Looking back now, was the TouchBar dead on arrival?

[mrmister]

I'm not a fan of the TouchBar—it's in front of me right now on my MBP, and after two years of trying to use it in different ways, I gave up and have it set to simply pretend to be buttons all the time, which makes it clearly worse than, say, buttons.

This isn't another thread about whether it's good or not—it's instead about, as far as I can tell, nothing evolved on the software side from the introduction of the touchbar in November of 2016, just about five years ago. It was introduced in Sierra, and has been present for the five following versions of MacOS, including Monterey—but I don't recall (and some quick research seems to confirm) that it basically never changed in all that time.

There was no TouchBar 2, there was no evolution on hardware...and there was no evolution on software, either. I *think* a couple of widgets became available that weren't before, but honestly it seems like it was exactly the same for the last five years.

That's weird in Apple products—usually something is getting incrementally better, or it is leaving.

Now that it is gone, I'm wondering—did they decide early on it wasn't a thing?

 

[Phil77354]

Some users like it. Others do not.

Not every design decision is going to be received with universal love. Good for Apple in trying different features. Some stick, others don't.

So to answer your question, in my opinion it was not dead on arrival. It was a new feature they decided to offer, and after a couple of years they've found that it wasn't popular enough to keep it on their newest models. Simple as that.

 

[fel10]

Yeah, the novelty wore off after a week. But it was neat seeing the videos of people playing some games on it, especially DOOM

 

[mrmister]

"So to answer your question, in my opinion it was not dead on arrival. It was a new feature they decided to offer, and after a couple of years they've found that it wasn't popular enough to keep it on their newest models. Simple as that."

It doesn't seem that simple—it's really weird that there was never any software development for it. They really never thought of any new uses for it? It's extremely weird, especially over five years.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Another design decision involving "courage", right Phil? Yeah, it was DOA for many users, including myself.

Clearly a solution looking for a problem.

 

[Loge]

It would have stood more chance if it was in addition to the Fn keys, and not instead of.

 

[Big Bad D]

Touchbar worked OK, but not going to miss it. But not sure Apple did most to make advantage of it.

 

[fehhkk]

It worked OK, but sometimes I didn't realize it was even there.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

It doesn't seem that simple—it's really weird that there was never any software development for it. They really never thought of any new uses for it? It's extremely weird, especially over five years.

I think it was one of the ideas that didn't work out:

• Many people didn't like it, including developers, so that a lot of them had no inspiration to do interesting things.
• Developers and software companies saw that the TB would not become an essential part of the Apple ecosystem: Apple never released a keyboard for its desktop computers with a TB. So why develop when it would benefit only a minority of Apple users?

 

[mrmister]

That’s true, the absence of a touchbar external keyboard definitely signaled that this was a niche thing.

 

[ipponrg]

I'm not a fan of the TouchBar—it's in front of me right now on my MBP, and after two years of trying to use it in different ways, I gave up and have it set to simply pretend to be buttons all the time, which makes it clearly worse than, say, buttons.

This isn't another thread about whether it's good or not—it's instead about, as far as I can tell, nothing evolved on the software side from the introduction of the touchbar in November of 2016, just about five years ago. It was introduced in Sierra, and has been present for the five following versions of MacOS, including Monterey—but I don't recall (and some quick research seems to confirm) that it basically never changed in all that time.

There was no TouchBar 2, there was no evolution on hardware...and there was no evolution on software, either. I *think* a couple of widgets became available that weren't before, but honestly it seems like it was exactly the same for the last five years.

That's weird in Apple products—usually something is getting incrementally better, or it is leaving.

Now that it is gone, I'm wondering—did they decide early on it wasn't a thing?

I don't think the Touch Bar was DOA. Apple had plenty of time to expand its uses (i.e. literally copy what BTT did), but they just never did. I think their neglect after the release is what primarily caused it to fail.

Deep down, I feel Apple (or Tim Cook) was trying hard to be different for the sake of being different. As a result, the touchbar is basically a gimmick for many. It solved very niched problems that most don't care for, and arguably it even created more problems due to its existence.

 

[terminator-jq]

The Touch Bar could have been very cool but it wasn’t given the support it needed nor did it really show any ground breaking use case. I remember getting the 2016 model on launch day and being underwhelmed with the Touch Bar. Every WWDC, I would hope that Apple would bring some ground breaking features to the Touch Bar… but it never happened. For most of the software that actually did have touchbar support, the functions on the TB could easily be done on the main screen in about as much time as it took to look down at the Touch Bar.

New technology should make life easier, give the user more power and open up new possibilities. The touchbar didn’t really do those things and Apple didn’t do anything to push things in the right direction.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Seemed like a better option would have been to build the Touch Bar into the Track Pad, but someone else beat them to it.

 

[Cape Dave]

Yes.

 

[lefkonj]

I actually like the Touch Bar and would gladly have kept it and given up MagSafe/HDMI/SD. I use it regularly and find its functions helpful. Will I adapt to life without it? Definitely but I don't understand moving backwards, never have.

 

[ururk]

I really think they should have focused on individual keys with integrated displays for each one. It would have been terribly expensive, and would have limited the kinds of things the bar shows (ie, no type suggestions), but my biggest gripe, besides it being sluggish/buggy, is my inability to press it with muscle memory. I have to look at it to see what it is currently showing, and then press it somewhere in the vicinity of the symbol being shown. While I am pretty confident I can multitask, the very act of "hunting" for a particular key/function can sometimes take me out of the moment.

A physical key has a raised surface, border, and a fixed purpose (or multiple fixed via fn), and is reliable.

Will I miss it on my 14"? Heck no.

 

[haruhiko]

it’s the Microsoft office ribbon interface equivalent in the Apple world.

 

[hipnotizer]

After moving from the 13 inch M1 to the 14 inch Max I didn’t once think to myself “oh my gosh I miss the Touch Bar”.

I basically only used it for volume and brightness. I found it useless although it looked kinda pretty.