It all depends if the individual developers implement the Touch Bar controls! It hit or miss in this area and depends on the if the program is software, shareware or big programs it is hit or miss!
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Why do people hate the Touch Bar?
- Thread starter antisomnic
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I have a love / hate relationship with the touchbar.
I often love tech for tech’s sake, new gadgets because it’s new and interesting. There are also some apps that make really good use of it, putting common controls right on the keyboard and showing how useful it can be.
But… that accounts for 10% of what I need to use the touchbar / function keys for. The other 90% is slower and more awkward. Muscle memory is gone. I have to stop, look, think, rather than just aim at a button knowing it’ll be there.
I recently changed from a MBP with the touchbar to an M1 Air and at first it felt like a downgrade, but the usability and consistency of knowing exactly where to aim (especially when I switch between the Air’s keyboard and a Magic keyboard) wins for me.
I often love tech for tech’s sake, new gadgets because it’s new and interesting. There are also some apps that make really good use of it, putting common controls right on the keyboard and showing how useful it can be.
But… that accounts for 10% of what I need to use the touchbar / function keys for. The other 90% is slower and more awkward. Muscle memory is gone. I have to stop, look, think, rather than just aim at a button knowing it’ll be there.
I recently changed from a MBP with the touchbar to an M1 Air and at first it felt like a downgrade, but the usability and consistency of knowing exactly where to aim (especially when I switch between the Air’s keyboard and a Magic keyboard) wins for me.
I have a mouse and a track pad set up on my 16" using a 24" LG Monitor. I just like both at times for different things.
Liked the Touch Bar but haven't missed it since I went to a monitor.
Liked the Touch Bar but haven't missed it since I went to a monitor.
People hate the TouchBar as it changes content depending on which app you are currently in.
For a people who type - this brings confusion as you consantly have to look at the TB to be sure you pressed the right thing.
However - this can be easily disabled in the Preferences and problem is solved.
For a people who type - this brings confusion as you consantly have to look at the TB to be sure you pressed the right thing.
However - this can be easily disabled in the Preferences and problem is solved.
You (meaning anyone looking at this observation and wishing they could do this even without a touchbar), simply go to the Keyboard preference pane, and Shortcuts tab. Then 'Screenshots' on the left. Any key can be set as the shortcut - I use F13, not least because I use a PC keyboard on my iMac, and that's the PrtSc key.
Function keys are like MS DOS! Useless.
All this talk of accidentally hitting when typing is nonsense. When being taught in the military to touch type, as in commercial teaching programs too, the hardest heys to hit re the numbers! No touch typing course teaches the function row, and other than sound and volume, and F5, I’ve never used it again!
For a forum of tech nerds, the backwards thinking shown is incredulous, here is an opportunity to use a space on a compute to customise and make it personal, and all read is b*tch and moans.
Good to know that you speak for all of mankind.
Again, I sold my MBP and purchased an M1 MBA, in large part to escape the half-@$$ed implementation of a bad idea... (see, I have an opinion, too - and mine is as equally accurate for me, as yours is for you).
If you have nothing more to offer than some "I'm technically superior" chest pounding, let's move on...
The lack of a physical escape key on the 2016-2019 13" and 15" MacBook Pros was a real problem. Developers use the crap out of the physical escape key, but even if you want to force quit an app and your Touch Bar freezes, that's no bueno.
I'd imagine the rest of the hate stems from the fact that many feel that it's needless. Though, once the physical escape key came back, I stopped hating on it. It's a cool idea, but for it to only be on MacBook Pros seems inherently limiting and not the kind of thing that developers are going to rush out and update their apps for, necessarily. If they found a way to bring it to their standalone keyboard and the Air, that'd be something else. But I think there are a lot of people who would at least hate it being on the Air.
Love how when you suggest a view, different to some others, you are classed as opinionated, wrong and elitist.
