Macbook Pro Touch Bar runs watchOS

Also, do people really use the regular function keys in anger ? In my java IDE the only more or less common shortcuts on the function keys are the debugger run and step over/through. Those are used in "read mode" rather than "type mode" and I would think that a proper row of debug related custom button on the keyboard would rather be an improvement compared to remembering which of F7 or F8 step into the next line. And that's it, I don't use them at all in any other application, especially not in the terminal, text editor, browser, mail applications, ...

Is the HN demographic really that much more sophisticated than me, or is it simply overblowing the issue in a similar fashion that allegedly no "real power user" would get over the loss of Blackberry physical buttons.

Ironically, a few years back, as a proper power user touch typing function keys on a mechanical keyboard (windows use and abuse function keys for about everything), my choice of mechanical keyboard included those function keys and that was seen as a weakness by the "real pro user" of the time that never left the home row and were very proud showing off their happy hacking keyboard professional.

edit: Just to avoid confusion, I touch type. Just not the function keys.

I was forced to learn to touch-type properly by an older sibling when I was about 8; a quarter of a century or so later, I never look at the keyboard and can do ~120wpm if I put my mind to it (some keyboards are better than others, admittedly), though I feel like my accuracy isn't perhaps what it once was (maybe due to less practice? I spend more time talking to clients and less time typing these days...). Get 'em while they're young, I say.

Because if we were really pandering to this wide audience then we'd be enabling touch. 2-year old children can navigate touch-native interfaces (so long as there are no context switches), but a secondary input method is beyond them.

And having become accustomed to having touch everywhere, I cannot count the times I find it more expedient to point or draw on the screen (even from home row type position to a laptop) rather than switch to the touchpad.

Kids these days are use to the whole idea of multitouch. See how many 15-16 year olds going into college know what a SD card or a USB drive is. Kids in high school are provided with chromebooks. They don't even know what .doc extension types are. It's a different time and they are targeting those kids.

I'd say the closest analog would be the Mac menu bar, and even that works because it is largely consistent across apps.

So far the only benefit I can see is that it's a touchscreen in an ergonomically better position (although, is even this true? How much better is this than touching a bar at the bottom of the main display itself?)

Watching the DJ do stuff on that narrow strip was painful. About the only decent demo was the photoshop one, but why wouldn't photoshop not simply include similar touch controls on the screen for windows devices, which have complete touch screens

It's the gap where you still have a full-time job to do along with those expectations that I fall down. :( Maybe it's to late for me?

That aside, I have never had any problem with productivity as a developer. As a "typist", yes, but not as an author of software. It just never comes up. Do I feel less "cool" when I am in a room with people looking at me type? Hell yes. But am I actually getting things done slower? Probably some things. Typing commands, yes. I could be faster there. Typing code? Maybe.

Just adding the perspective of a long time 6 fingered typist (occasionally 7).

There are many kitchen tools being marketed to casual home cooks, and not professional chefs. The solution isn't for everyone to become a professional chef to stop those products coming to market, it's for professional chefs to recognise those products are not meant for them. Even if the manufacturer used to tailor to their needs before, markets change.

My sister's boss at her first internship took her to her desktop and gave her a keyboard which had absolutely no markings on it. Her first task was to force herself to learn to touch type.

And she still credits that to saving so many hours in college, simply while typing out esssays, and has obviously been tremendously useful in her professional life.

I spend much more time thinking about what I'm going to code than I do typing it out.

The big lesson here is that other peoples' mileage may vary, and Apple knows that people who touch type function keys and/or use vi on MacBooks are a sufficiently small market that they can simply be served by mapping caps lock (likely a key they don't use either).

In fact come to think of it, caps lock is a perfect example: it's clearly not there for developers, yet nobody complains about the waste of having it on the keyboard. There are enough people who use it to leave it around.

On macOS I use the keyboard for almost everything, but off hand I don't know a single key binding relying on F-keys. They're always Cmd[+Shift][+Alt]+Alphanum more or less.

Refresh Webbrowser - F5 - CMD+R

Close Tab - Alt+F4 or CTRL+W - CMD+W

By default most function keys don't even work as regular function keys in macOS unless you use fn+F1. They are mapped to OS related stuff like brightness, play/skip and volume.

I've also been on a Mac for years, and to get to the "usual" F-key behavior you have to hit fn+F<n> to get to whatever you wanted to do, otherwise they are mapped to things like volume or brightness control. I can't remember the last time I hit fn+F<n>.

Personally, I find the idea of a customizable, context aware, not-just-buttons, function row very interesting.

That means that the question is really whether Touch ID is more secure than the passwords which people will actually use in practice. As criddell noted, how you answer that is going to come down to threat models and resources. Biometrics really put you into some pretty different trade-offs: e.g. a camera can record you typing in your password but not your fingerprint, but someone can force you to touch the sensor or maybe pull it off of a glass, a password can be faked safely while someone watches you but that fake fingerprint is much riskier, etc.

After a lot of debate and research, I bought the Fall 2013 MBP from Apple refurbished in the middle of 2014. They do an incredible job refurbishing, to the point where there was no way you could tell it was a used device other than it arriving in a nondescript box. Plus, I saved something like $400 off the price of what was still the latest model at the time.

In the past two and a half years the only "problem" I've had is that one of the rubber feet came off. It's still got more than enough power for the foreseeable future as well. Definitely recommended.

To switch topics to another new "feature", this was my first thought about the 2x-larger touchpad on the new 15" mbp.

It's kinda ironic to me that Apple outdoes Dell at online BTO these days.

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd

It has the 4th gen processors where the TouchBar models have 6th gen processors. The non-TouchBar model also still has the "smaller" touchpad and the same ports & layout as the previous models. The body itself even has the same finish as the older model. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just the previous model.