takes me more time than a physical button. I like feedback, touch / feel a response.

I agree about the last part, which is why I'm hoping the Touch Bar will get haptic feedback eventually. Still, don't think you're right that everything the TB does takes longer than a physical button, and I would argue that there are some obvious counterexamples.

- Digging through a submenu of the menubar until you find a function that might not have a shortcut, as opposed to... just pressing the toggle on the TB for it.

- Activating PiP in Safari. This is IMO a huge one since some websites deliberately hide the PiP-prompt from you; YouTube and Netflix being prime examples (well with YouTube you can double-right-click a video which in itself is very unintuitive to figure out; but I don't think Netflix has such a workaround). So if you want PiP for Netflix for example, you gotta hunt down 3rd-party-extensions. With the Touch Bar, it's just one button press.

- Without the Touch Bar (and an ad-blocker), you're sometimes confronted with 15-30 ads on YouTube that you have to sit through. With the Touch Bar, you can skip right to the end of them (or at least this was once possible - not sure if Google has ever done anything against that). In practice, this means that you can support your favorite content creators on YouTube and still don't have to watch through entire ads.

 

[Ma2k5]

Positives of the touch bar is TouchID. It works pretty well.

 

[smirking]

No... I guess pretty close in practice... I use all my fingers, but my hands "dance around" a bit. Do you think the Touchbar is better/worse for touch typists?

It's worse. Most touch typists don't use the function keys all that much and when they do, they probably look like everyone else, but not being able to feel when you hit a key is distressing for touch typists. It disrupts your rhythm and forces you to think about typing so that it no longer is automatic. The only key I regularly miss with my Touchbar is the ESC key. I got used to it, but it was really annoying at first. It's still a little annoying, but I'm used to it now.

 

[The Mercurian]

I think the mere fact that someone had to start a thread looking for the positives of the touchbar tells you everything you need to know. Are you listening Apple ?

 

[aevan]

He is getting mostly negatives because most user's regard it negatively. These are not trolls - these are paying customers who are not satisfied.

No, most of them don't have the new MBPs, those that do mostly like it but don't post about it, the rest are just people who like to criticize.

The Touch Bar is certainly great when you find a good use for it, even more so when you customize it with BTT.

 

[afir93]

I think the mere fact that someone had to start a thread looking for the positives of the touchbar tells you everything you need to know.

Yeah, that some people actually like the Touch Bar and are looking to get the most out of it?

 

[aevan]

That's why I was interested to hear positive stories. It's easy to find negative ones.

Pay no attention to negative stories, MRF is mostly about negativity mode for the past year or so. From iPhone X to macOS, everything sucks and Tim Cook should be fired.

Reality is, Touch Bar, while not perfect, is a very useful tool when used right. BTT has some really good things for it that you can't replicate with the keyboard (like a two-finger customizable swipe). Also, the flicks feature is really quick and I actually prefer it to increasing volume/brightness with buttons (just flick the button, try it!). I also love the language input source change on the TB - since I switch between English and Serbian all the time, it's one tap to change, near the keyboard and best of all, it shows the current language.

I also use it to switch tabs in Safari all the time - it's great.

Photoshop has some nice uses for it too, like using it for the swatch panel and to tweak a color - and this comes from someone who uses keyboard shortcuts in PS heavily (I even have additional keys set in BTT).

Spelling suggestions are also cool. Also - I use it in Mail and Evernote as well.
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I think the mere fact that someone had to start a thread looking for the positives of the touchbar tells you everything you need to know. Are you listening Apple ?

No, that's just Macrumors Forums for you.

 

[maflynn]

Yeah, that some people actually like the Touch Bar and are looking to get the most out of it?

I think its more along the lines that its a solution in search of a problem. There are people who like it, I'm not taking anything away from those who do, but given the widespread derision, and lack of developer embrace, I'm not sure this is a killer feature that some people hope for.

 

[aevan]

I think its more along the lines that its a solution in search of a problem. There are people who like it, I'm not taking anything away from those who do, but given the widespread derision, and lack of developer embrace, I'm not sure this is a killer feature that some people hope for.

It's not a killer feature, for sure. But I think it adds nicely to a great notebook. I do wish Apple would push it more - developers would embrace it if Apple invested more into it (adding new features, making it available on more devices, etc). Actually, most apps I use support it (every native macOS app), so I'd say the ball's in Apple's court. Either way, I like it even today.

 

[Ermir444]

My main issue with it is that its so pixelated. When you look at that screen and then at the touchbar, its jarring. Apple is well know for consistency in user experience but this is far from it. It does not belong on a 2k+ laptop full stop.

 

[Sterkenburg]

I do wish Apple would push it more - developers would embrace it if Apple invested more into it (adding new features, making it available on more devices, etc). Actually, most apps I use support it (every native macOS app), so I'd say the ball's in Apple's court.

I agree with your argument here. However, we're almost two years into the redesign and Apple haven't played with that ball much, have they? On the one hand they're still pushing for the TB (e.g. not updating the non-TB MBP was definitely not a coincidence), on the other I have the bad feeling they don't have a clue themselves about what they want to do with it...