Who’s hoping the new MBP will retain the Touch Bar?

[Yebubbleman]

I like it now that the escape key is physical again. The escape key being non-physical seemed to be somewhat of huge oversight. The hate seems to stem from those too impatient to customize it. But, to be fair, a lot of that stemmed from Apple very poorly communicating how to properly do so. Similarly, not putting it on anything that wasn't a MacBook Pro's integrated keyboard was a surefire way to ensure that it wouldn't be mass-adopted. They had an opportunity to ship it on the keyboard for the 2018-2020 Airs as well as recent iterations of the keyboards and didn't. They were almost asking for it to fail. But, that said, I do like using it whenever I'm at a MacBook Pro that has it.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

I hoped so but I've come to accept that it will be gone.

 

[deef]

I don’t know about that. iPadOS 15 has an on-screen Touch Bar equivalent and the Swift UI code that drives it works on iPadOS and Mac:

keyboard | Apple Developer Documentation

The item is placed in the keyboard section.

developer.apple.com

 

[splitpea]

What do you guys use the function keys for? I have a full width external keyboard (with numbed) and I literally never, ever use the function keys. Are you using them for their F functions, or for media/system controls like brightness, volume etc? I don't even know any F controls these days, and the system/media controls I prefer to do through control centre (and if I had a Touch Bar with a slider for them that seems like it would be even better).

system/media controls through muscle memory.

hotkeys, including custom ones, for apps that have gazillions of shortcuts and functions.

i’m a software developer. Every time I have to look down at the Touch Bar or move a hand off the keyboard to use a mouse/trackpad I lose flow.

plus doing things like changing volume/brightness via keyboard takes the tiniest fraction of the time it does with the mouse. Same as cmd-C is a zillion times faster than moving your mouse to the menu bar, clicking “edit”, mousing down to “copy”, and clicking that.

 

[subjonas]

It just occurred to me why the Touch Bar may never find mass adoption. As was mentioned, besides Apple needing to make it available on all devices, the only way to mass adoption is if developers make the effort to integrate them into their software in a very functional way. Also as mentioned, my belief is that software developers are the people who dislike the Touch Bar the most since they are the ones who appreciate mechanical function keys the most. So they sort of hold the keys to the Touch Bar, and have negative motivation to make it succeed. ?

 

[haralds]

It just occurred to me why the Touch Bar may never find mass adoption. As was mentioned, besides Apple needing to make it available on all devices, the only way to mass adoption is if developers make the effort to integrate them into their software in a very functional way. Also as mentioned, my belief is that software developers are the people who dislike the Touch Bar the most since they are the ones who appreciate mechanical function keys the most. So they sort of hold the keys to the Touch Bar, and have negative motivation to make it succeed. ?

All the cool Mac apps use it.

 

[jinnyman]

Having a touch bar is sometimes beneficial. I hope Apple comes up with some ingenious method of having both sides of goods by incorporating a touchbar above physical function keys. Well atleast that has been my dream setup, but I know Apple won't do that.

 

[Royksöpp]

I mostly use my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode with monitor so... Even if I used it normally I wouldn't want it. It's more annoying than it is useful. I use the shortcut key to turn it into normal function keys anytime I try to use it. So that show's how much I care for it.

This is how I use my Touch Bar.

 

[Serban55]

if apple applied by default the features from bettertouch ...sadly Apple didnt. touchbar also is and was useful for full screen work
So im in the 50-50 category that i want it but also dont mind it if it doesnt come in the future of macs

 

[5425642]

Don’t matter for me, sure I use it but I’m not going to care if it’s removed or not.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Not useful for me - plus, it randomly freezes/goes laggy.