Touch Bar discussion [merged]

[R.P.G]

#388
Today.. I tried 2016 Macbook Pro with TB at apple store(in Sydney) and its awesome. i never owned apple device and it is going to be my first Mac.

just my thoughts.. Many complaining TB as gimmick, but,I dont understand. i really liked it. Its amazing. You have all necessary operations available for specific app. i totally liked it. I seriously hate touch in laptops. looks like TB is common ground for who dont want touch on screen but some easy way to customize workflow. Its really good. may be once developers understand it, we may see real advantage of this bar.

 

[samcow]

After using it for quite a while now, I do use the touch bar for certain things. For instance, I think the use of it by Fantastical is great - legitimately use the touch bar for certain functions. Same with pdfexpert.

That said, I like the concept of it in Safari, but the touch bar really needs to be twice as big. Tabs would be significantly easier to read.

 

[R.P.G]

After using it for quite a while now, I do use the touch bar for certain things. For instance, I think the use of it by Fantastical is great - legitimately use the touch bar for certain functions. Same with pdfexpert.

That said, I like the concept of it in Safari, but the touch bar really needs to be twice as big. Tabs would be significantly easier to read.

exactly my thoughts..touch bar should have been li'l bigger..

 

[Awjvail]

I'm kinda salty that MS Office and Photoshop haven't pushed out any touchbar updates yet.

 

[Seed101]

exactly my thoughts..touch bar should have been li'l bigger..

...yeah, like the whole screen bigger!

 

[R.P.G]

...yeah, like the whole screen bigger!

may be you want it..that bigger..get a touch lappy if it suits you.

 

[Seed101]

may be you want it..that bigger..get a touch lappy if it suits you.

Maybe I want it on a Mac rather than some half-arsed effort at touch, yeah, maybe...

You state you're not happy with the size of it? How much bigger would you like it?

How much bigger would the next person like it...and the person after that?

Get the picture?

 

[BarracksSi]

I'm kinda salty that MS Office and Photoshop haven't pushed out any touchbar updates yet.

MS took how long to realize that the iPad even existed? Expect updates for the touch bar in, I don't know, maybe 2019...

 

[Sohappy]

After using it for quite a while now, I do use the touch bar for certain things. For instance, I think the use of it by Fantastical is great - legitimately use the touch bar for certain functions. Same with pdfexpert.

That said, I like the concept of it in Safari, but the touch bar really needs to be twice as big. Tabs would be significantly easier to read.

I got my MBP 5 days ago, it's my first Mac ever and I really love this touch bar. Really nice with the apps I use, Affinity photo and FCP X. Great to go back in a video or an audio. And just so beautiful !

 

[Awjvail]

MS took how long to realize that the iPad even existed? Expect updates for the touch bar in, I don't know, maybe 2019...

But these were both companies that showed off their touch bar updates at the Apple keynote

 

[BarracksSi]

But these were both companies that showed off their touch bar updates at the Apple keynote

Man, I forgot…

I'll stick with the 2019 prediction just so I can claim to be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Wakey87433]

Maybe I want it on a Mac rather than some half-arsed effort at touch, yeah, maybe...

You state you're not happy with the size of it? How much bigger would you like it?

How much bigger would the next person like it...and the person after that?

Get the picture?

No-one who has actually used a touch screen on an actual laptop will tell you that touch screens really work though. Its too far away to be comfortable to use and the height also causes a problem. The TB may not be the ultimate thing that cracks touch in a laptop form factor but its closer than a touch screen gets and is certainly going to causes fewer injuries for anyone who tries to use it long term.

And thats ignoring the other factor and thats you get this display with amazing visuals and ruin them with that layer of oil from your fingers that smudges and is a real pain to get rid of (and when you do it last for 5 minutes before its full of smudges and blurs

 

[Seed101]

No-one who has actually used a touch screen on an actual laptop will tell you that touch screens really work though. Its too far away to be comfortable to use and the height also causes a problem. The TB may not be the ultimate thing that cracks touch in a laptop form factor but its closer than a touch screen gets and is certainly going to causes fewer injuries for anyone who tries to use it long term.

And thats ignoring the other factor and thats you get this display with amazing visuals and ruin them with that layer of oil from your fingers that smudges and is a real pain to get rid of (and when you do it last for 5 minutes before its full of smudges and blurs

Have you tried the Surface Book?

