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Comment by dustinfarris | Hacker News Reader

This is what Touch Bar should have been from the beginning IMO. I've been on the fence to upgrade my 2012 MBP. I've been concerned about buying into the Touch Bar hardware when it seems like it is not coming to any other Macs.

Why should I devote time to learning Touch Bar and trying to find ways to integrate it with my workflow when keyboard shortcuts are more than enough—and probably better? What happens when I sit down at my iMac where I spend >50% of my time?

Pock. has the answer. Turn the Touch Bar into the Mac Dock. Full screen everything and still have quick visuals on app notifications. Don't have to command-tabtabtabtab to get to a different open app—just tap it on the dock in Touch Bar. It's the perfect solution to an actual problem—give me more space on a small screen without sacrificing any of the experience.

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I've been concerned about buying into the Touch Bar hardware when it seems like it is not coming to any other Macs.

If Apple was going to try and open a new front on the "hearts and minds of Touch Bar skeptics" war then the Mac Pro reveal at WWDC a few weeks ago would have been the time to do it, that they didn't makes me think it's not long for this world. Not because the Mac Pro sales would have been hampered by it, if a workstation class modular PC running macOS was what you have been waiting for then wrapping the cost of a Touch Bar keyboard wouldn't be a make or break price modifier (and you could always swap out keyboards later if you hate it).

If the MBP is a quasi-halo product (expensive but incredibly ubiquitous) and the Touch bar isn't coming to the Mac Pro which is a true halo product I don't think you'll see it ever get pushed to any other product category either.

If memory serves, the logic to drive the Touch Bar is something that came from the Watch, which also included the Secure Enclave and other features that were more mobile than desktop. If that was true, then you can't trust the USB cable alone (or Bluetooth) to maintain the trust that circuit needs, and a keyboard with a Touch Bar would require a new circuit or at least design change to only do the display part, not the rest. It makes sense they won't put it in standalone keyboards just yet.

I tended to agree with this, but really with the desktop setup you have to move your eyes and head much farther to see the keyboard because the monitor is not fixed to it. This may be why they don't produce keyboards with the touchbar - the experience would be even less appealing.

I had forgotten the Touchbar was possibly to get life on the magic keyboard. I agree if this was to happen, it should have been bundled with the Mac Pro.

I also think the Touchbar apps being migrated to Sidecar may be a clue that a deprecation path exists should the dedicated hardware go away. “They live in sidecar now.”

You could also just set your dock to autohide. That's what I do on my MBA 2015 and it's great, especially considering how small 1440x900 already is.

If you’re hiding the dock, reducing the delay is very useful:

    defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0 && killall Dock

If you also have an iPad, the Touch Bar will make an appearance on that when using it as a second screen in Catalina's upcoming Sidecar feature: https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/05/apple-sidecar-app-has-t...

Not as useful as when it's right next to the keyboard, but that's probably the closest other Macs are going to get.

I could sort of imagine Apple making a desktop keyboard with one, but it seems better suited to a wired keyboard than bluetooth. You'd have to recharge the battery way more often.

I'm hoping sooner or later someone figures out how to bind/call arbitrary elisp functions from the touchbar. That for me would be the real killer app.

Just downloaded it! I have to agree that this is a much better use than the default one. The original one was hardly usable in many applications besides music players. This gives me the ability to switch apps quicker than before, especially with many full screen apps open. Thanks man.

I've been using TouchSwitcher for a good while now: https://hazeover.com/touchswitcher.html

> devote time to learning Touch Bar

How complicated do you think it is that you need to spend time learning it?

Not complicated at all, it just requires an open mindset.

Some tips:

Customise it to your liking in the keyboard pref pane.

You can press-and-drag on volume and brightness buttons of the collapsed control strip. No need to tap then slide.

You can create services (now Quick Action) in Automator and they show up with the Show Quick Actions setting set. Since services can be contextual (input+app) you can get creative and do some whacky stuff in there. I have contextless Safari and Terminal there to pop up new windows whatever the focused app is.

What I CAN NOT do, however, is move the 'ESC' key (or any, really) all the way to the left. There's always a 'Touch ID'-size spacer on the left of the Touch Bar.

That spacer still activates the 'ESC' key

That's correct. I am currently considering upgrading from my 13" 2013 Macbook Air to a 15" 2019 Macbook Pro (I want it for the IPS/bigger display) and I noticed this while I was testing it at Bestbuy.

Personally, if I make the purchase, I will probably just remap the Caps Lock key to ESC - assuming I can remove ESC from the Touch Bar.

The one thing I didn't care for is that the Touch Bar display can time out. I would personally prefer that it stay on - or at least have the option of it staying on.

Did a quick test, seems like it times out after 2min of system idle time, unrelated to display timeout (caffeinate -d doesn't prevent it) or actual idle system state (caffeinated -I doesn't either), and even on AC power (to prevent OLED burn in?)

The timeout implementation could definitely be improved. In 6 months I've hat that computer I've never had it be a problem or even found it annoying in any way though.

it sort of does. pressing in the 'middle' of the space, yeah, but not tapping the edge, like I used to do with the physical key.

Indeed the ESC button is much wider than it appears to be.

After 4 weeks with a touchbar macbook I’m still trying to unlearn “finger rests near escape key”, mostly because I only use the built in keyboard occasionally and that’s where that finger belongs.

It's also about unlearning one's previous workflows.

We have ubar for that https://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar

I use Logic Pro heaps - and the touch par is actually useful there. The issue for me is remembering that it's there. I am so used to the keyboard commands.

The thing that should concern you more about upgrading is the fact that they now solder the hard drive into the motherboard and the keys break and once broken also requires replacing the whole machine. Oh and they have no travel either. Maintainability? Who cares about that!

Now they just need to add the missing row of keys, and everything will be fine.

Sidecar adds a Touch Bar on the iPad to all Macs that support Sidecar.

Agree, the dock is what the touch bar should default to. I do wonder, if any, what the battery impact is with Pock?

The lack of a Touch Bar on desktop Macs is ridiculous, but I generally like it. Especially when I realized that you don't for example, touch volume, wait, and slide, but just start sliding from the little button in the quick menu.

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