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Touch Bar should be bottom of keyboard?

M

Mais78

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 1, 2014
275
33
Today I played a little bit with the 2016 MBP and I feel there is little use for now for the Touch Bar. In addition I think it's place should be at the bottom of the keyboard, on top if the track pad.
Take safari for example: why would you lift your hand and move it all the way up to the Touch Bar to change safari tab when you can do it by moving your finder by an inch on the track pad??
The touch bar should be the natural extension of the trackpad, up there there is little use for it.
 
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Mais78 said:
Take safari for example: why would you lift your hand and move it all the way up to the Touch Bar to change safari tab when you can do it by moving your finder by an inch on the track pad??
Click to expand...

Are you confused, you should be saying the opposite. If the bar was near the trackpad there is zero point in use the bar to change tabs when the trackpad is right there.

It is useful for changing tabs if it is above the keyboard as if your hands are on the keyboard, you can easily switch from either above or below.
 
Not confused at all. Do you type on the keyboard while surfing the web? I don't, I use the trackpad to surf. If the bar was on top of trackpad you could reach out to it with your middle finger without lifting your hand from the trackpad and changing tab would be much quicker than moving the pointer to top of browser to change it.
 
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The Touch Bar is not an extension of the Trackpad. It replaces the function keys providing customizable/easy access to options for the specific app.
The Keyboard is much faster than moving the mouse to the button or command. People who extensively use keyboard shortcuts would benefit from the touch bar however a position above the trackpad would be a major problem. Your hands will cover the commands and some won't be able to rest their palms depending on how they type.
You can't judge the Touch Bar from a few minutes of usage. You have to actually do work with the productivity apps that support it in order to determine its value.
 
That would be an ergonomic nightmare and make it very difficult to type. Bad idea.
 
Mais78 said:
Not confused at all. Do you type on the keyboard while surfing the web? I don't, I use the trackpad to surf. If the bar was on top of trackpad you could reach out to it with your middle finger without lifting your hand from the trackpad and changing tab would be much quicker than moving the pointer to top of browser to change it.
Click to expand...

I'm just confused at what you're thinking. Why would the trackpad ever need an extension. It's an extension of the keyboard replacing the function keys so should go at the top. And actually no, it would probably save you no time at all. Touchbar as an extension for the trackpad is a moronic idea.
 
Mais78 said:
Not confused at all. Do you type on the keyboard while surfing the web? I don't, I use the trackpad to surf. If the bar was on top of trackpad you could reach out to it with your middle finger without lifting your hand from the trackpad and changing tab would be much quicker than moving the pointer to top of browser to change it.
Click to expand...

I'm out...
 
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Mais78 said:
Today I played a little bit with the 2016 MBP and I feel there is little use for now for the Touch Bar. In addition I think it's place should be at the bottom of the keyboard, on top if the track pad.
Take safari for example: why would you lift your hand and move it all the way up to the Touch Bar to change safari tab when you can do it by moving your finder by an inch on the track pad??
The touch bar should be the natural extension of the trackpad, up there there is little use for it.
Click to expand...

I would use cmd+shift+left/right arrow keys.

My guess is that the touch bar lacks palm rejection and the last thing Apple wants is for users to rest their palms over the bar all the time and trigger accidental activations? We aren't looking at accidental cursor movement here. We are talking about triggering shortcuts like replying within an email or trashing a document by mistake.

Not to mention your thumbs can only reach the centre of the palm rest. Won't this mean you will have difficulty activating the touchbar shortcuts on the extremely left and right sides?
 
I can see the argument for having the Touch Bar at the bottom of the keyboard because it's easier to reach (being between the keyboard and trackpad), but the fact that it would be obscured by your hands most of the time rules it out of being a practical location. Having it at the top is the most logical solution because it's as close to the main display panel as possible.
 
Mais78 said:
Not confused at all. Do you type on the keyboard while surfing the web? I don't, I use the trackpad to surf. If the bar was on top of trackpad you could reach out to it with your middle finger without lifting your hand from the trackpad and changing tab would be much quicker than moving the pointer to top of browser to change it.
Click to expand...


The Touch Bar assumes you have a hand resting near the keyboard as well as one on the trackpad. It's meant to be used by your free, non-trackpad hand, often simultaneously so you don't need to break contact with the trackpad. It's also up there because you're going to be able to quickly glance down from the screen and access it, whereas I'd have to look way down and pull both of my hands away from the computer to see it unobscured if it were near the trackpad. It's the equivalent of mounting your phone/GPS in your car near the windshield so it sits in your peripheral versus throwing it in a cupholder down in the car where you're going to break concentration to try and see it.
 
