Why do people hate the Touch Bar?

[ipponrg]

As do the ones who like/love the TB will also voice their opinions here. What the hell is this thread, only available to negative responses? Positive threads get mixed responses too. Keep that in mind before attempting to set me straight. 🙄

Nah, it's not only available to only negative responses. No one said positive responses aren't allowed.

That's just very shallow comprehension on your part of what I was saying.

You said:

And it’s ALWAYS the TB haters who work their hardest to try and drown out anyone who says they like it by coming up with such stupid reasons to hate it.

Your comment above infers opinions contra yours are, in your words, "stupid". I was just pointing out the thread of the title would attract opinions that would disagree with yours

 

[jinnyman]

I guess TB is good for people who seldom use FN keys. But then, those people who don't use that much FN keys will probably never understand why other people who's used to using FN keys in his/her work flow hates TB.

I think Apple went too far alienating pro/power users, but that's the company strategy and general trend now isn't it?

 

[Maconplasma]

Nah, it's not only available to only negative responses. No one said positive responses aren't allowed.

That's just very shallow comprehension on your part of what I was saying.

You said:


Your comment above infers opinions contra yours are, in your words, "stupid". I was just pointing out the thread of the title would attract opinions that would disagree with yours

Thanks for your post. Pretty typical response when someone's argument is failing. Have a good night.

 

[AZhappyjack]

I guess TB is good for people who seldom use FN keys. But then, those people who don't use that much FN keys will probably never understand why other people who's used to using FN keys in his/her work flow hates TB.

I think Apple went too far alienating pro/power users, but that's the company strategy and general trend now isn't it?

Pretty much... "dumb it down"... which often translates to "we know what you want/need better than you do".

 

[unchecked]

Easy. My main problem is not being able to feel the key before pressing it. There are a few applications where we want to put our fingers on something like the escape key until we need to press it. There are also other applications where feeling the physical key and where the key starts and ends and lets us know where the next key begins, which lets us avoid pressing that other key.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Well then, let me introduce myself.

Those on here don’t really count towards my comment I’m afraid to say.

 

[theSeb]

Yes, seriously. A single button with a camera on it or remember one of two three-key commands every time. It's ridiculous frankly, at least Windows has a print screen button.

You can remap the screenshot shortcuts to whatever you want. Also you can get some keyboards, like my Keychron, which come with a screenshot button that is mapped to command + shift + 4

It's the key next to F12.

 

[theSeb]

Thanks for your post. Pretty typical response when someone's argument is failing. Have a good night.

I think you are misunderstanding his point. What he said is that the thread title will attract mostly people who do not like the touch bar, because of how it has been worded. He is not arguing with you. This is just a simple fact. The title is negative, so it will mostly attract negative opinions. It is just human psychology.

 

[jinnyman]

You know, tb idea could have been great if it was added in addition to FN Keys. Why suddenly alienate people who's using physical keys? so many stuffs I use are glued with fn short cuts that I can't possibly do the stuff productively without FN keys. So why not just add them instead of replace them?

Moreover, what if Apple continued to support customization of TB key instead of 3rd party solution? What if they optimized the size of touch bar in a way that is both productive and not hampering the accustomed usage case?

Even I who hates TB all the way sometimes uses them well when I'm doing other stuff like watching youtube and web browsing.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Super buggy, often freezes. no tactile feedback. Not sure what it offers as a benefit to offset these shortcomings. Just seems very anti-Apple. I'm surprised it ever made it into a macbook to begin with. Glad to be rid of it soon.

I’ve been using it since 2016 and mine has never frozen a single time, nor had a single glitch or bug of any sort.

Tactile feedback is a fair criticism, but had possible and easy to do it when it was designed, Apple would’ve done it.

Would be terrible to see it go just because some people insist on having function keys to adjust the volume and play/pause media when the Touch Bar has that functionality, can be a function row on a per app basis, and can be customized nearly any way you like with BetterTouchTool.

