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TouchBar is awesome. Weird it didn't take off.
- Thread starter aka777
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Implementation could have been better, I think. There was too much mode-switching in the way Apple did it and never seemed to improve upon it.
I've never actually used the touch bar, but I did research it in case I wanted to buy that model. However, I would have a very difficult time with buttons that are changing so that I have to look away from the screen and at the keyboard. That interrupts my workflow. I work much more efficiently when the buttons are static, and I know where they are, and I can tap what I need without looking away from the screen.
I've never even used a touchbar model, so I have no personal opinion one way or the other, but while I've seen a lot of bashing it online, every person I know in real life who has used it praises it and laments the fact that current models no longer feature it. 🤷♂️
Imagine if the Esc, volume, brightness, and playback keys changed position randomly depending on the active application. And that "Apple knows best" when those keys should appear, disappear, and their position on the bar.
That's basically the gist of Touch Bar.
Most people didn't care for that. They didn't want buttons moving around like a video game. People didn't want to deal with frequent hardware failures associated with Touch Bar. (Think butterfly keyboard failure rates and apply to Touch Bar.) Not to mention the Touch Bar is software based and needs the OS to load before appearing.
I used BTT to create a one tap screenshot and to replace the stock set of actions with ones I used more often.
I had one and used BTT to customize it. It could be quite useful, but I don't miss it. Had the added a dedicate row of function keys along with teh TouchBar I think it would have gotten a lot more acceptance.
I've read all those sorts of complaints online, but again, everyone I know in real life who has one loves it. When I told my Mac user friends and co-workers that I was finally getting a Mac myself (I'm a lifetime Windows user who recently converted), most of them were like, "Do they still have ones with the touch bar? You should definitely get that!"
It seems to be a very polarizing feature. Many people hate it, but some really love it.
What functionality did it have? In 99% of my apps it had the same functions as the keys except that I had to look at the bar just to reliably change the brightness or volume. There was no way to change the text color on the bar, or the brightness. Meaning that at night in bed with minimum display brightness it was distracting and lit up the room too.
The earlier model I had where the escape key was on the bar as well was even worse as I couldn't hit escape reliably.
There was never a workflow for me where the touchbar would have been of better use rather than keyboard shortcuts. And I couldn't hit the touch keys reliably anyways without looking down at the bar taking my eyes off the display.
To add insult to injury Apple never bothered to improve it. The touchbar in my 2017 MBP was exactly the same as in my 2020 MBP even though the user's wishlists in the forums since 2016 contained many suggestions for improvement, my biggest ones were really just a simple change of text color and dimming it at night. (I had to manually set it to be blank to avoid the annoying bright light at night.)
Apple had 4 years to improve the touch bar until I bought my 2020 MBP but never bothered.
And I did have BTT, I bought a license for it too and thought the touch bar would be the best thing ever at the time. It let me change the text color, but I had to create a custom bar with custom icons and everything. It was alright like that as a customizeable hotkey bar.
But that way it was up to the user to figure out how to make use of the bar with 3rd party software. I already paid for the Mac, why do I have to figure out a way to make included hardware useful and put together my own touchbar layout?
The keyboard of that MBP ended up being so unreliable I ended up switching back to the old 2015 for a while. When I bought the 2020 MBP I accepted the touchbar but realized my license of BTT was no longer supported in the newest version with all the latest features and I lost my touchbar settings from the previous Mac.
Then I just ignored the touch bar and immediately got rid of that thing once the new touchbar-free MBPs came out.
Imagine if the touch bar was the Apple Pencil for iPad, there would never have been a version magnetic charging, and in 2024 instead of releasing a Pencil Pro they'd have just quietly stopped selling the Pencil altogether. That's how Apple treated the touch bar.
The earlier model I had where the escape key was on the bar as well was even worse as I couldn't hit escape reliably.
There was never a workflow for me where the touchbar would have been of better use rather than keyboard shortcuts. And I couldn't hit the touch keys reliably anyways without looking down at the bar taking my eyes off the display.
To add insult to injury Apple never bothered to improve it. The touchbar in my 2017 MBP was exactly the same as in my 2020 MBP even though the user's wishlists in the forums since 2016 contained many suggestions for improvement, my biggest ones were really just a simple change of text color and dimming it at night. (I had to manually set it to be blank to avoid the annoying bright light at night.)
Apple had 4 years to improve the touch bar until I bought my 2020 MBP but never bothered.
And I did have BTT, I bought a license for it too and thought the touch bar would be the best thing ever at the time. It let me change the text color, but I had to create a custom bar with custom icons and everything. It was alright like that as a customizeable hotkey bar.