Yes it should. What's the point of switching tabs if I then need to go to the trackpad to use them? Currently it's easier to switch tabs using just the command numbers to do it.
 
wegster said:
Make the trackpad with an OLED overlay and pencil support, then remove the touchbar altogether.
Click to expand...

Wont come any oled trackpad thats bit stupid.. but think it will come apple pencil support on next years model, which is why this new design has so big trackpad. Would work like those wacom tablets that have no display
 
Mais78 said:
Take safari for example: why would you lift your hand and move it all the way up to the Touch Bar to change safari tab
Click to expand...
Or you can just type the short cut cmd-shift-<arrow keys> to move left and right through the tabs. Much of what you can do with TB can be done by short cuts which makes the keyboard even more efficient.

As for it being at the bottom, I think that would be a ergonomic nightmare, I see no positives of moving it imo
 
maflynn said:
Or you can just type the short cut cmd-shift-<arrow keys> to move left and right through the tabs. Much of what you can do with TB can be done by short cuts which makes the keyboard even more efficient.

As for it being at the bottom, I think that would be a ergonomic nightmare, I see no positives of moving it imo
Click to expand...

I think that's the point isn't it? No TB function should replace a keyboard shortcut, as per Apple's instructions. And it shouldn't include well known shortcuts like save, or copy/paste. It's there to add functionality, and so far things like colour selection and that emoji (...) bar seem a good start.

OP. Bottom of the keyboard would just be awful, it's at the top because it's replacing shortcut keys (The function row). So it's the most logical place. At the bottom it would shift the keyboard away from you, and as Maflynn points out would be very unergonomic to use, with the idea of trying to type with your palm resting over it.
 
New_Mac_Smell said:
No TB function should replace a keyboard shortcut, as per Apple's instructions
Click to expand...
But when demonstrating Touch Bar, much of what they showed off was tasks that could have been done with the keyboard and/or not that difficult to keep using the touch pad.

I was in the Apple store and saw that when you open up Safari on a TB MBP, the touch bar shows URL, you touch that, and the focus on Safari changes so you can easily type in an address. Seems like more work since you used the touch pad to open up safari, why not just move the point and then start typing. This is but one tiny example, where I think what already works is better then using the TB. Moving it to the bottom of the keyboard amplifies how disruptive that action can be.
 
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maflynn said:
But when demonstrating Touch Bar, much of what they showed off was tasks that could have been done with the keyboard and/or not that difficult to keep using the touch pad.

I was in the Apple store and saw that when you open up Safari on a TB MBP, the touch bar shows URL, you touch that, and the focus on Safari changes so you can easily type in an address. Seems like more work since you used the touch pad to open up safari, why not just move the point and then start typing. This is but one tiny example, where I think what already works is better then using the TB. Moving it to the bottom of the keyboard amplifies how disruptive that action can be.
Click to expand...

I agree with you! A lot of the functionality is not there at the moment. Things like Bolding text shouldn't on there, I think the PS demo had a new layer button, which anyone who uses PS will just CMD+J.

Apple have design guidelines for it, and I hope people make the most of it in time. I was a little disappointed that their own demo didn't quite live up to those guidelines, but as I said it's a good start at least. I see a lot of potential in it but as with most things it'll likely take 6-12 months to fully become integrated.
 
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As much as I hate on the new tMBP, I think they really thought about the place of the touchbar. I too thought it should be below the keyboard for easier access, but it will cause a lot of problems with the palm.

As for its use, this thing has been out for a month, lets give it a break, it will probably show its true colors within a 1/1.5 years when all developers try stuff around with it. Remember, percentage of touchbar users are very very very low at this moment and no developer is paying any attention to it.
 
MacBH928 said:
As much as I hate on the new tMBP, I think they really thought about the place of the touchbar. I too thought it should be below the keyboard for easier access, but it will cause a lot of problems with the palm.

As for its use, this thing has been out for a month, lets give it a break, it will probably show its true colors within a 1/1.5 years when all developers try stuff around with it. Remember, percentage of touchbar users are very very very low at this moment and no developer is paying any attention to it.
Click to expand...

On the contrary I think a lot of developers are paying attention to it, any with marketing sense at least. It's a new thing, and people want to use it, so adding functionality to your app makes it stand out, maybe even go to the top of the 'Recommended apps' area. Even if you can only add that basic functionality discussed, people will look at your app when they might not normally.

With that pretty much all developers will want to take a serious look, as they won't want their apps getting stuck behind. I'm interested to see what Adobe do as they have potential to set a standard, but seeing what Adobe normally do I don't expect it to be particularly useful.
 
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