'Touch Bar' Trending on Twitter Following Rumors It'll Be Removed on 2021 MacBook Pro

[senttoschool]

I'm going to say this: the rage against the TouchBar is unwarranted.

We humans blame the wrong thing all the time.

The REAL source of anger here is that Apple REMOVED the function keys, which was idiotic.

I can see the benefits of having a configurable row ABOVE the function keys, where it will not interfere with touch typists and allow for extra customizable tools for those that actually use it.

There is NOTHING (inherently) wrong with the TouchBar, except for the way Apple used it.

But as always, the problem is that Apple always gives you something but then takes something away.

Yea, I wouldn't really care if they just put it above the function keys and don't force it to do things like changing the volume, brightness, music.

Let it do all the video editing, emoji, window arrangement stuff. But don't replace my physical ESC, volume, brightness, music keys.

 

[LeadingHeat]

I’ll be honest I don’t really use it all that much, but it is nice to have the emoji pop up based off what I’m typing sometimes! “Haha” becoming the laughing face for instance.

I suppose once the entire keyboard gets those dynamic key buttons it’ll be the best of both worlds anyways. (As long as they keep the keys individual and scissor mechanisms on them. 🤞🏻

 

[Moi Ici]

I for one, like it.

 

[ddtmm]

What a giant waste of time and money that was. Talk about a solution to a problem that never existed.

What they should have done was leave the keys as they were and add a utility that would allow one to record macros to a key really easily. I can't count the number of times the ability to set up a quick macro key to do a bunch of keystrokes for me would have saved me tons of time. Logitech keyboards used to be great for that. They can still do it but their drivers/software are over bloated now. Such a simple request, yet no simple solutions.

 

[ikramerica]

Like so many failed revolutions beforehand have learned, you can’t change the world if you don’t have enough critical mass behind you.

The touchbar was doomed to fail because it only was available on a subset of the most expensive models.

It can’t be a pro feature if the most expensive pro workstations don’t offer it (MacPro, iMac Pro). It can’t be a revolutionary consumer feature if no consumer level product offers it (Air, mini). So that leaves it as a gimic.

Back in the day I thought a USB LCD touch gamepad could have been designed for these kind of features for games to put controls and displays at your finder tips. Shields, weapons choices, meters, whatever, flight sim gauges, etc.

 

[ddtmm]

I'm missing something ... so you think that the MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar would be $200 less?

Good point. It's more like about 300-400 less.

 

[kaz911]

I partly agree - Touch Bar COULD be great.

But for touch typists with long fingers it is in the way. I have removed all icons from mine apart from brightness and sound controls as they are usually the least impacted. My very long middle fingers often accidentally hits something on the Touch Bar - so only option was to "minimise it" as much as possible. So Apply - sorry to show you my very long middle fingers related to Touch Bar.

So for some things a Touch Bar located 15mm "over" the main keyboard would be fine. But real function buttons would be great to get back. Then there would be no accidental touch keystrokes.

Apple - can we get an upgrade for old MBP's to real keyboards without TouchBar? I'd pay for that ....

 

[phenoplastic]

Good riddance. This design abomination actively led me away from from getting a new MacBook. I've been more than getting by on iPad, though I may consider a future MacBook in future.

 

[4jasontv]

I'm indifferent to the touch bar. It's helpful in MS Office where it allows me to use many of the font editors while on a smaller laptop screen without having to go through condensed sub menus. However, there are times when it would be much easier to just change the volume with a physical key as I do on my iMac. There are pros/cons to the device. As a massively heavy Office user, I think I'd lean towards keeping it.

On Windows you can hit ALT+Q and it will hotkey to 'Tell me' which solves 90% of my requests that I don't know the actually Hot Key for. I just tried it on my Mac and I can't figure out what the key command is to start it, but their is a menu item for it.

Is it cause you took the time to learn the touchbar but not Tell me, or do you actually think it's faster?

I feel like hotkeys are the fastest, then right click, then Tell me, then menu's where I know exactly where the item is is faster, and then the bar a distant last. But that's because I can never got comfortable looking down at my keyboard.

 

[robertcoogan]

That's good news! That and the return of MagSafe to the MBP make me happy. The Touchbar was in such an awkward place to begin with.

 

[ksec]

Never understood the hate... Discrete numbered function keys are dumb in this day and age, and probably for that reason they’re also underused.

1. I use those function keys a lot.

2. Touch Bar is sort of like a great idea but is still so far off from perfection. How many times did Touch Bar crashes? Non-Responsive ? False Positives ( accidentally touching it which tigger a click )? No Force Feedback when pressed. None of these has been fixed since its introduction.

