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Two Month Touchbar Report (Macbook Pro 2017)

dudeslife

dudeslife

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Original poster
Jul 25, 2011
136
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I have touched it about 5 times in two months... useless. anyone else getting the same mileage?

and touch id actually slows down my workflow with 1Password.

Apple should drop the gimmicks and work on basics judging by the faulty keyboard reports...
 
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dudeslife said:
I have touched it about 5 times in two months... useless. anyone else getting the same mileage?

and touch id actually slows down my workflow with 1Password.

Apple should drop the gimmicks and work on basics judging by the faulty keyboard reports...
Click to expand...
Or you should buy the non touch model. I use the touch bar at all the time.
 
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I use it every day multiple times and love the finger print sensor personally.

Maybe it’s somethinf your just not accustomed to using and forget about it.
 
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How do you not even use it for volume/brightness? Escape?

It's quite useful in Creative apps, very useful when you have far too many Safari tabs open and want to scroll through them. Quite useful when playing some music, I can skip/scrobble from within the TB. TouchID is great.

It was never going to be a groundbreaking feature, I don't quite know what people were expecting when they got one. It's just a dynamic touch bar that replaces physically keys. So ultimately it's significantly more useful than fixed keys, but that's all it is...
 
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Think about it this way.

How often do you use those tradition F key for their "F" function? Yes, never!

Now with the touchbar all the volume/brightness buttons are still there but better: you have app control buttons should you need it!

I don't see anything to complain here except that it's expensive and apple forces it on us by removing 2 ports on the nTB model
 
Try it with BTT and I think you may well come to like it. (Productivity seems to increase once the User begins to commit the location of certain buttons to muscle memory, and is able to use them without needing to look away from the screen.)

I was highly skeptical of the touchbar at first, and did not really like its benefit in terms of how it came with factory settings. That was before I realized how customizable it is. The more I play with the touchbar with Better Touch Tool, the more I like it. Having direct shortcuts for the automation of tasks and execution of macros is pretty sweet. The coming support of some Apps, such as VMWare Fusion 10's TB support, is going to be awesome.

With BTT, getting the most from the touchbar (or trackpad, for that matter) requires some degree of User-investment - But, paired with the very capable trackpad on the MacBook Pro, the touchbar can, in many cases, benefit productivity.
 
I use it everyday, now starting to think that the old function keys was useless, to little functionality
 
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dudeslife said:
link to 2017 4 port macbook pro 15 without touchbar? :)
[doublepost=1506360524][/doublepost]

I bought it to support the developers but haven't used it... thanks for reminding me.. will check it out.
Click to expand...
As you said, you bought Touch Bar model and BTT, get the best out of the thing you don't use that much.

As an example, make it to a menu-bar like style, just like me, beauty and useful.
Z6SL19m.png
 
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I'm trying to use it more and more. It just became more useful to me now that Parallels desktop allows you to customize the soft keys on it for your Windows apps. (Yes, I have to use Windows for work software not available for Mac).

Trying to use it more and more as I learn what is available on each app.
 
I still hate it.
It might be useful for people who don't remember the shortcuts very well.
In my workflow I barely use trackpad/mouse, and my hands rarely have to leave the main keyboard area - shortcuts are just so much easier and quicker than touchbar icons, and i can do them without have to look away from my screen.

Unfortunately I have to use 'esc' a lot - which is a pain in the back now because after 3 months, I still have to look down to make sure i'm hitting the 'esc' key.
 
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pallymore said:
I still hate it.
It might be useful for people who don't remember the shortcuts very well.
In my workflow I barely use trackpad/mouse, and my hands rarely have to leave the main keyboard area - shortcuts are just so much easier and quicker than touchbar icons, and i can do them without have to look away from my screen.

Unfortunately I have to use 'esc' a lot - which is a pain in the back now because after 3 months, I still have to look down to make sure i'm hitting the 'esc' key.
Click to expand...

I can see how for you the TB isn't helpful.

I have to say though, I doubt too many Mac users are as heavily keyboard oriented as you describe yourself to be.
 
pallymore said:
I still hate it.
It might be useful for people who don't remember the shortcuts very well.
In my workflow I barely use trackpad/mouse, and my hands rarely have to leave the main keyboard area - shortcuts are just so much easier and quicker than touchbar icons, and i can do them without have to look away from my screen.