What I see as the major implementation issue with the TouchBar, has been the developers; both within Apple and outside, innovating within that space. It has the potential, which BetterTouchTool has demonstrated, but seemingly reticent development elsewhere.
Why so? The purpose of them is to be contextual, to become a specific function. The fact that Apple update their function keys with the current round of MacBooks suggests that there is still a place for them.
You say contextual, but they aren't. Neither intuitive or adaptable. That, I believe is why the TouchBar could have been a success.
The buttons can be assigned to whatever function you like, regardless what graphic is printed on them. Hence, 'function keys'. That's not to say that they're going to change automatically depending on the application that's open, but the real issue is that when the Touch Bar is in 'App Controls' mode (as per Sys. Pref.), the controls themselves are no more useful than simply using keyboard shortcuts or clicking on said function with the pointer. Even the Emoji picker, which Apple touted heavily in its marketing for the Touch Bar, can now be accessed simply through the Function key, which Apple recently updated.
And with respect; that you say 'could' have been a success is telling of the whole story. Apple hasn't bothered to update the Touch Bar in any way, let alone a meaningful one. To me that says it all, and I feel that if developers - Apple included - truly believed that this technology should be here to stay, then we would see more innovative uses of it.
Actually, I use DOS regularly.
But thanks for mistaking what are rather uninteresting personal opinions for fact.
Because it’s not meaningfully superior for anything, I hate keys with too much or too little travel, and most importantly:
It looks effing absurd and ruins the damn symmetry profile of the laptop. If they keep it or bring it to the Air, then I’m on a one way ticket to Windows laptops again lol (and by then they’ll be much improved efficiency-wise if only because AMD will be using Zen 4 & TSMC 5NM)
Screw the touchbar, just release more iPad keyboard models for people who admire the jewelry.
It looks effing absurd and ruins the damn symmetry profile of the laptop. If they keep it or bring it to the Air, then I’m on a one way ticket to Windows laptops again lol (and by then they’ll be much improved efficiency-wise if only because AMD will be using Zen 4 & TSMC 5NM)
Screw the touchbar, just release more iPad keyboard models for people who admire the jewelry.
Hopefully, it will be a configurable option. I would go for it as I do for maximized CPU, RAM, and disk
According to you perhaps.
If I want a touch screen I grab my ipad. Personally I don't want fingerprints all over my mac book screen. I have a mouse that does quite nicely thank you.
Yes!
100% correct.
My 2019 and 2020 MBP have touchbars and never use them unless I have to.
I have for the past 3 decades have used the Function keys.....
1. Extremely low quality display.
2. No haptic feedback, despite Apple's universal success at replacing physical buttons with haptics.
3. A terrible replacement for physical buttons.
4. No realized application for the fantasy ideas it launched with.
The Touch Bar is a failure. Not only because the idea/concept did not blossom as they had hoped, but because it is such a half cocked effort on their part.
2. No haptic feedback, despite Apple's universal success at replacing physical buttons with haptics.
3. A terrible replacement for physical buttons.
4. No realized application for the fantasy ideas it launched with.
The Touch Bar is a failure. Not only because the idea/concept did not blossom as they had hoped, but because it is such a half cocked effort on their part.
That solves one problem, but not all of them. It's still a touchscreen, meaning it's easy to accidentally press yet offers no tactile feedback to indicate if it's activated. It simply doesn't belong as part of a physical keyboard.
Yeah - comparing the base configuration of both models: same exact CPU. M1 Pro has brighter screen, larger battery, faster charger, and a few other technically "higher" specs (including, of course, the Touch Bar), but the computing power is the same.
I want a touch screen on my smartphone and my tablet. I have no use for one on my laptops and/or desktops. The last laptop I had with a touchscreen I may have used that feature twice in five years of using the machine. You need a UI designed for touch first and foremost to make it a preferred interface option, and neither Mac OS nor Windows have gone to a touch-first approach for their UI.