It was bad implementation of a good idea. Apple barely supported it. I rarely use my F keys . I wish it had haptic feedback and wide range support. Oh well another idea that might return in the future with better implementation
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Touch Bar Fully Discontinued on New MacBooks After Seven Years
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This makes me sad, I used the hell out of that thing. It was so useful for everything I did. Apples biggest mistake with it IMO was that they didn't make it easy for people to customize the Touch Bar, rather you had to hope developers of the apps you used utilized it.
honestly will not be missed. I do not like it on my M2 13in and did not like it on the work macs I had before it. I though it was gimic and for the mnost part just got in the way.
Its shocking how much group think (despite failing the basic "Does this make sense?" test), goes on at the executive decision levels in big companies. I heard it described by an analyst as doing what the successful company or other companies are doing makes it look like you're on top of things...it can be seen so much in the business world its rather sad.
Watching the car Mfr's assume people wanted all their physical controls on giant flat screens you can't feel while looking down the road just because Tesla sold alot of EV's with them (while being the only big EV maker) was amusing to watch and infuriating as well...now we're stuck with those effects.
Touch Bar reminds me the most of Force Touch on iPhone - the solutions they offer are easily replicated in other ways, so nothing is really solved. For Touch Bar it’s keyboard shortcuts, for Force Touch it’s just long pressing.
I didn't find it all that useful, but I did think it was cool. Wish they would have let me use it as a Dock so I could get more screen real estate. Doesn't matter now though...
I like and use the Touch Bar. I have a 2016 MacBook Pro and an M1 13” Pro. I am waiting for the 13” M2 to go on sale at one of the vendors and see if I can get a great deal on an M2 with 16-24GB of DRAM to last me for the next 5-7 years. The M1 works fine but I would like to pass it on to my wife, who needs a computer from time to time to supplement the iPad Pro.
For me the loss of the F keys killed me as I use those all the time for what I do. I agree poor implementation and should of been easier to at least put the F "keys" there or what ever else. Instead just looked cool and then was not useful. I love how my 16 work mac has its F keys back.
Mostly the fact that you had to take your eyes off the screen to use it.
Although I find that I generally need to do that for function keys as well...so maybe that wasn't such a big deal after all.
I avoided buying a new MacBook Pro for years based on the negative content I kept seeing regarding the touch bar. I finally broke down and bought a new 13" M1 back in 2020 that has the touch bar. To my surprise, I immediately fell in love with the touch bar and can't to this day understand the hatred for it. I do hope they bring it back sometime in the future as an option for those of us who use it frequently.
I loved the idea of the touch bar, but I don't use it enough, and I think that is due to the lack of development from other software developers not making use of it or Apple not continuing its push of the idea.
I also wonder if it is the reason my MacBook's battery drains so quickly sometimes.
Still, my 2019 MacBook might be worth more now that it has a vintage touchbar that can no longer be bought.
I also wonder if it is the reason my MacBook's battery drains so quickly sometimes.
Still, my 2019 MacBook might be worth more now that it has a vintage touchbar that can no longer be bought.
Without the Touch Bar debacle, we might never have gotten the System Setting to swap the ESC key to any other key on the keyboard (mine has been swapped with Caps Lock for as long as I can remember).
Just over seven years after it was introduced, the Touch Bar has now been fully discontinued on all new MacBooks sold by Apple, marking the end of an era for a hardware feature that was loved by some users and derided by others.
The first MacBook Pro models with the Touch Bar were released in October 2016, as part of a controversial redesign that also included a defective butterfly keyboard and the removal of many ports, including an SD card slot, HDMI, and MagSafe. Physical function and Esc keys were also removed in favor of the Touch Bar.
Apple initially described the Touch Bar as a "revolutionary" and "breakthrough" interface, but it was clearly not popular enough to stick around.
It was a slow death for the Touch Bar:
For now, the Touch Bar can still be found on some refurbished models sold by Apple.
- In 2019, Apple released the first 16-inch MacBook Pro with a physical Esc key, but the Touch Bar lived on in place of physical function keys.
- In 2021, Apple removed the Touch Bar from higher-end MacBook Pro models, switching back to full-size physical function keys.
- This week, Apple discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the final model with a Touch Bar.
