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Microsoft Previews Touch Bar Support For New MacBook Pros Running Office
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Remarks like that remind me how the same world can look very different to different people.
Microsoft is no longer a "partner" in the same sense as they used to be. There are no agreements in place for Microsoft to do anything "for" Apple's platforms anymore. The only reason that Microsoft is investing into the Mac and iOS platforms is because it's smart business.
And the Touch Bar being a gimmick is very subjective in the same way a trackpad may be a gimmick to users that prefer a mouse. You really can't make an educated conclusion until you've tried it in daily use.
Only if you have an Office 365 subscription. No subscription, no Focus mode – in Word 2016, at least. Word 2011 has it also without subscription.
I never use function keys. Well, okay, not literally never, but definitely it isn't common. I agree with Apple's logic though: 'No one uses them, so lets replace them with something better!' but.... their something better, really isn't. This is also why I'm sympathetic to the gimmick crowd: what Apple replaced the functions keys with is really just as inconvenient and useless. Especially if you have a mouse input.
That's why I'm curious to see how they develop and improve Touch Bar. I personally don't see it as a game changer, but it's also a very new idea. Personally, what I would LOVE, is basically a way that I don't have to look down at my keyboard to see what I'm doing. Maybe, when my fingers hover over the Touch Bar an OSD pops up letting me know where my finger is? Don't know....
Try it on an iPad. iPad has touch and ink support.
That's not really true. All apple woudl have to do to not be hated here is make the MBP a bit thicker in order to improve battery and add necessary "legacy" ports, like, oh, say, ethernet and USB. Spec update the Mac Mini. Spec update the Mac Pro.
Donezo.
Maybe it has to fail first?
It's only been around for a few months, and is only available on one product line. "I don't like it" doesn't mean "this product is a failure."
Ok, I have the "fast" insider beta. I see the TB tools in Word, Excel and PP...but not in Outlook at all. Anyone else? I'm on Outlook v15.32 (170201) and using it under an O365 corporate license.
Absolute killer feature for heavy users of Word.
The Touch Bar not only maps everything to a "key", but crams it all into squares on a line. No more drop-down, slide-out, pull-out, right-click, etc. to find what you're looking for. If nothing else, at least for heavy apps with a lot of functions that run on their own codebase and ideas, the Touch Bar certainly has the potential to unify some of the Wild West UIs.
I imagine some developers might also be happy that now they can simply take a menu item and cram it into a button rather than having to dream up key combinations for "insert red triangle".
Could be that it's lower priority, given that mail apps by nature are simpler creatures. It's the fast insider, so they can allow themselves to have staggered rollouts of new features.
The Touch Bar not only maps everything to a "key", but crams it all into squares on a line. No more drop-down, slide-out, pull-out, right-click, etc. to find what you're looking for. If nothing else, at least for heavy apps with a lot of functions that run on their own codebase and ideas, the Touch Bar certainly has the potential to unify some of the Wild West UIs.
I imagine some developers might also be happy that now they can simply take a menu item and cram it into a button rather than having to dream up key combinations for "insert red triangle".
Could be that it's lower priority, given that mail apps by nature are simpler creatures. It's the fast insider, so they can allow themselves to have staggered rollouts of new features.
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Also, not here. IMHO it's possible they pulled it - the MS web page associated with the update returns "Page Not Found" and "We are sorry we weren't able to find what you are looking for."
The link - https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ncing-february-insider-slow-update-for-office - indicates it's a "Slow Ring" related update as well…
I consider myself a "heavy user of word", and I've never wanted to insert a red triangle in any word document, as I use Word for text documents and PowerPoint or KeyNote for figures and presentations. I feel Word, like Apple's software, hasn't improved at all over the decades. Similar to "improvements" with the iPhone and what you describe with the new touchbar, the addition of hundreds of unwanted and unneeded features, like the ability to "quickly" add red triangles to text documents, adds no real value to the software or hardware and instead creates extra junk that slows performance, which can be accidentally turned on, and that I have to search for preference panes for in order to turn off. Most of the stuff that's been added to word over the years seems to be focused on helping ten year olds create newspapers and greeting cards, as opposed to helping professionals create legal and business documents. It's similar to how iPhone software like autocorrect, which everyone has to use, is still a horrendous joke on the iPhone"7"
The big feature I noticed about the touchbar on my 15" is that it's now really easy to barely graze the escape button with my left hand while typing, and to unintentionally cancel out of or delete whatever I'm working on. Never had that happen with a real escape key.... As far as the gee wiz sliders, the touchbar defaults to the brightness and sound buttons, as Apple knows these were the only function keys people routinely used. Now, instead of hitting the up or down volume or brightness key I can hit the brightness or volume symbol, which brings up a slider, which I then move my hand to and look at as I adjust the volume/brightness up or down in the same increments the key used to. Yeah, all that extra looking, seeing the little screen symbols change, and having to use extra key strokes definitely would make me think the touchbar is a plus....if I was an easily impressed kid and didn't have real work to do.
I hope that was a figure of speech and not an attempt to undermine any credibility you spent an essay building.
It wasn't a shot at you personally if that's what you're asking. I think there are a lot of people who would agree that Apple has gone from making some professional level products, to making some prosumer level products, to mass marketing average stuff that isn't cutting edge in any way, other than cost. And I think Apple now designs products around what young kids who use their computers to watch Youtube might like. I personally don't find the need for dongles to be as annoying as I thought it would be, as the thinness and weight offset the dongle issue. But the huge trackpad and touchbar seem to be gimmicks and not as effective as the hardware on the last iteration of the machine. And, FWIW, I've been waiting for this update for a long time and am coming from a 2008 MBP, and it's shocking how similar the experience is and how little improvement there has been in nine years...well, the negatives are that the ports are all gone and I can no longer upgrade the memory or the SSD, I've got a huge trackpad that doesn't work as well as the smaller one, and my function keys have been replaced with a touchbar that I have to look at, which is more expensive, and which takes many more key strokes to accomplish the same task. The plus is the screen is better, and given how huge and clunky the OS has become, I had to get a better processor just so it wouldn't lock up trying to run the OS. I can see where the touchbar could be useful if implemented in such a way that I could lock one particular group of menu items in it, such as the grouping and alignment tools in PowerPoint. But I really don't see that happening, especially when Apple has already applied it in a way that favors the "Gee doesn't it look cool with the little images" form over the "but it takes an extra three key strokes to do something really simple" lack of function.
This. The fundamental problem is that for the Touch Bar to be really useful, it needs to integrate into a touch typing workflow. I understand the theory: instead of picking your hand off the keyboard, moving it to a trackpad or mouse, then navigating to the bold icon, or bullet icon, or what have you, you just simply reach up and select it from the Touch Bar. You fingers never leave the keyboard, and your workflow isn't interrupted.
It's a great, great, theory. But, alas, it fails in the real world, because like you said, and I mentioned as well, the Touch Bar is NOT touch-type friendly. You have to look at where your fingers are going which interrupts your work flow as much as using a trackpad or mouse. I need to be able to use the Touch Bar without looking at it for it be useful. My eyes should NEVER leave the screen. Once my eyes leave the screen, my workflow is interrupted.
A solution to this would be an OSD and/or haptic feedback. First generation Touch Bar is a gimmick. I really, really, hope Apple addresses some of these issues with its next update.