Folding over/detaching the screen appears to be a good answer to apple's worries about angle/awkwardness...I'm sure apple could come up with some great solutions to these 'problems'

As for smudges, carry a cloth ( should pale into insignificance compare to the dongle's being carried) or factor in some tech to deal with this.

'Innovate my ass'

P.S- tbh I reckon apple will just end with the whole base being an input device..e-ink keyboard or some such..etc..

 

[wethackrey]

Does anyone know of a way to disable the touch bar in a single app, or, better yet, to modify the application-specific touch bar "keys"? I find the touch bar reasonable useful in some contexts, but it is making me CRAZY in Mail. In the Mail app the damned "send" key is right where my pinky finger sits when I sit on my couch writing emails. I find I often have the laptop at an angle in front of me, rather that in the "sitting at attention" position with the laptop squarely in front of me. And my finger constantly grazes the touch bar. That causes the partially written email to be sent, which is a GIANT hassle for business emails being sent to a wide audience. I'm constantly having to send out "please disregard the previous incomplete email because I'm an idiot and sent it by mistake" messages. This completely offsets any utility the touch bar might bring me. If the touch bar could be set with some dwell time or pressure requirement, like actual keys, that would solve the problem. As it is, the slightest touch in interpreted as an intended key press. The same thing happens with the escape key. An accidental brush often jumps you out of the context you're in. I find it aggravating as hell frankly. I'm almost to the point of putting tape over the left end of the touch bar.

So... I'm curious if anyone know of a command line hack or other method to modify the touch bar in specific apps. I would complete remove the "send" soft key. Or at least move it to the right.

Ideas anyone?

 

[eulslix]

Have you tried the Surface Book?

Folding over/detaching the screen appears to be a good answer to apple's worries about angle/awkwardness...I'm sure apple could come up with some great solutions to these 'problems'

As for smudges, carry a cloth ( should pale into insignificance compare to the dongle's being carried) or factor in some tech to deal with this.

'Innovate my ass'

P.S- tbh I reckon apple will just end with the whole base being an input device..e-ink keyboard or some such..etc..

Which I would actually love to be honest. I've given this topic a lot of thought and I don't miss touch screens in their current form in my workflow. What I do miss however is more of the touch based efficiency in general. The touch bar is the first step towards it. I really wanted to give the SB a chance, I spent quite some time testing it in a shop. Quality wise, its tablet is the closest that comes to an iPad Pro, I was really impressed, sketching felt relatively natural (although the preinstalled software was very meh).
However, using the SB as a tablet was the only use case where it actually shined.

The production quality of the hinge is basically crap. It feels like a cheap chinese product. Each time I've touched the screen with the pen in "Notebook" mode, I immediatly got the urge to throw this thing out of the window (luckily, there wasn't one near me, otherwise that might've been an expensive afternoon). Also, the Windows experience overall was really pleasant, but I wouldn't call it a touch friendly OS, rather a tacked on addon. It felt like a shiny demo, but when it comes down to productivity it's still a non-consistent mess.
Also, the switch time between tablet and notebook mode is way too inconvenient. I'd prefer a lightweight 360 degree hinge any day.

Bottom line: I don't see it happening anytime soon on macOS. At least I hope, that they'll come up with some better thought through solution to this problem. Whenever I use my Macbook, I'd like my hands to stay at the bottom portion, that's the fastet way for me to work. The only exception are non-discrete controls like sliders and color pickers, which require positional precision. The TB together with the larger trackpad adresses this problem a little bit, but that's still not enough. I hope we'll see more touch areas integrated into the bottom portion in the future. However, haptic feedback will remain an issue and I don't think Force Touch will be enough to adress this problem

 

[Wakey87433]

Have you tried the Surface Book?

Folding over/detaching the screen appears to be a good answer to apple's worries about angle/awkwardness...I'm sure apple could come up with some great solutions to these 'problems'

As for smudges, carry a cloth ( should pale into insignificance compare to the dongle's being carried) or factor in some tech to deal with this.

'Innovate my ass'

P.S- tbh I reckon apple will just end with the whole base being an input device..e-ink keyboard or some such..etc..

Thats the thing though the Surface Books way of doing it only works when you take it out of 'laptop' mode. If you are trying to use it in Laptop mode and use the touchscreen its clunky and prolonged use is going to get you RSI style injuries. Does anyone really need a 13" or 15" tablet with poor battery life? or one that to get better battery life you have to make it thick and relatively heavy? It seems to me more a case of doing what most computer manufacturers are doing and adding touch not because they have found a way to do so but because it 'seems' cool so will shift units despite not being practical once in use.