But that way it was up to the user to figure out how to make use of the bar with 3rd party software. I already paid for the Mac, why do I have to figure out a way to make included hardware useful and put together my own touchbar layout?
The keyboard of that MBP ended up being so unreliable I ended up switching back to the old 2015 for a while. When I bought the 2020 MBP I accepted the touchbar but realized my license of BTT was no longer supported in the newest version with all the latest features and I lost my touchbar settings from the previous Mac.
Then I just ignored the touch bar and immediately got rid of that thing once the new touchbar-free MBPs came out.
Imagine if the touch bar was the Apple Pencil for iPad, there would never have been a version magnetic charging, and in 2024 instead of releasing a Pencil Pro they'd have just quietly stopped selling the Pencil altogether. That's how Apple treated the touch bar.
If Apple didn't replace the function keys with Touch Bar, but instead was an addition above, it would be much better accepted. Hardcoded function keys (Mac and PC) exist for a reason and is why most people hate Touch Bar.
The Touch Bar can be useful for productivity where certain actions/shortcuts need to be repeated all the time. E.g. zoom in/out, undo, change brush, etc. But most people don't need this.
I adored the Touch Bar and would buy a Mac with one again in a heartbeat. It was incredibly useful if your apps took advantage of it. I'm convinced the naysayers never actually used it. Heaven forbid a company try something different.
Or we used it, but didn't miss it in the least when we replaced our older touchbar Macs. There was a lot of untapped potential Apple left on the table with the touchbar.
I have to agree with the OP. In fact I would go so far as to say its one of the major reasons I bought the 2019 Intel MacBook Pro 16" after seeing it in action on a friends computer.
The colourful, animated 'Touch ID to sign in' makes easy work of logging into password-protected websites even adding the <CR> automatically depending upon website following its automatic password entry to take you straight to where you want to go.
I have seen it criticised for making simple things like changing volume or brightness a multiple-touch process but I would have to say if that's the case then you're notholding using it properly! 😉
As someone else mentioned just touch/hold either volume or brightness icons and then without even releasing your finger drag left/right in the same motion to decrease/increase.
I have lightly customised it to add Screen Capture (replacing the Siri icon on the rightmost position) now indicated by a camera icon which seems much more logical & easier than pressing <CMD><SHIFT><3>
It's worth it's weight in gold just to drag past the adverts on YouTube!
And for those apps that support it it's a fantastic feature. Final Cut Pro anybody?
I haven't explored it fully yet so I'm sure there are even more delights to be discovered but I don't think I have ever used it yet for Function keys.
If only Apple had persevered, stood behind it and highlighted its full potential it could have become so much more IMHO but then again there seemed to be so much hate out there for the Touch Bar it was on a hiding to nothing and along with a perceived lack of developer support sealed its fate.
I will definitely miss it on my next Mac...
-=Glyn=-
The colourful, animated 'Touch ID to sign in' makes easy work of logging into password-protected websites even adding the <CR> automatically depending upon website following its automatic password entry to take you straight to where you want to go.
I have seen it criticised for making simple things like changing volume or brightness a multiple-touch process but I would have to say if that's the case then you're not
As someone else mentioned just touch/hold either volume or brightness icons and then without even releasing your finger drag left/right in the same motion to decrease/increase.
I have lightly customised it to add Screen Capture (replacing the Siri icon on the rightmost position) now indicated by a camera icon which seems much more logical & easier than pressing <CMD><SHIFT><3>
It's worth it's weight in gold just to drag past the adverts on YouTube!
And for those apps that support it it's a fantastic feature. Final Cut Pro anybody?
I haven't explored it fully yet so I'm sure there are even more delights to be discovered but I don't think I have ever used it yet for Function keys.
If only Apple had persevered, stood behind it and highlighted its full potential it could have become so much more IMHO but then again there seemed to be so much hate out there for the Touch Bar it was on a hiding to nothing and along with a perceived lack of developer support sealed its fate.
I will definitely miss it on my next Mac...
-=Glyn=-
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Volume slider and Emoji bar, they were fun. Not essential. But yeah it's a rare fail from Apple, apparently it didn't sell well enough.
I have upgraded to the M1 but I still have my 2019 16 with Touch Bar, I did like it as well after using my M1 I can definitely live without it and not a lot of devs using it in apps.
The only thing for which I used the touchbar was the volume control. I never used it for anything else because somehow I never got into the habit to look at the bar for keys relevant to what I was doing, so for me it was more or less useless and I don't miss it now that I have upgraded to a laptop without the touch bar.