 

[TrueBlou]

Taking screenshots has always been one of the most painful tasks on a mac IMO, as is learning/remembering all the keyboard shortcuts for these things. To me it's simplicity, ease of use and placement are well suited for regular users.

I completely agree, as I said in a previous post, I do think one of the TB’s benefits is bringing to light features that some people may not even be aware exist.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the keyboard shortcuts and I can perform them without thinking. But that’s from years of using them and taking time to learn them.

Obviously not just screenshots, I use things like Cmd + W to close finder (or other) windows and tabs possibly hundreds of times a day. The well known cut, copy, paste, undo, re-do, new document, find, close and switching between apps, and many more.

But as I say, these are second nature to me over years of learning and using them. Many times on these very forums for instance, I have given people a list of keyboard shortcuts to make text editing on their Macs or iPads much easier and quicker.

Even though these people have been using the apps for years, they were completely unaware of the time saving shortcuts. Which, I think, says volumes about how easy Apple makes it for people to even be aware they exist.

I often recommend a wonderful little app called CheatSheet for Mac. This works in exactly the same way as the Apple method on iPad, whereby you hold the Cmd button down, and you are presented with a list of available shortcuts for whatever you are using. CheatSheet is a wonderful way to make life easier and to learn the myriad shortcuts available on the Mac.

 

[Madonepro]

I've had one since 2016 without it breaking. How often does yours break?

I'm the same, no breakage for me, it's never frozen, and I've been using better touch, and I love it. Especially selecting emoji's

 

[theSeb]

Hate is a very strong word. I do not hate the touch bar. I think that the idea of a secondary screen on a keyboard is not a bad one and I can see how people who glance down at the keyboard a lot would find it useful to have important app functionality quickly and clearly accessible via a touch bar interface.

The trouble with the idea is that there are many of us who do not look at the keyboard and rely on the function keys always being in the same place. I do not often change my keyboard or screen brightness, so I have the function keys enabled by default.

I use many applications where I am always using the function keys because they are shortcuts For example, F5 does something and Shift + F5 does something similar and so forth. Touch bar functionality is not useful to me. I can rely on F5 always being in the same place and my muscle memory can help to easily find it and not touch something else.

People have mentioned Teams, and other such applications, that include commonly used functions like a mute button on the touch bar. I am not sure how that is more useful than just using the mute button in the teams GUI itself. Personally I just memorise shortcuts. Cmd + shift + M to toggle mute on and off quickly. As a bonus the shortcut is similar when I have to use Teams on a Windows machine (ctrl + shift + m). That, to me, is far more useful than a separate button on a touch screen taking up the function keys.

I think a much better solution overall would have been to find a way to integrate a touch bar into the design without taking away the function keys. When you take away functionality and replace it with something that is arguably not as useful that is regression. I think this is the main reason why some people do not like the touch bar.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Those on here don’t really count towards my comment I’m afraid to say.

Pretty easy to win an argument when you frame the argument and then discount all dissenting voices. Well done. SMH

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Pretty easy to win an argument when you frame the argument and then discount all dissenting voices. Well done. SMH

Thanks. I wasn’t trying to win an argument though as I said ‘people I know’. I don’t know anybody on this forum personally and it’s not a particularly good datum for finding a popular opinion really. For example hundreds of people here may own an iPhone 12 Pro or 12 Pro Max. I know one single person in my social/work groups that owns one, so enthusiasts aren’t always the best people to judge a popular opinion off. The same can be said of the Touchbar on a Mac. It may be disliked on the whole here but not generally.

I hadn’t realised you were being serious with your previous comment either.

 

[bobcomer]

Would be terrible to see it go just because some people insist on having function keys to adjust the volume and play/pause media when the Touch Bar has that functionality, can be a function row on a per app basis, and can be customized nearly any way you like with BetterTouchTool.

Some people actually use the function keys, F1, F2, ... for function keys for the software they use. Getting rid of those effected our work a LOT. I never used those keys to change volume and whatever else they do.

