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The Out-of-Touch Bar is a UI/UX disaster.

boodle

boodle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 12, 2004
145
113
More than two years in and I have yet to find anyone who thinks this is a good idea.
  • Time waster not a time saver; decreases efficiency and removes one-touch access to critical functions like volume and brightness control. Hidden sliders? Really? Look down, locate, touch to expand, locate the slider widget, then move it? Bonkers.
  • Too closed. It wouldn't be so bad if Apple allowed sets that would be activated by a physical key. Example: fn-ctrl brings up my custom set of discrete buttons. Being limited to five global buttons on the right is ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the inevitable "keyless keyboard" with pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback but it's got to be "eyes free" as well.
 
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SDColorado

SDColorado

macrumors 601
Nov 6, 2011
4,360
4,324
Highlands Ranch, CO
boodle said:
More than two years in and I have yet to find anyone who thinks this is a good idea.
  • Time waster not a time saver; decreases efficiency and removes one-touch access to critical functions like volume and brightness control. Hidden sliders? Really? Look down, locate, touch to expand, locate the slider widget, then move it? Bonkers.
  • Too closed. It wouldn't be so bad if Apple allowed sets that would be activated by a physical key. Example: fn-ctrl brings up my custom set of discrete buttons. Being limited to four global buttons on the right is ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the inevitable "keyless keyboard" with pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback but it's got to be "eyes free" as well.
Click to expand...

Oh, it has its fans, though I am not sure for the life of me why. I do agree it is a time waster on par with the widget spinner :)
 
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J

jas5279

macrumors member
Dec 21, 2016
67
9
boodle said:
More than two years in and I have yet to find anyone who thinks this is a good idea.
  • Time waster not a time saver; decreases efficiency and removes one-touch access to critical functions like volume and brightness control. Hidden sliders? Really? Look down, locate, touch to expand, locate the slider widget, then move it? Bonkers.
  • Too closed. It wouldn't be so bad if Apple allowed sets that would be activated by a physical key. Example: fn-ctrl brings up my custom set of discrete buttons. Being limited to four global buttons on the right is ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the inevitable "keyless keyboard" with pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback but it's got to be "eyes free" as well.
Click to expand...
SDColorado said:
Oh, it has its fans, though I am not sure for the life of me why. I do agree it is a time waster on par with the widget spinner :)
Click to expand...

Never used a MBP with the touchbar. Controlling brightness (up and down) and volume (up and down) from F1, F2, F10, F11, F12 keys is my daily usage thing. I use these buttons VERY VERY often. So you are telling me if I upgrade to a MBP with touchbar, I will no longer be able to use these until I do this "Look down, locate, touch to expand, locate the slider widget, then move it"? This is going to be quite a problem. Can we not just use the touchbar like the traditional F keys if we have zero interest in using any of the other utilities of the touchbar?
 
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boodle

boodle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 12, 2004
145
113
jas5279 said:
Never used a MBP with the touchbar. Controlling brightness (up and down) and volume (up and down) from F1, F2, F10, F11, F12 keys is my daily usage thing. I use these buttons VERY VERY often. So you are telling me if I upgrade to a MBP with touchbar, I will no longer be able to use these until I do this "Look down, locate, touch to expand, locate the slider widget, then move it"? This is going to be quite a problem. Can we not just use the touchbar like the traditional F keys if we have zero interest in using any of the other utilities of the touchbar?
Click to expand...
  • Some customization is available but it's per-app and limited in scope. You could sacrifice some of your globals on the right for access to discrete volume and brightness buttons but you'd still have to look down to find them; exactly what I want to avoid when changing these parameters.
  • There are no physical key triggers for switching modes in Touch Bar outside of the fn key. This makes no sense.
  • BetterTouchTool offers a lot of needed functionality but doesn't solve my biggest gripes.
  • Don't get me started about the lack of a physical esc key.
 
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poorcody

poorcody

macrumors 65816
Jul 23, 2013
1,340
1,585
boodle said:
  • BetterTouchTool offers a lot of needed functionality but doesn't solve my biggest gripes.
Click to expand...
Your gripes are all solved with BetterTouchTool (sans the no-feedback ESC key). Should that functionally be included natively? Yeah, I think so. But nonetheless, it's available, and I find the myriad Touchbar macros we setup and share at our company very productive. There have been numerous threads on this forum describing useful ways it can be utilized.
 
