RIP Touch Bar MacBooks

[uacd]

I didn’t get Macbook back then because it was overpriced and butterfly keyboards were on the rise. If I had this touch bar I honestly wouldn’t mind, but I bet it sucked a lot of battery life.

Pro range is still very overpriced comparing to Air, honestly I wouldn’t get one just for the SD card slot and fan🤦‍♂️

 

[Christopher Kim]

It was also peak "the future is phones and tablets" time, and peak "thinner is better" time.

Yes, I think in hindsight, it's helpful to remember the higher-level narrative of Apple in the mid-2010s. Jony Ive sort of at his "end of the peak" era (arguable but let's say).

There was already buzz about whether Apple should be making touchscreen Macs, with success of the iPad... And this was an attempt to sort of bridge the gap. They held true to the "we don't want to make touchscreen Macs" / "we think Macs should be controlled by a mouse cursor" mantra which continues to this day. But tried to come out with something that kept that core, but continued the evolution of design / beauty.

I agree I think visually, it looks better than the current 2021+ MBP generation.

Functionally, of course, lot of pros/cons. And agree 100% with sentiment that Apple pushed it too far with the TouchBar/all-TB3 & no-other-ports design.

Now that I think about it, I wonder, if Apple could go back, if they had tweaked the implementation in certain ways... things could've been different. If the Touch Bar could have been something, that implemented differently, hit the "key point of adoption" where enough people were using it, more and more developers created something cool for it, and on and on... That they quickly came out with a Apple keyboard that also had a Touch Bar on top, to aid the adoption by "pros" that used their laptop with an external monitor/keyboard crowd - if they got the "cool pros", and they hit this positive spiral, it might've taken off, and still be here today in some form!

But it's too late now! Haha, can't bring it back given the history!

I have a 2016 MBP and found the touchbar to be very useful. The keyboard was problematic but Apple fixed it a couple of times. That MBP was used every day until I replaced it with an M2 MBP and it still works fine despite the limiting 16 GB of RAM.

I also had a 2016 13" MBP (4 TB ports), and while I didn't have crazy keyboard issues... certain keys did get sticky twice in its 5yr ownership lifetime - and each time, Apple replaced the whole top case for free as part of keyboard program, which also gave me a new battery along with a new kb. Allowed me to keep that device "snappier" for way longer than usual, before I eventually replaced it with the 14" M1 Pro MBP. Was a nice silver lining!

 

[loby]

I found the Touch Bar incredibly useful. If they ever brought it back I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I think the big issue is most people don't use their computers as heavy as they claim they do so to them it was a gimmick with emojis. For me it was a bunch of shortcut keys I'd never remember otherwise that I could just tap away at in Xcode, or Final Cut, Affinity, or <insert app here that supports it>.

I think if it was easier to customize for the end users (like saving a document in it for instant one touch access, or programming shortcut keys, etc) it would be much more useful.

I too found it useful, especially in Logic Pro. I used it sometimes in Final Cut Pro.

There was room to have both the function keys and the Touch Bar, though I thought the ability to switch the Touch Bar to the function keys was a good option (Trick). But..if you prefer physical function keys or use it a lot (especially the ESC key), then I can see why thumbs down on the Touch Bar.

It had potential..but it seems to stagnate and did not develop much. Not many apps developers wrote to it (or did not see the benefit), but I was one of the minority that like it.

Had a MacBook Pro 2018 with a Touch Bar and butterfly keys. Did not mind the butterfly keys, but "Yes" if you typed a lot on it, it was not comfortable. But, if just used it for production apps, was not an issue.

Totally Agree: chrono1081: "I think if it was easier to customize for the end users (like saving a document in it for instant one touch access, or programming shortcut keys, etc) it would be much more useful."

 

[lostPod]

Yet there seems to be a market for this sort of thing:

LOGICKEYBOARD KEYBOARD Apple Final Cut Pro X, European English, MacBook Keyboard Cover

73-9781 | LOGICKEYBOARD COMPUTER EDITING KEYBOARDS | The majority of video, audio and graphic editing computer software have numerous keyboard commands to carry out the application functions. Logickeyboard customised keyboards are program specific…

www.canford.co.uk

That's going to be a great help for someone learning a complex app - until muscle memory cuts in. A 'dynamic' label for real function keys might have been a better call than the touch bar.

I think the problem was what they took away, not what they added.

Prolly yes, but, do you know if someone manufactures a decent cover like this for Adobe PS?? The ones I have found on ebay are extremely cheap and the buttons wear off in a short period of time. TY for your help!

 

[maflynn]

First up she had a Mac with a physical escape key and a Touch Bar - Apple had listened and learned for later models.

Keyword - later models and it was on the cusp of them killing the touchbar anyways

Secondly, I saw the details that that are normally skipped over when arguments were asserted against the Touch Bar:

There will be use cases that people found useful, I don't think anyone is going to say it was hated 100% or not useful for 100% of the work

Secondly, I saw the details that that are normally skipped over when arguments were asserted against the Touch Bar:

• auto completion suggestions like an iOS/iPadOS virtual keyboard
• more granular stepping on slide controls for things like brightness and volume than the physical key steps
• hints that would come up like the arrow to the adjacent Touch ID button during its setup
• etc for all the raw flexibility

The downside of auto completions/hints is that you now have to take your eyes off the screen, many of us type and not look down - doing so is disruptive and generally speaking hints and auto-compeletion largely predated the touchbar. Various applications already had them. Slide controls is the only thing it did really well, and is really the only argument that pro-touchbar users

As for the raw flexibility that was completely untouched as 99% of macOS apps (my estimation) did not have any built in functionality or features to leverage the touch bar

 

[theluggage]

Did not mind the butterfly keys, but "Yes" if you typed a lot on it, it was not comfortable. But, if just used it for production apps, was not an issue.

Trouble is, if you wanted a MBP, thar was the only keyboard on offer (and Plan A was presumably to roll it out to everything else) - having such a love/hate keyboard (which would have been picked up sooner if they’d asked out side the echo chamber) for that was just plain dumb. Even if it hadn’t had reliability issues….

Didn’t help that the previous chiclet keyboard was so good (given the constraint that you couldn’t have a full travel Model M clone in a slim laptop) , and so widely imitated. Even the current replacement is only a shadow of the old kb.