And it is like Car manufacturers walking back on Touch Screen controls. Buttons are Great. We want less buttons, but not No buttons.

And to add insult to injury, Touch Bar is expensive. In terms of consumer buying price you are literally paying $150 for it. ( Well at least that was the case when it launched, Apple later seems to dial back on that idea of pricing )

Much like Butterfly Keyboard, Apple had 4 years to work on it to prove us wrong. And this time it was the user proving Apple were wrong.

 

[Marzzz]

The Touchbar is useful for fast-forwarding thru ads (on YouTube, for instance) that would otherwise not respond to pointing and clicking with the track pad.

Speaking of the track pad, I wouldn't mind if they made it smaller so that I would stop inadvertently touching it and have the cursor randomly jump all over the paragraph I am typing...

 

[ikramerica]

I think Apple is willing to part with the touchbar because it plans to introduce touch screen functionality at some point after it is gone. There is no point in having a touchbar and a touchscreen. IMHO

Yep. Which is harder? Which pulls focus more? Which takes more time?

Looking off screen to see the touchbar and move your fingers, or keeping focus but moving your hands?

It might be that the touchbar is ergonomically better. But my kids get upset when they can’t just tap the screen. So maybe the touchbar was designed for a demographic that is aging out?

 

[nvmls]

Apple please do not listen to these ludites. Keep the touch bar and bring it to the iMac keyboard as well.

All you have to do is make it always on, like the new apple watch face and make it far more user configurable. Then people will start to realise the potential.

lol since 2016 we are eager to find that "potential".

 

[dannyyankou]

Even after about 18 months I still haven’t gotten used to the Touch Bar yet. I’m used to having muscle memory with the control keys and could press them without even looking at them. That’s more difficult with a touch interface

 

[senttoschool]

What they should have done was leave the keys as they were and add a utility that would allow one to record macros to a key really easily. I can't count the number of times the ability to set up a quick macro key to do a bunch of keystrokes for me would have saved me tons of time. Logitech keyboards used to be great for that. They can still do it but their drivers/software are over bloated now. Such a simple request, yet no simple solutions.

It can’t be a pro feature if the most expensive pro workstations don’t offer it (MacPro, iMac Pro). It can’t be a revolutionary consumer feature if no consumer level product offers it (Air, mini). So that leaves it as a gimic.

I think it's quite obvious that internally, Apple product people weren't fully bought into the touch bar themselves. If Apple product designers truly believed in the touch bar, they would have brought it over to the Magic Keyboard and Air. And they would have invested a lot more resources in developing more features for it.

 

[hot-gril]

Yes, DELET

 

[j_in_tx]

Removing the Touch Bar I see both pros and cons.
But going back to MagSafe is a huge step backwards imo.

You'll be loving MagSafe when you realize it doesn't actually use a port.

 

[Geepaw]

Yep. Which is harder? Which pulls focus more? Which takes more time?

Looking off screen to see the touchbar and move your fingers, or keeping focus but moving your hands?

It might be that the touchbar is ergonomically better. But my kids get upset when they can’t just tap the screen. So maybe the touchbar was designed for a demographic that is aging out?

I would prefer a touch screen over the touchbar. I need to move my eyes and hands to use the touchbar. It's just so inconvenient -- at least for me.

 

[paulsquyres]

I feel the touchbar would be adopted more if Apple would incorporate tactile feedback via the Taptic-Engine Module mounted under the touchbar display.

A compromise would be to add the physical function keys back, add the touchbar above the function row keys and slim down the trackpad to accommodate the needed extra space.

 

[hot-gril]

Never understood the hate... Discrete numbered function keys are dumb in this day and age, and probably for that reason they’re also underused.

It's not about the F1, etc keys. It's about the volume, music, brightness, etc keys. It takes more time and focus to do any of those on the touchbar MBPs, plus the touchbar lags or crashes sometimes. You can reduce the number of presses by changing the touchbar to the function keys in your prefs, but then you just have a worse version of the regular keys.

 

[QCassidy352]

Kill it with fire.

 

[yurc]

For best of both world, why just put touch bar on the top traditional physical function keys?

 

[NinjaHERO]

This is great news. Of course, Apple could just produce both models and let the consumers choose. If one sells far less than the other, they know their market and they can discontinue one. Would be fun if we had the option.
p.s. I hate the touchbar.

 

[sananda]

I’ve been using a Mac with a Touch Bar for the first time in the last few weeks. I rather like it. It’s useful changing formulas in cells in Numbers and changing text to bold in Notes.