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Comment by tenpies | Hacker News Reader

I like how they gently reduced the Touch Bar.

A few more iterations and they'll hopefully realize what an awful idea it was and we'll go back to a normal and functional keyboard.

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I disagree that its an awful idea. If anything its a pretty great idea with a lackluster execution. There are alot of problems it can solve but it needs to have a killer app first to drive adoption. "Contextually sensitive" actions are decent but not the killer app.

Solution in search of a problem

I want F keys on my keyboard. It could have been an additional thing but just slashing the F-row and replacing it with touch keys ain't too practical. Still miss the headphone jack.

> I disagree that its an awful idea. If anything its a pretty great idea with a lackluster execution.

I dont think any execution can overcome the fact that going from analogic to software keys is a downgrade in terms of usability.

What we need is keys with tiny screens on. Tactile feel so you can use without looking AND contextual.

If only someone had made something like this already... oh yeah gamer keyboards have had this for YEARS.

It's only true that a physical key is always better if you're sending a single key press event, which unfortunately is usually the case for most Touch Bar controls, but there are certain use cases where sending a stream of events is preferably: For example adjusting color sliders in Photoshop, or a volume fader in Logic Pro.

The foundational problem with the Touch Bar is that it's a UI only for some use cases that are desktop-first workflows (like design and music production). And not only is the Touch Bar not available for the desktop, the form factor is so compromised by the small size of a laptop that it ends up not even being good for the use cases that it is a good fit for on a laptop.

I was initially excited when I saw the Touch Bar, because I hate adjusting sliders and knobs with the mouse (and find that UI element to be nicer to use on an iPad for example). But the Touch Bar is so small it's terrible for adjusting sliders and knobs, and I usually use an Exeter all keyboard and mouse when I'm doing these tasks anyway...

It needs to require pressure to activate, not a micrometer of skin brushing the edge of it, before I'll have to stop disabling most of it to make my laptop keyboard usable.

I find force touch trackpad unusable, too. Can't drag+drop reliably on it—like, maybe a 25% success rate for a click & drag of any significant length. Wife's the same way (except she didn't know the feature existed, so thought her new laptop was broken). Had to disable it on both our machines, which is fine since I don't remember what they said it was for at the event where it was announced, so I'm missing nothing. Both of us are young-ish and have entirely OK manual dexterity and sensitivity, as far as I know.

Unlikely, the lack of physical Escape button is what most users were unhappy about.

It also takes significant resources for Apple to support it, and there is a cost to the component as well. If it is not used by developers or customers it will be phased out.

Personally I've loved the fingerprint id in the latest Macbook Pro, and found no real use for the touch bar. I regret buying my last Macbook Pro because of the terrible quality of the keyboard (replaced keys 3 times).

Have you tried apps like BetterTouchTool to make use of the touchbar?

I don't really care enough to try a productivity tool; I'm happy to try out what Apple offers first, but I've seen nothing particularly compelling. The touchID button on the other hand has been useful from day 1.

I do care about the terrible build quality of the keyboard which meant keys fell off and even wore through within months of buying it. The basics are a lot more important than Apple's latest magic x, and the basics on Apple products used to be top notch.

You can't really make it part of your workflow if you use an external keyboard a fair bit of the time, anyway, which I suspect a lot of MBP users do. I bet external keyboard at the desk(s), built-in when on the move, is a common way of working with them. For that portion of the userbase, even if they liked the touchbar they don't have much reason build it into muscle memory or routines, so probably tend to ignore it or just set it to F-keys.

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