The surface studio on the other hand seems to have found a way to make a touch screen work for it.


On carrying a cloth, thats fine but with my iPad and my phone I can never seem to get it fully clean with just a cloth, it needs screen cleaner to achieve that and its a constant job. I can just about put up with it on those two devices as its hard got get around the need for them but a laptop or desktop has other input methods that can be used that don't involve smudging the screen. Until we have tech that allows for a screen that doesn't pick up any fingerprints then directly interfacing with the viewing screen is always going to be a problem

 

[JohnnyGo]

Does anyone know of a way to disable the touch bar in a single app, or, better yet, to modify the application-specific touch bar "keys"? I find the touch bar reasonable useful in some contexts, but it is making me CRAZY in Mail. In the Mail app the damned "send" key is right where my pinky finger sits when I sit on my couch writing emails. I find I often have the laptop at an angle in front of me, rather that in the "sitting at attention" position with the laptop squarely in front of me. And my finger constantly grazes the touch bar. That causes the partially written email to be sent, which is a GIANT hassle for business emails being sent to a wide audience. I'm constantly having to send out "please disregard the previous incomplete email because I'm an idiot and sent it by mistake" messages. This completely offsets any utility the touch bar might bring me. If the touch bar could be set with some dwell time or pressure requirement, like actual keys, that would solve the problem. As it is, the slightest touch in interpreted as an intended key press. The same thing happens with the escape key. An accidental brush often jumps you out of the context you're in. I find it aggravating as hell frankly. I'm almost to the point of putting tape over the left end of the touch bar.

So... I'm curious if anyone know of a command line hack or other method to modify the touch bar in specific apps. I would complete remove the "send" soft key. Or at least move it to the right.

Ideas anyone?

You CAN customize the Touchbar in any app. Just open the "View" menu and "customize touchbar". You can add / remove buttons as well as rearrange them.

 

[Seed101]

On carrying a cloth, thats fine but with my iPad and my phone I can never seem to get it fully clean with just a cloth, it needs screen cleaner to achieve that and its a constant job.

You must have very dirty fingers...what are you watching?

Re: problems of a touch laptop...as I said, I'm sure apple could do a great job if the will were there...Surface Book has shown how to think out of the box a little, whatever it's current flaws.

 

[samcow]

I imagine Apple will eventually sell a touch screen macbook, but I also imagine the macbook will look very different at that point.

That is, Apple is uninterested in selling a Surface Book like system because (1) it will cannibalize sales of ipads, and (2) they view it as cumbersome or an unenlightened user experience. However, when CPUs and battery technology get significantly more advanced, I'm quite sure they will kill the macbook and sell a really cool touch based full on computer. I kind of picture it like an ipad made of a flexible OLED. You stretch it out and it's a tablet, fold it in the middle and it rests on the bottom which is a keyboard and the top is a display. The apple istretch

 

[JohnnyGo]

I imagine Apple will eventually sell a touch screen macbook, but I also imagine the macbook will look very different at that point.

That is, Apple is uninterested in selling a Surface Book like system because (1) it will cannibalize sales of ipads, and (2) they view it as cumbersome or an unenlightened user experience. However, when CPUs and battery technology get significantly more advanced, I'm quite sure they will kill the macbook and sell a really cool touch based full on computer. I kind of picture it like an ipad made of a flexible OLED. You stretch it out and it's a tablet, fold it in the middle and it rests on the bottom which is a keyboard and the top is a display. The apple istretch

I disagree. IMHO Apple has made a conscious decision to NOT sell a touch screen macOS hardware.

Your point about cannibalization is odd. Apple is famous for cannibalizing its own products. iPod Mini, iPad mini, iPod Touch, etc. Apple tries to reach as many price points as possible and are famous for being very aggressive in terms of doing its own cannibalization.

It seems to me that they decided that a laptop is a perpendicular / two-surface hardware and they will add trackpad/touchbar/programmable keyboard to the bottom part and no touch to the screen. Wait'n'see what Apple will bring to the trackpad over the next few years. It is larger than an iPhone screen...

