This here is what gets me salivating: Using the toolbar as a context-sensitive test runner/controler: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwC8SNvW8AQgeWN.png:large
Is it the most innovative concept ever? No, but it looks like it's been executed very well. I think developers will like this macbook.
Meanwhile, the other 90% of users will probably love it when their IDE, profiler, every browser's developer tools, etc. can display context-appropriate labels so they don't need to remember what F8 does in the current mode of the current application.
The touch bar is a regression.
Do you need a button like this on your keyboard? No, you could set up a new Vim bind. But this is more dynamic; what if the test re-run buttons were only visible after having modified a file, and replaced with a deploy or commit button if tests succeed?
If you're vigorously opposed to it, don't buy a Mac. But some people can definitely see use in it. It's like your function row, but with visibly context-aware functions.
I don't want a "second display"; I want dynamic, context-aware buttons. Focusing on the fact that it's "another display" misses all the benefits of it not being static hardware buttons.
The buttons on your keyboard are already context aware. All this does is make them difficult/impossible to touch type (I touch type my F-keys), forces me to look away from my display to perform operations, and removes the good tactile feedback you get from a keypress.
I agree, though, that the lack of feedback was a mistake.
>But this is more dynamic; what if the test re-run buttons were only visible after having modified a file, and replaced with a deploy or commit button if tests succeed?
More dynamic in that you have to look away from your work to trigger a re-run? Or more dynamic in that its completely worthless if you use an external display and external keyboard? Or more dynamic in that it's another avenue for show-stopping macOS bugs?
I'm probably not the target market I suppose, my keyboard's keycaps are blank: http://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-ultimate/
For example, in Emacs (and I'm assuming most IDEs) I can map a function key to run my tests and have a status bar entry saying how many passed or failed. It's the exact functionality in your screenshot, no touch bar required.
At best the touch bar is a nice gimmick, and it's not adding anything you can't already do, and the trade off is the function keys. They could have just as easily left the function keys alone and added the touch bar above.
The standard "function keys can do anything" response is getting old.
The "I need to pick colors and scrub video" response is getting old. Nobody does that stuff often enough for it to be a good trade off.
That "function keys can do anything" is, in my opinion, the exact reason they had to go. They're scary for the typical user. What is F7? You may know, but it's not obvious in any way. That some of them cause destructive actions (e.g. Alt+F4 on Windows) makes it worse - they're scary to many users. And even when after figuring out what some of them do, one is stuck wondering "was that F8? Or F9? Oh! It was F10" (which, includes the worry that a wrong guess could cause problems).
Though, I cannot believe they shipped it without the haptic feedback to make it clear that a button was actually clicked.
^ Also, none of that, to me, includes Esc. Esc seems clear enough in its intent, and I hold no ill-will toward the Esc key.
Haptic feedback would be interesting..
I'm surprised they didn't include it given how much they've been pushing it on iOS, as well as on the touchpad of Macs.
Then make the whole screen touch enabled and bypass the silly, tiny screen gimmick.
Also, that still requires the actual controls to be on-screen somewhere. With the touch bar, you can opt to not have those controls (e.g. a toolbar in an IDE, or a palette in a visual tool like photoshop) shown on the main display if they're available when contextually relevant, on the touch bar.
This bar is all the bad stuff about a touchscreen (limited/no tactile feedback, reduced ability to rely on muscle memory) plus the bad stuff about keyboards (primarily that they are not where your eyes are naturally). There are a few tiny niche uses cases that will be nice, like video scrubbing, but 90% of the time it's just going to be functionality that is more difficult to use than it was previously.
Don't mistake your opinion for a fact.
I'm pretty sure I hate the current situation with F-Keys at least as much as you claim to hate multi-touch interfaces.
If you truly use F-Keys by touch (i.e. without looking) forcing the touch bar into F-Key mode should get you pretty close to what you had anyway.
The F-Keys don't have the little identifying lumps (on mine these are on F & J), so you simply have to know where they are by muscle memory. The only difference is you're tapping like a track-pad tap (as opposed to trackpad click).
It's really a very well laid out keyboard design. The worst thing about laptop keyboards is that they are all so non-standard, and every manufacturer does their own special-snowflake thing, so that it is almost impossible to touch-type on an unfamiliar machine.
It is a nice gimmick. Is there anything wrong with an improvement, even if it's a little one?
It is a gimmick, but in my opinion it's not an improvement, it's counterproductive.