It's possible that the Touch Bar could return at some point in the future, especially if the 13-inch MacBook Pro is ever re-released as a lower-cost model, but at this point there is no firm evidence to suggest this will happen.
Article Link: Touch Bar Fully Discontinued on New MacBooks After Seven Years
2016 is the start year ... by my count that's 8 years.
edited: 13" no longer ships.
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I will forever miss you. Planning on upgrading from m1 to a m3 Max (for AI creation) but I will miss the uniqueness the touchbar provided.
I bought the first version when it came out, used it for about three hours and returned it - far too many inadvertent brushes with the Touch Bar while using AutoCAD that would launch the AutoCAD help website.
It would have been a much better feature if it was a ribbon in the bezel at the bottom of the screen rather than as part of the keyboard itself. The full keyboard could have been maintained, and the number of accidental touches would have been cut down.
It would have been a much better feature if it was a ribbon in the bezel at the bottom of the screen rather than as part of the keyboard itself. The full keyboard could have been maintained, and the number of accidental touches would have been cut down.
Great point. The lack of tactile feedback was an annoyance when using a Mac, but could be a matter of life or death when driving an automobile. (Taking one's eyes off the road to look and see if a button press was registered or not could be fatal.)
Probably covered by other posts, but initial response was, 'ok, what problems does it solve?'
It could have, and some things like video scrubbing/quick rewind/FF/etc. were a good use case for it, but:
1. No physical ESC key - it shouldn't be surprising that many developers and others have an automatic muscle memory for the ESC key for many specific applications - not being able to feel it, having to adjust how to hit an often used key...was atrocious.
2. General lack of tactile feedback.
3. Apple made it more difficult to use, as in there was no auto-generated menubar or similar and app devs needed to write support for it, while there were only a handful of obvious 'killer apps' for it (like aforementioned video scrubbing/media controls), so in many cases it became a case of 'it does nothing for me, why do I have or need this?'
4. Perception of 'we are paying for this whether we want it or not yet it does nothing for me, or worse (those using ESC or other function keys a lot) it annoys me and slows down my workflows.
5. It wasn't really universal across the lineup.
I still love using the Touch Bar on my M1 MBP. I understand the arguments against it, but I‘ll really miss it when my MBP needs to be replaced. Even though I‘m not constantly using it (especially on the desk while using the external Magic Keyboard), it‘s always nice to have for one or another quick action.
And I found that it always looks futuristic.
I remember being really disappointed when I saw the new MBPs at my local Apple store. Going back to the physical keys immediately felt like working with a predecessor instead of the new model. 😅
So I‘ll enjoy the next years with it until my MBP has done the job and then move on with a little tear in the eye.
And I found that it always looks futuristic.
I remember being really disappointed when I saw the new MBPs at my local Apple store. Going back to the physical keys immediately felt like working with a predecessor instead of the new model. 😅
So I‘ll enjoy the next years with it until my MBP has done the job and then move on with a little tear in the eye.
That too - I actually screwed up in my original post year-wise. It was the ~2016-2019 era there literally was 'nothing to make me move' combined with butterfly keyboard, no RAM upgrades over 16GB possible, and - touchbar and dongle hell. Basically dead years as far as I'm concerned for the MBP.
I ran my 2011 MBP15 for some years including upgrades. I think it may have been the last year of no glue for the battery or I might've used a heat gun for the replacement. I went on waiting until 2016 to see 'did they finally make things better? (including max RAM, as I needed to go > 16GB)' and instead butterfly kb and 'thinner at all costs') so I picked up a barely used w/AC 2015 MBP from someone to replace it, then waited until the 2019 MBP16 before Apple had anything I'd consider buying. The 2015 wasn't bad overall although of course it had 16GB RAM limit, no replaceable user parts, etc. but I maxed out the 1TB SSD and when combined to really needing > 16GB, that was a bad combo so totally solid machine for someone but 'out of active memory and no space to swap to' - I was salivating over the 2019MBP knowing it would be a heatfest with dGPU and Intel, but it checked most of the boxes at the time and picked up a 2019 MBP16 with 32GB and 2TB SSD - it's still 'fine' relatively speaking today but my MBP14 M1 Max runs around 30% of the power consumption and rarely has the fans kicking in..
With the current pricing, making things worse with a touch screen 99% won't use beyond the first few days of excitement could kill the already weak sales.