 

[dashwin]

After a few weeks with the TB, I have finally started using it. And these are my top uses:

• Switching or launching apps: Do you use full screen apps and hate having to swipe left/right many times or wait for the dock to popup to get to the right app? My workflow now: Hit Cmd+~ and use the touchbar to switch. Quick and easy.
• Spotlight: Replaced Siri by Spotlight on the TB. Cmd + Space requires more movement of your fingers than just reaching for the far right and launching Spotlight on the TB now.
• Safari jump to address bar: I used to use a shortcut to jump, but now I have the search button in the touchbar that lets me jump to the touch bar. Don't need to move your mouse to the top of the Safari just to switch sites.
• Safari pause/play youtube/videos: I wish the scrubber showed Previews on screen when scrubbing (isn't that why most people scrub through videos? what's the use of scrubbing without previews)?
• Photos: This is just great. Enough said.
• Mail: Not a whole lot, but wish they had a mark all as read button.
• Calculator: Easier operators *+ or ^ with the Calculator than pressing Shift + 8 etc.
• Safari tab switching: I rarely look down to scrub through tabs in safari now. Always have my left hand on the keyboard and can make a reach for the touchbar tab switcher. I placed the Safari tab switching closer to my left hand by putting a few more icons on the right and made it smaller. If I wanted actual previews of tabs, I just use the pinch on the track bar to view all my tabs. The thumbnails on the TB for Safari are just a gimmick but come in handy for scrubbing through tabs.

That's about it right now.

 

[vinsalducci]

After a few weeks with the TB, I have finally started using it. And these are my top uses:

• Switching or launching apps: Do you use full screen apps and hate having to swipe left/right many times or wait for the dock to popup to get to the right app? My workflow now: Hit Cmd+~ and use the touchbar to switch. Quick and easy.
• Spotlight: Replaced Siri by Spotlight on the TB. Cmd + Space requires more movement of your fingers than just reaching for the far right and launching Spotlight on the TB now.
• Safari jump to address bar: I used to use a shortcut to jump, but now I have the search button in the touchbar that lets me jump to the touch bar. Don't need to move your mouse to the top of the Safari just to switch sites.
• Safari pause/play youtube/videos: I wish the scrubber showed Previews on screen when scrubbing (isn't that why most people scrub through videos? what's the use of scrubbing without previews)?
• Photos: This is just great. Enough said.
• Mail: Not a whole lot, but wish they had a mark all as read button.
• Calculator: Easier operators *+ or ^ with the Calculator than pressing Shift + 8 etc.
• Safari tab switching: I rarely look down to scrub through tabs in safari now. Always have my left hand on the keyboard and can make a reach for the touchbar tab switcher. I placed the Safari tab switching closer to my left hand by putting a few more icons on the right and made it smaller. If I wanted actual previews of tabs, I just use the pinch on the track bar to view all my tabs. The thumbnails on the TB for Safari are just a gimmick but come in handy for scrubbing through tabs.

That's about it right now.

Check out TouchSwitcher also. You can place the launch icon in the control strip, so it's always there. I find it easier to use that than the cmd-~ launch for Rocket.

I also had Spotlight search in my control strip, but found that launching with cmd-space easier because I don't need to reach all the way to the top right. It's quicker with the keys.

 

[BondFancy]

I think Apple should allow users to map functions to the power button. Would be a great way to get a physical escape key in case the touchbar freezes.

 

[samcow]

I disagree. IMHO Apple has made a conscious decision to NOT sell a touch screen macOS hardware.

Your point about cannibalization is odd. Apple is famous for cannibalizing its own products. iPod Mini, iPad mini, iPod Touch, etc. Apple tries to reach as many price points as possible and are famous for being very aggressive in terms of doing its own cannibalization.

It seems to me that they decided that a laptop is a perpendicular / two-surface hardware and they will add trackpad/touchbar/programmable keyboard to the bottom part and no touch to the screen. Wait'n'see what Apple will bring to the trackpad over the next few years. It is larger than an iPhone screen...

Im not convinced about the cannibalization claim, your example points to variants of iPods. In this case, they would be enabling people to buy a single device instead of both an iPad and a Laptop - I don't see any analogue to that in their history. And it is sort of confusion for Microsoft to offer the Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Book, I've heard numerous people wonder what the difference is beyond price point.

I don't see the utility in making the track pad sort of a second screen, it's just too out of the way from the view of the screen.

 

[dgdosen]

So, when will Apple release a keyboard with a touch bar? Adoption of the touch bar is already iffy enough to not support it by more than a sliver (albeit a big one) of your product offerings.