Touch Bar discussion [merged]

[ZMacintosh]

if you could replace the onscreen dock to a touchbar dock, that'd definitely be to me an improvement. always accessibly on each space/screen, and have better full screen capabilities.

I guess you think I never leave the house? I guess you missed where I mentioned the early trackpads made for the Apple II? I guess you conclude a statement with a question mark?

Wacom had big success -- in a very focused market. It never got very far outside visual design, though. Wacom only sells two models (or two variants of one model) of plain touchpads now anyway -- the rest of their lineup are "pen displays" and the super-niche pencil-and-paper smart notepads.

Wacom is not that huge outside a few design houses, its not a consumer grade product for every user. besides their cintiqs are huge and clunky and very obnoxious.

If Apple made a display or iMac with the similarities of a drawing screen + all in one that would perhaps be innovative with this current regime. I dont mean a full touch screen Mac (I agree with apple theyre just not purposeful on MacBooks or iMacs.). But being able to use the way better Apple Pencil on a high res retina screen, than a clunky Cintiq would be a huge night and day difference.

 

[JohnnyGo]

if you could replace the onscreen dock to a touchbar dock, that'd definitely be to me an improvement. always accessibly on each space/screen, and have better full screen capabilities.




Wacom is not that huge outside a few design houses, its not a consumer grade product for every user. besides their cintiqs are huge and clunky and very obnoxious.

If Apple made a display or iMac with the similarities of a drawing screen + all in one that would perhaps be innovative with this current regime. I dont mean a full touch screen Mac (I agree with apple theyre just not purposeful on MacBooks or iMacs.). But being able to use the way better Apple Pencil on a high res retina screen, than a clunky Cintiq would be a huge night and day difference.

Interesting. Large trackpad + Apple pencil = drawing tablet

 

[vinsalducci]

Check out Rocket. It comes pretty close to replacing the dock with the Touch Bar. It's a beta, but a solid effort. Will get Sherlocked for sure by Apple.

 

[ZMacintosh]

Interesting. Large trackpad + Apple pencil = drawing tablet

as a designer, its much better to have a canvas directly under you like drawing on a traditional format (paper, easel, etc). drawing on external sources does not seem appealing. So having a full sized desktop or display to do so would make a lot more sense.

Track pad is just too clicky as well, you can definitely withhold the force touch but its not a component drawing surface. What could be done for external drawing is use the iPad line up as a way to plug in or wireless connect into "Drawing/Studio mode" and use that great screen as a drawing pad instead.

 

[TheBacklash]

Sorry if it's been posted before...
For those that really want their function keys as well as the touchbar!

(I have no idea if this is even a real thing, just saw the picture searching for something else and had to post it.)

 

[randyj]

After having been using it for a week, I am afraid that I still dont see the point of the touch bar. Here is why:

Any actions/buttons I can configure into it is already available on the screen, right? The touch bar essentially duplicates options rather than creating new ones. Well, since our eye focus is on the screen 99% of the time, it is far more convenient to simply drag my cursor to the screen button than to lower my eye line onto the keyboard and physically reach out with my hand to the touch bar.

I have tried over and over again, and I always find it more convenient to interact with my software via the screen than via the touch bar. Therefore, and until I discover a new use for the touch bar, I am afraid that it is a gimmick for me.

I feel the same, however have only used one in store.
A few years ago I took a black marker to my work keyboard (black keyboard) and blacked out all the alphabet letters.
People would sometimes come in and say check out this website, and go to type and then be completely freaked out.
I would just laugh and then type it in for them. I learnt to touch type as soon as I started using computers so to go back to looking down again would be annoying.

 

[avalon68]

Sorry if it's been posted before...
For those that really want their function keys as well as the touchbar!

(I have no idea if this is even a real thing, just saw the picture searching for something else and had to post it.)

Great until you forget its there and close the screen down :O

 

[Apple_Robert]

Check out Rocket. It comes pretty close to replacing the dock with the Touch Bar. It's a beta, but a solid effort. Will get Sherlocked for sure by Apple.

It doesn't seem to stay in the touch bar. Once you open an app and close it, rocket disappears from the touch bar, and you have to go back into applications and start it again, unless I am doing something wrong.

Edited to add: I now see that you have to use the shortcut command (Command +`) to bring the display back to the touch bar.

