Pissed off by Apple's current MacBook lineup

[wegster]

I'm pretty sure Apple as a company doesn't care as much about the negatives until several public outings over many years (e.g. how they handled the keyboard mishaps). I would not be surprised if product managers were vetoed by their superiors because ultimately the bottom line is sales and supply chain optimization. The irony about this is you would complain for several years, and then when Apple addresses the concern, some people are so thrilled and excited that Apple listened to them. It just goes to show you how patient the vocal minority is and how Apple has a good grasp of "toying" with their audience.

Unfortunately for some like myself, we do development on Macbook Pros, so we need to update our machines every couple years. The touchbar works fine for volume and display sliders, but otherwise has been mostly useless. I do miss physical function keys as I had actually used them. I can see how some creatives or people that don't memorize hotkeys could consider the touchbar (via 3rd party tools like BTT comically) to be valuable to them. I would find it a miracle if they removed the touchbar in favor of physical F keys again. Apple's not known to backtrack a touted core feature on one of their center pieces. I believe the way Apple is handling the iPad Pro with an external keyboard is evidence that they feel the iPad Pro would not be capable of standing alone with just a touch screen keyboard.

Spot on on the first paragraph. It would be nice to think 'Apple listened,' and certainly, it's possible, but it's also likely they saw a decline/direct impact on $ - that forced them to go look into the why and make changes.

Also in the camp of - thanks for something not only do I not want to pay for, I don't want, but also interferes with my workflows including coding. How anyone thought a 'virtual' ESC key was a 'winner' - just speechless, marketing over thinking.

Touch ID itself is OK, although for me running it in home or work office (yeah, whenever that's allowed again...) on a stand, next to a 38" or 2x 27" displays, well - it could be positioned differently (side or front embedded into case, or with the arrow keys), but it's OK. Separate ESC key + a return to scissor keyboard = fine, I can finally buy another MBP at all. The only marginally useful Touch Bar thing I've seen so far, for my use, is when I plug in an external display, it shows the display connection options. It's 'fine' - wouldn't pay for it, but it's convenient for 2% of the time it's taking up space on my keyboard, which is more than it would have been previously. It is at least more 'useful' than it was at launch, and if some creatives, photo and video editors can use it to their benefit - am fine with that. For IDEs and such where mapping to FN keys for e.g. stepping through code debugging...I use an external UHK (which I really wish had separate arrow keys, but their extra keys are better than other splt or micro-keyboards), so basically don't use the laptop kb much, or undoubtedly it would piss me off further.

 

[c0ppo]

For instance, IntelliJ shows some useful buttons depending on which workflow you are in:

Touch bar support | IntelliJ IDEA

www.jetbrains.com

Coupled with a physical Esc key now on the 16" MacBook, it is... useful for coding work.

All those IntelliJ 'buttons' you can actually achieve with keyboard shortcuts, or a single (real!) button push.
And all of that you can do without looking away from your screen. Something that is completely impossible with touchbar.

I would argue that it's a lot easier to press F9 to build, then searching for a icon in touchbar.
And developers tend to use keyboard shortcuts. And a lot of them.

 

[bill-p]

All those IntelliJ 'buttons' you can actually achieve with keyboard shortcuts, or a single (real!) button push.
And all of that you can do without looking away from your screen. Something that is completely impossible with touchbar.

I would argue that it's a lot easier to press F9 to build, then searching for a icon in touchbar.
And developers tend to use keyboard shortcuts. And a lot of them.

The buttons on the Touch Bar are always at the same location, I don't have to look at the Touch Bar at all.

Keyboard shortcuts work as well. I know. I use them all the time at work and at home. And yes, I am a professional developer. That's how I knew about this.

But it's just to say... the Touch Bar is actually displaying and doing something useful now, instead of just being a flat row of function keys. It's not a replacement for an actual physical function key. It's just a decent alternative now, as opposed to being completely useless like before.

 

[c0ppo]

The buttons on the Touch Bar are always at the same location, I don't have to look at the Touch Bar at all.

Neither do you have to look at F-keys, right? And you can even feel them, and get tactile feedback.
And it's a lot easier to make a accidental click/touch on touchbar, then it is on real keys. I think we can agree on this one?

It's not a replacement for an actual physical function key. It's just a decent alternative now, as opposed to being completely useless like before.

English isn't my native language, so excuse me if this comes out harsh, I really don't mean it that way.
It's not a replacement of F-keys, but an alternative? Forgive me, I tend to use those F-keys. A lot. And that alternative is completely useless and ruins my workflow. And it's not just me, I still have yet to meet a professional user in real life that likes touchbar. And there are tons of threads in this subforum alone about how people hate or dislike touchbar.

Some basic actions are even harder with touchbar. Take for example IntelliJ. I tend to listen to music while I work. Some instrumental sounds with low volume. If I want to control that music, IntelliJ is there with their strip controls already. Only way pass this problem is with a 3rd party paid app.

With F-Keys I got all of that for free. Had actual keys as well. They didn't drain battery life, and I could see them in bright light with ease.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad touch bar works for you. But there are many that simply dislike it, or even hate it. It's a shame there is no option to opt out of touch bar. I have a strong feeling there would be a minority that would choose it. Especially if it would mean more $$$ for touch bar option.

 

[bill-p]

It's okay. I can tell you have not used a Touch Bar at all.

Trust me, I'm not advocating for it. What I'm simply trying to say is "it's less useless than before".

For instance, you still can control your music with the Touch Bar in IntelliJ with all those buttons. That's because the IntelliJ buttons are displayed only on the left side. The right side will have your 4 configurable buttons always, and a sliding option to access the other regular controls like media control for previous/play/pause/next. You get this by default, no third-party app necessary. And this is true of any other app that makes use of the Touch Bar (or not). The 4 configurable buttons and the slider are always there.

It's not perfect, but it works.

Despite it being more useful, I still hate it. Simple as that. I've had to put up with it for years at work, then I finally got a 13" MacBook Pro at home when my 2015 15" bit the dust, and now I have the 16". I know very well how much I still hate the Touch Bar.

Yes, I still would prefer to have real physical keys, but... since I can't, and I have to put up with the Touch Bar, I have learned to make it less useless. Let's put it that way.