I really think they should have added the touch bar, rather than putting it in place of that key row.

 

[Okasian]

There are people literally chose the MacBook Air despite the inferior specs, just because they want the actual full keyboard.

🙋‍♂️ Yep, that's me also.

“Why do people hate the Touch Bar?”

Because it’s not optional on the Pro’s. If it was optional, or for ‘prosumers’ on the entry level Air, it would have made more sense.

I step through code, most days, with F6 – F10 keys being used all the time. I need tactility, not an Emoji bar.

 

[JMacHack]

Former Touchbar defender here, because I keep fat-fingering the damned thing. I can’t control iTunes when safari is the active window, and muscle memory doesn’t transfer even between Apple’s own keyboards, let alone the mechanical one I use at home.

It was a nice gimmick when new, and using it to run shell scripts with better touch tool was neat. Unfortunately that didn’t outweigh its faults. Neat little experiment while it lasted.

 

[gustavopi]

I love the Touch Bar, but the click is heavy and does not work well in some parts. Now that is old, is also heavy, more like a crack. I wish to change it, but I understand why not everybody like it. Thought is not well developed and it physical buttons are missing, at list as optional.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Recently traded my MBP 2018 15' for a MBA M1 and lost having a touchbar.

Several things I miss about the touchbar ....

Brightness and Volume sliders are just more precise vs button pressing increments.
Touchbar was great for some DAWs, plugins, and photo editing software.
I kind of got used to using emojis from the touch bar and miss the ease of use.
Used touchbar a lot with Airmail and screenshot.

Do I feel the touchbar was necessary? NO, but it was nice to have.

 

[spiderman0616]

I can't decide if I care about it or not, and I think that's the problem Apple is probably running into with a lot of their customers. I have it on my work MacBook Pro, and when it works well, it's AMAZING. I love having controls for PowerPoint decks right when I need them, and it's so nice for stuff like phone calls, FaceTime, Zoom, etc. I even use it with the Twitter app sometimes.

Where I DON'T like it is if I just need to type, type, type and not worry about what's on the TouchBar. I know you can force it to always switch back to function keys when it's not doing anything else, but I really like the function keys to be physical, since I'm a touch-typer 99% of the time.

So when I'm using the apps that are really well suited for TouchBar, I love it. When I'm using apps that aren't, I don't want it there. Most of the time I just end up ignoring it completely, which is why I keep saying that I don't really care if they get rid of it or not. I hope it's not one of those "don't know what you've got until it's gone" type of situations if they do axe it. But I guess if Tim Cook called and asked MY opinion, I'd have to tell him to get rid of it. More often than not, I really don't want it there.

 

[spiderman0616]

I love the Touch Bar, but the click is heavy and does not work well in some parts. Now that is old, is also heavy, more like a crack. I wish to change it, but I understand why not everybody like it. Thought is not well developed and it physical buttons are missing, at list as optional.

I feel like you're maybe talking about the mouse pad area. The TouchBar doesn't make any sound unless you hit the power button or the Esc key.

 

[justin0712]

I like the TB for the most part. It has its use case. about 15-20% of the time it does get into the way.

I feel the best use for it is scrubbing right through YouTube Ads. Literally has saved me from the Premium subscription.

 

[spiderman0616]

I like the TB for the most part. It has its use case. about 15-20% of the time it does get into the way.

I feel the best use for it is scrubbing right through YouTube Ads. Literally has saved me from the Premium subscription.

It's so amazing for little things like that and those situations pop up all over the place. But for me it's always like a nice surprise and then I forget all about it. Like someone else mentioned, I think Apple was on the right track here, but I think developers just don't care about it. I'm sure they have their reasons, but I really do wish that most apps had some kind of TouchBar integration. I would use it daily if that were the case.

 

[macrem]

To each her/his own. Practically my only regret with the M1 Air is the lack of a Touchbar. Since the M1 Air is an excellent Pro machine (for Devs), hopefully future iterations will offer a Touchbar option.