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thepyrate

thepyrate

macrumors newbie
Nov 3, 2017
10
20
Australia
You still do have one touch access to brightness, audio, etc - simply press and hold for half a second, then it becomes a slider. I actually find it vastly more efficient than the buttons ever were. Once I figured that out, any dislike I had for the Touch Bar disappeared. I'm disappointed it didn't find its way onto the iMac Pro Magic Keyboard.
 
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maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
I'm not a fan of the touchbar, I'm also of the opinion that for most uses, its less efficient. Overall any time you have to take your hand off the keyboard, and eyes off the screen to initiate an action, its less efficient then if you could execute a key combination while still looking at the screen.

Also, Apple has dropped the ball by not including the TB in other Mac models, or external keyboards. This reduces any possible motivation for developers to embrace the touchbar imo.
 
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A

AppleHaterLover

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2018
2,048
2,051
Biggest problem with the Touch bar is human.

Since they need to leave the volume up/down and mute buttons so you can easily turn off any questionable content you might be watching in case someone comes, the Touch Bar is really only 1/2 of that display.

The "function keys" are not function keys anymore, they have at least 7 different purposes (Exposé, brightness etc.). The reason they're good is because of muscle memory - it's no good if they're changing with every app.

So the Touch bar has a fundamental flaw (stuff is being shuffled around all the time), and only half of it is actually available.
 
poorcody

poorcody

macrumors 65816
Jul 23, 2013
1,340
1,585
We've recently been wishing the Touchbar was twice as high so we could fit more macros in without using modifier keys! :)

I am really hoping the imminent Mac announcement includes a Touchbar external keyboard (or monitor). If they don't do it now, then it will appear the Touchbar will be relegated to only the MacBooks (Pros). I'm impressed that developers have embraced it, in that most apps have support for it (credit to Xcode there), despite it being in a minority of Macs. But they need external keyboards to prove its long-term viability.

As for adjusting volume (or brightness), I swipe across the entire Touchbar with two fingers to adjust the volume. Don't need to look, don't need to press a certain "button", don't need the brightness/volume button to appear in the Touchbar. This is a feature of BTT -- and something Apple should include natively.
 
C

chabig

macrumors G4
Sep 6, 2002
11,460
9,326
thepyrate said:
You still do have one touch access to brightness, audio, etc - simply press and hold for half a second, then it becomes a slider. I actually find it vastly more efficient than the buttons ever were. Once I figured that out, any dislike I had for the Touch Bar disappeared. I'm disappointed it didn't find its way onto the iMac Pro Magic Keyboard.
Click to expand...
You don't even have to hold it for half a second. Just touch and drag.
 
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mdbradigan

mdbradigan

macrumors regular
Oct 28, 2014
125
227
Nashville, TN area
I recently got a 2018 MBP and actually found myself surprised to find the TB somewhat novel. I actually don't hate it like I thought I would. Were it placed above the function keys, I would find it truly excellent. As-is, I mostly just find it kind of "meh". But - that's actually a big step up from the loathing I thought I might have.

Fwiw - were apple to sell an external keyboard with TB + function keys (I mostly use my laptop in clamshell with externals, likely another reason the TB doesn't make me crazy), I would actually purchase it in a heartbeat. (but I would never buy one with a TB replacing f-row)
 
fokmik

fokmik

Suspended
Oct 28, 2016
4,909
4,688
USA
BorderingOn said:
What if they had left the function row and added the Touch Bar above or to the sides?
Click to expand...
too much...i love to use the flick on volume brightness track etc...also when i had function keys i had to look down to see on what im typing
ANd for me the aluminium frame and the touchbar is already the "ESC" feedback
 
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buran-energia

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2017
298
115
AppleHaterLover said:
So your fellow iPhone-owning socialist hipsters can know you paid $500 more for your laptop than them?
Click to expand...

Where is 500$ from? The base non-TB base vs TB-base? TB already has 256 GB instead of 128, so it's more of a 300$ difference. I'd gladly pay the 300$ difference for the touch bar, touch id, 2 fans instead of 1 (better cooling, less noise, less heat, less throttle), 4 ports vs 2, better cpu and gpu, and a ~33% faster wifi (according to wiki).

I can also remap "§" to esc if I need a physical esc key. And I kind of like the touch bar. I think even adjusting brightness and volume is better on the touch bar, because you can simply touch and hold, then drag and adjust it by a more precise amount.
 
navaira

navaira

macrumors 68040
May 28, 2015
3,936
5,161
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Touch Bar Shot 2018-10-17 at 21.44.56.png

Two-fingers drag: volume up/down
Three-fingers drag: screen brightness up/down

I love TB paired with BetterTouchTool.
 
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