 

[edgeQV]

I've written a simple, open source Spotify controller in Swift with TouchBar support. Check it out!
https://github.com/xzzz9097/Muse

 

[davetwo]

So - my MBP has arrived. First thing I've noticed is that it's REALLY easy to accidentally touch the keys in the touchbar. Where the old 'real' keys needed some pressure to activate them - the touchbar is activated when your hands brush over it when typing. Especially irritating if you have 'esc to enter' enabled.

Also, simple things like reducing the volume now require a touch to open the dialogue - then another touch to change. This feels like an extra step compared to the old way of just pressing f10.

The whole thing seems like more of an annoyance than a benefit TBH

 

[phloo]

You are not completely right on the volume things. Click and hold, swipe left or right.

 

[davetwo]

Ah - yeah you're right, that works better. (Although no better than the physical version)

 

[angmi90]

I discovered something today by accident: using Adobe Acrobat Pro and viewing a PDF document, I brought up Acrobat's built-in search feature and noticed the touch bar displayed text fomatting options, like bold, underline, change color, etc. Using these buttons only modifies the text in the search bar, oddly. The color selector options are very neat.

 

[dan9700]

its so dam dark i cant even see it, should be brighter but yeah im not gonns end up using it to dark cant read it

 

[BarracksSi]

Ah - yeah you're right, that works better. (Although no better than the physical version)

Yeah, the touch version is better -- press-slide-release vs. tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap (or, yeah, tap-hold).

 

[mahcus36]

its so dam dark i cant even see it, should be brighter but yeah im not gonns end up using it to dark cant read it

really? all the reviews and report i've read are that it's too bright

 

[Ma2k5]

really? all the reviews and report i've read are that it's too bright

The touch bar? I haven't seen anyone claim it's too bright .

 

[benz240]

The touch bar? I haven't seen anyone claim it's too bright .

yeah in my experience it has ben way too dim, and a much poorer viewing angle than i had hoped.

 

[vince730]

One annoyance I'm realizing after ~2 weeks is the lack of a persistent escape key - or better yet, any single "locked" key always visible on the far left side similar to the control strip on the right. I enjoy keeping the iTunes scrubbing control open while working in Safari, yet I also find myself using the escape key to exit out of full-screen content frequently as well. Currently its a hassle due to the need to X out of the iTunes control to regain the escape key. As of now, the touchbar is symmetrical in that the area for TouchID on the right corresponds to a equally sized bezel area on the left - if the touchbar surface were extended to the end of the glass it could easily accommodate a persistent button on the left without compromising the changeable area for other apps. Seems like something that could easily be done in a v2 model.

 

[Awjvail]

My touch bar has been freezing all day... whenever I hit the button to expand the volume slider it becomes unresponsive and sits there frozen.

Kind of concerning...

Is there any way to force stop the touch bar software?

 

[Macalway]

I've been using it for a while and find it nice. After all, that row WAS butt ugly. I mean, it's not like a keyboard is a thing of beauty, but that function row, yikes. Might as well try to spruce up the area. Also, i can't figure out how some people say it's distracting. I can barely see it. Just enough to use; unobtrusive.

Works fine.

 

[goosin']

Are there any developers who have found a way to keep the TouchBar's brightness all the way up? I love it, but it's hard to see with the brightness down.

 

[ascender]

I've had a TB machine since last night and I've setup a few customisations in programs like Mail and its amazing how quickly you then miss those customisations in programs which don't support it. I'm connected to a Citrix virtual machine running Windows and its already a PITA to not be able to just have these shortcuts on the TB.

 

[MarcBou]

So - my MBP has arrived. First thing I've noticed is that it's REALLY easy to accidentally touch the keys in the touchbar. Where the old 'real' keys needed some pressure to activate them - the touchbar is activated when your hands brush over it when typing. Especially irritating if you have 'esc to enter' enabled.

Also, simple things like reducing the volume now require a touch to open the dialogue - then another touch to change. This feels like an extra step compared to the old way of just pressing f10.

The whole thing seems like more of an annoyance than a benefit TBH

It's been said like 1000 times, to change volume or brightness just hold the key and move right or left to change it. No need to tab twice.

About touching the touchbar when writting, I don't know how you type to have that problem.

 

[FrightWait]

I love the new keyboard, but I might say that the left Shift key is very soft. Does anyone else have this issue as well?