The Touch Bar a Year In – A Believer's Review

[richinaus]

This is the one thing I love it for. It feels like the touch bar was specifically made for FCPX. At the expense of virtually all other functionality.

I would say Apple pro computers in general are made for FCPX at the expense of other pro users............

 

[Glockworkorange]

https://www.cultofmac.com/11850/review-2009-macbook-pro-13-inch-is-freakin-awesome/

2009 13" MacBook Pro on left, 2008 13" MacBook non-Pro on right.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/12/13_inch_macbook_pro_teardown/

2008 MacBook on top, 2009 MacBook Pro on bottom:

As you can see, their dimensions are identical, and they look identical aside from the ports (and bottom case which you can't see unless you flip the laptop upside down).

OK, back on topic:

While there is precedent for Apple to listen to its customers, I don't think this time Apple will listen and offer high end non-TouchBar machines. I predict the TouchBar will stay with us going forward at least for a few years.

Fortunately for me though, I'm a 12" MacBook guy these days, and those are blessed with proper function keys. Unfortunately, the 12" MacBook probably won't get Thunderbolt for a couple more years, and the lack of a second USB-C port is a real downer.

That 2008 unibody was my first Mac. Loved that machine.

 

[MacII1986]

I love the touch bar for a few reasons, but there is one that make the computer incredibly more functional for me: spelling correction.

I often send email in french, the touch bar shows me the accented version of the word. Since I don’t have accented letters on my keyboard, this makes writing french incredibly faster than trying to do a two-step key combination for all these accented letters, and for the many words with more than one accent the time saving is even bigger. I assume there are many other languages that benefit, but I would say even simple spelling correction makes the touch bar irreplaceable.

Guy

 

[bartvk]

And taking away the physical Escape key is criminal for developers.

It can be remapped to Caps Lock. I've done so, and it's fine. But I have to admit, it's something I was already used to.

Also, I'd like to give a countervoice to the complaints here. I'm an iOS developer and the TouchBar is quite useful in Xcode, specifically during debugging.

 

[cptn.nemo]

I just bought my MacBook Pro, its my first laptop from apple, so this is just my initial opinion. I have a 2016 iMac, iPad Pro and iPhone. I want all my tech to work together and my laptop just died so I bought a 2016 refurb 15 Touch Bar and I actually really enjoy it. I do digital painting in photoshop and its extremely convenient to have a quick access to brush size and opacity right at my fingers. I use a cheap bamboo tablet as of right now but just having those sliders is very convenient since I have one hand on keyboard already for shortcuts while I'm drawing or using mouse. I think if apple develops it and doesn't just trash the idea, more programs will adopt it and use it more efficiently. it is customizable too, even within programs. I would like some form of customizable control like this for my Mac, even if it were a physical dial that I could assign controls to such as brush size or opacity. really its not that practical so far but maybe it will get better.

 

[Closingracer]

For me I am not a pro user and using my 15 inch MB pro with Touch Bar for general stuff like web browsing and etc along with video viewing and Microsoft word basically. MacOS simple handles resolutions over 1080p better then Windows. I have a gaming laptop for whatever gaming needs that has Windows 10. Since I am not really using any apps that "needs" the function bar or escape button I love using the Touch bar being I was a skeptic myself actually thinking I would just keep my 2015 13 inch MacBook Pro. The Siri button and Touch ID alone makes it worth it but I like using the emoji button and shortcuts it brings along with it.

 

[perezr10]

I’ve never used a TouchBar because my company uses Windows laptops but I’ve REALLY wanted one ever since they came out. Mainly because I hate the narrow vertical screens on laptops.

As a financial analyst, my life is in Excel spreadsheets. That means anything less than a 22” monitor is a real pain. So anytime I go to the conference room with my laptop to put up my spreadsheets on the screen I give up valuable screen real estate. Making matters worse is Microsofts Excel Ribbon at the top for common Excel functions which can no longer be completely removed.

I was hoping that the TouchBar would relegate the Excel functions to my TouchBar leaving the screen for nothing but spreadsheet space. If so, that would be a big win. Even if I could completely remove the Excel Ribbon at the top, it’s a pain sometimes when I do need the Sum or highlight functions. The TouchBar seems to offer the best of both worlds. No loss of screen real estate and the functions are still available.

Can anyone confirm that the TouchBar allows for this in MS Excel?

 

[Queen6]

Cant confirm about the Touch Bar, but Office 2016 on W10 you can certainly go full screen in Excel without the Ribbon, or just with the Ribbon set to Auto Hide.

Q-6

 

[PhoneI]

I like, but do not love my Touchbar. However, I found the old function keys to be almost useless and I have no need of an escape key.

 

[tarsins]

In the current version 15.41 you can hide the Ribbon but the Touchbar does not reflect the Ribbon's commands. You can't customise it either and the defaults are pretty dismal.

 

[5to1]

Just not a big deal to me - The 2015 is plenty portable & svelte for me honestly.
The tradeoffs they made to make it smaller & thinner are huge drawbacks to me.

That's what led to a smaller battery, less height for ports and the keyboard nightmare.

I wasn’t referring to making it thinner. I was referring to shrinking the bezels.

Whilst I can understand that may not be important to you personally, clearly that is a big improvement for any mobile device. In use the devices footprint restricts you in two almost perpendicular planes, so it’s much more significant then depth.

For people such as myself who’s workflow leans towards a 15” machine, but environment leans towards a smaller machine, reductions in footprint are big improvements. I’d happily compromise the camera position to completely lose the bezels.

 

[utgjon]

For anyone interested, the TouchBar works well W10 in Parallels too.