Unfortunately I have to use 'esc' a lot - which is a pain in the back now because after 3 months, I still have to look down to make sure i'm hitting the 'esc' key.
Click to expand...
Yep, the touch bar is really not that necessary if you know all the shortcuts, but why not use it for anything dynamic, create it in BTT, there are Apple Scribt widgets and buttons.

Even when I know many of the shortcut, my primary goal is to get most navigations and tool bar down to the keyboard and then get a full screen experience on the screen, without anything unnecessary on it.
 
whodean said:
I can see how for you the TB isn't helpful.

I have to say though, I doubt too many Mac users are as heavily keyboard oriented as you describe yourself to be.
Click to expand...

True. I'm not saying it is useless for other users.
I'm just disappointed that I have to pay extra for this thing I don't use/like.
Apple gives us no choice.

Super Xander said:
Yep, the touch bar is really not that necessary if you know all the shortcuts, but why not use it for anything dynamic, create it in BTT, there are Apple Scribt widgets and buttons.

Even when I know many of the shortcut, my primary goal is to get most navigations and tool bar down to the keyboard and then get a full screen experience on the screen, without anything unnecessary on it.
Click to expand...

I just feel unproductive when I often have to look away from the screen.
I have quite a few apple scripts mapped to shortcuts already. And there is spotlight - which allows me to pretty much launch anything without having to switch out of my current app, or swipe/look through options.
Touch interfaces are fun to use, but sometimes they are not good replacements for physical keys.
 
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I like to use it as a small dynamic display with BTT, for things like continuously scrolling the currently playing Spotify track, artist and album.
 
I am really good with my keyboard shortcuts, and I use quicksilver for launching apps and pulling up the files I need, but I'm finding the touchbar (after customization and with better touch tool) much more useful than I thought. And although I was worried about the escape button (using it hundreds of times a day), it hasn't been a problem.

I guess the things I always do and have done, I do with keyboard shortcuts. But the touchbar shows me things I wouldn't have thought of - like here it's offering me the choice of changing my font color ... which I don't need, but honestly it wouldn't have occurred to me that that was even a possibility. Or I'm not a big bookmark person, but having a bookmark icon right there and accessible is reminding me that I can create bookmarks, and it will be helpful.

I'm sad to see that the new OS does not care much about the touchbar. My guess is that it won't stick around for long.
 
hieubui said:
Think about it this way.

How often do you use those tradition F key for their "F" function? Yes, never!

Now with the touchbar all the volume/brightness buttons are still there but better: you have app control buttons should you need it!

I don't see anything to complain here except that it's expensive and apple forces it on us by removing 2 ports on the nTB model
Click to expand...

I disagree. We use the F keys quite a lot. However, each has their own needs. For us, it is a definite step backwards, inefficient. And our corp comms person, perhaps granted set in her ways, says it provides not improvement for image and video editing. She does say that if starting out, learning the software again there might be benefits....but difficult to compare.
 
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Playfoot said:
I disagree. We use the F keys quite a lot. However, each has their own needs. For us, it is a definite step backwards, inefficient. And our corp comms person, perhaps granted set in her ways, says it provides not improvement for image and video editing. She does say that if starting out, learning the software again there might be benefits....but difficult to compare.
Click to expand...

Yeah, maybe I should have said for most people.

I am a photo/video editor myself. I don't need those F key...like ever. I've been living with hotkeys since the start and it's ok, nothing changed in that aspect. For me, if anything, the TB is an additional benefit, not an inconvenience.
 
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I love it - barely used the F-keys before so this makes that area useful for me. After updating to high sierra, I had to present at a meeting and plugged in the laptop to the display. The touchbar switched to present two buttons - mirror screen, or extend screen. With one tap, i got what i wanted and no need to fumble around with any menus
 
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dudeslife said:
I have touched it about 5 times in two months... useless. anyone else getting the same mileage?

and touch id actually slows down my workflow with 1Password.

Apple should drop the gimmicks and work on basics judging by the faulty keyboard reports...
Click to expand...

You have a really short 1Password master password if Touch ID is slower than typing.

And if you didn’t find use for something, doesn’t mean it’s a gimmick for everyone.
 
Maybe a nice strip of black electrical tape to cover it over
Instant downgrade
 
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