If they had just including function keys, even half-height ones (just decrease the size of the keys a little bit, not even a lot, and you could fit them in), the Touch Bar would have been a success.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Touch Bar Fans: Get the 13-Inch M2 MacBook Pro for $250 Off Before It's Gone
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
On my 2015, the F1 through F4 keys are used quite frequently. F5/F6 (keyboard brightness are rarely touched), F7-F8 are never touched (media controls) and F10-F12 are used all the time (volume up/down/mute). The Touch Bar IMO was a good idea but I didn't quite like the implementation or even the fact it's there. The Touch Bar also helped me not buy a new MacBook for a long time; there's a place for touch screens and mixing them with where my fingers expect tactile feedback wasn't it for me.
One thing I missed about the touchbar was filling out forms - that was pretty dang handy. And scrubbing through video as I made notes and edits. That is about it though!
I liked it too, but didn’t like that it replaced the f row. Apple should have kept it around but added it above the f row on the newer machines.
Meh I don't buy it. Maybe, just maybe, it's the model Apple sells to schools. Those go in big numbers. Otherwise there are hardly any buyers for it, and it was the main reason to gut 13MBP.
Yes, Phil Schiller couldn’t stop talking about how irrelevant function keys are during the keynote, yet the default action of the function row hasn’t been FN for literally decades - instead the buttons have turned into shortcuts for brightness, media controls, volume, and other hotkeys etc.
I’ve been using a TB Macbook for 5 years. I hate it just as much today as I did the day I got it. I can’t adjust brightness or volume by muscle memory; I need to shift my eyes to look at the touchbar. When I’m typing, my fingers constantly brush the touchbar and activate things I don’t want it to.
It’s an absolute disaster. I can’t wait to get a Macbook with physical keys in the FN row again.
No complaints about a feature isn't exactly a high mark, though. The TouchBar ended up being just as rarely used as the function keys, doing nothing more than volume and brightness adjustments for most users. It has some advantages, just not enough to justify its existence given the disadvantages it also brings.
This. I love my 2018 MBP for its Touch Bar, but I wouldn't invest in a Touch Bar MBP now. It barely got Apple's support since launch. And just like most under-appreciated Apple innovations (i.e. 3D Touch), third parties ignored it.
I'd love to get a new M3 Pro MacBook Pro if one existed. But this M1's model design doesn't have a ProMotion display, is two generations out of date, and the Touch Bar itself will get no future support in apps. Apple will be more likely to usher this generation of devices out of OS support faster so that they can purge the software from their codebase sooner.
In other words, you might save a couple hundred bucks up front, but you'll be replacing this thing in 3 or 4 years max.
I'm buying one and keeping it sealed in box. 20 years from now it will be worth millions.
You use function keys that often that you'd refuse an entire laptop for the Touch Bar?!
I think a common theme between the TouchBar and 3D Touch leading to developers ignoring them is that Apple only made them available on a small subset of their relevant devices.
If you were a macOS developer, you’d invest time and effort only for MacBook Pro users with recent machines (not for other MacBooks or desktop Macs), significantly reducing the userbase and forcing you to have a duplicate non-TouchBar alternative for any feature in your App using the TouchBar.
Same with iOS developers and 3D Touch: it was iPhone-only (not iPad) and I believe at no point in time did every iPhone in Apple’s line-up support it (due to SE models and keeping older models as entry level ones). From a developer’s perspective it meant creating duplicate UI elements which would only be available to a subset of users … not great.
I have long fingers. I used to have a 16'' touch bar mbp, I kept accidentally pressing something on the touchbar. I hated it.
It was quite a bit cheaper than other MBPs, constantly discounted, and it had the longest battery life of any MacBook. I had the M1 version before getting a 16” M1Pro and the 16” doesn’t last nearly as long despite having the same 22h claim. I’m not surprised it sells so well.
I complained and never upgraded a Mac as fast as the TB MBP in over 30 years of Mac ownership. Aside from the ergonomics, the big issue was developers had no reason to spend time supporting an input device available to only a small percent of their users.
I really wish TouchID, 3D Touch/home button, and the headphone jack would come back. I'd buy that phone in a heartbeat. I also remember people complaining about the notch from day one.Step back to right after Apple rolled it out. You'd think it was Dynamic Island or something.
We seem to LOVE the tangible, visible gimmick when rolled out but then turn on it when it is discontinued. Notch was proclaimed "iconic" while it ruled... then ridiculed once Dynamic Island arrived. And once Dynamic Island is retired, I suspect there will be plenty of "good riddance" to that one too.
Remember how big Animoji were? Stickers? Touch ID? 3D Touch? Etc. Every year or two there is this new, very visible/tangible "innovation" to make the new <products> stand out from the old ones. Buy now so a cat emoji can appear to be saying what you are sharing in a text. How did we ever get by without communicating with others while looking like a cat?
The one consistent is how generally collective opinion seems to move- and shift or outright flip:flop- to fit whatever Apple has for sale now. If next year, Apple rolls out Progressive Peninsula to replace Dynamic Island, I suspect we'll be flipping out to get some "P.P." on our new phone screens.
I'm always hitting one of those buttons unintentionally. Even worse, when i want to use it, the bar shows that i'm touching it but i have to do it a few times before it registers. I don't see a point.
The last of Jony Ives dreadful designs at Apple. Good riddance.
tHe LaSt Of JoNy iVeS dReAdFuL dEsIgNs At aPpLe. gOoD rIdDaNcE.
Jony Ive Was Involved in the New M1 iMac Design, Despite Leaving Apple in 2019
MacBook Air with M1 chip
Some of Ive’s Closest Collaborators (huge influences on iOS7 redesign, all of the OS designs, Apple Watch, current Mac redesigns, and headlining Apple Vision Pro design and OS development
The hill I will die on when it comes to the touch bar is that the new function keys are actually a downgrade from the pre-touch bar function keys. I don't use dictation. I don't use focus modes. I want to adjust my keyboard brightness. But, if I want to do that in the post-touch bar era, I need to edit a .plist to remap F5 and F6 to actually do something useful. A better solution would be to just make one or two buttons in the function row blank and user-mappable, just like the action button on the iPhone, so that I, the user, can decide which functions are important to me.