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What did you do with the Touch Bar?

Frankied22

Frankied22

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 24, 2010
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I recently got a refurb 16" MBP that I am trying out and this is my first Mac with a Touch Bar. I am still not really sold on it being anything more than a gimmick. What are you all doing with it? Right now I have it set to GoldenChaos preset through BTT, and while it does have a lot of cool configurations, I still finding myself rather having physical function keys.
 
Nothing really. It’s there. I’m using it. Is one supposed to do anything particular with it?
 
Volume and brightness. I’m mostly docked so I’ve never developed the muscle memory to do anything else with it.
 
I am now using it all the time. I’ve never had a Mac with it before.

I don’t see where the hate comes from.
 
Brightness, volume, and media controls. I mostly have the MBP on a stand though, so I rarely use it. Touch bar is still a gimmick in my eyes. If they sold MBPs without the touch bar, I'd be all over it.
 
I hated the touchbar until I found out I can just keep my finger and volume or brightness icon and just slide to adjust. Don't have to tap twice in different positions.

I used to tap, then move my finger to the slider.
 
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The fingers of my left hand always hover and rest over the F1 to F5 or F6 keys when not typing. So I had to turn it off.

That they never introduced the touchbar to the iMac keyboard says it all.

As a life long Mac user I am so glad to see J. Ive gone, because he started that touchbar-stupidity. Ive was and is nothing without a strong counterpart like Jobs. My opinion is that Cook cancelled him because of the MacBook 2016 – 2018 disaster and also when the iPhone started to lose its magic a few years ago. Cook was clever: he just needed to wait until Ive had manoeuvred himself into a mess so that he was not cancelling Steve Jobs' designer. Then cancelling went over without noise.
 
iRun26.2 said:
I am now using it all the time. I’ve never had a Mac with it before.

I don’t see where the hate comes from.
Click to expand...

It's because the Touch Bar replaced the function keys. Many professional applications use the function keys. I have my settings to display the function keys on particular software but nothing beats tactile buttons. It's like as if Apple decided to removed the number bad for a smooth strip. You can't rest your fingers on a button, you have to look more often etc. If they added the Touch Bar above the function keys instead of replacing them, no one would complain.

Other than displaying the function keys when I need to, I just use it for volume, screen brightness and show desktop.
 
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The media keys are great. And in PowerPoint you get tiny previews of the slides in you presentations which makes it easy to jump around or see what is coming next.
 
morze said:
It's because the Touch Bar replaced the function keys. Many professional applications use the function keys.
Click to expand...

Function keys are an anachronism. It is unfortunate that some tools still rely on them for shortcuts. The established practice on macOS is to use CMD+key for hotkeys.
 
I use it for increasing screen brightness occasionally and changing volume. That’s pretty much it.
 
Eliott69 said:
The fingers of my left hand always hover and rest over the F1 to F5 or F6 keys when not typing. So I had to turn it off.
Click to expand...

I've always thought the way most people were taught to type (and use a computer keyboard) is to place your index fingers on the 'F' and 'J' keys (where the little bumps are). I don't think many people do what you do.

 
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Volume and brightness. Same thing I used the function keys for. I think I used it for emojis a couple times too so I guess it's slightly more useful than function keys for me.
 
Frankied22 said:
I recently got a refurb 16" MBP that I am trying out and this is my first Mac with a Touch Bar. I am still not really sold on it being anything more than a gimmick. What are you all doing with it? Right now I have it set to GoldenChaos preset through BTT, and while it does have a lot of cool configurations, I still finding myself rather having physical function keys.
Click to expand...

I use it all the time. Xcode for example has a bunch of shortcuts for manipulating the iOS simulator, and they're not the most easy to remember shortcuts but with the Touch Bar I don't have to remember it, the Touch Bar has buttons for it and I use those.

Also in different creative apps the Touch Bar really shines. I love having it as a time slider, I don't have to move my hands from the keyboard. There's also lots of different shortcuts that I'd otherwise have to remember displayed as a button.
 
leman said:
Function keys are an anachronism. It is unfortunate that some tools still rely on them for shortcuts. The established practice on macOS is to use CMD+key for hotkeys.
Click to expand...

Call it what you want. Current professional applications use the function keys, in addition to CMD+key, and OPT+key, and SHIFT+key. The function keys on my external keyboard are used more than my Touch Bar.

Seems many are just using it for volume and brightness, sounds like an expensive option we are forced to pay for to occasionally adjust two settings.
 
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One aspect of BTT-GoldenChaos I like is the ability to two-finger swipe anywhere on the touchbar to adjust volume and three-finger swipe to adjust brightness.

I like the normal function keys up there, but it is still not as good as physical keys. There is no tactile feedback and when the touchbar display goes to sleep, you have to tap it to wake it up first.
 
I got rid of siri. Replaced with the sleep button to quickly put to sleep.

Also added a couple of Quick Actions to switch between resolutions (higher res for more space when coding, default res when doing other stuff to be easier on my eyes).

High price, low value... hope they get rid of it.
 
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