But the touchbar was designed primarily for AV professionals from the beginning -- sliding controls for filmstrips, audio sliders, colors, etc.
It's just that most developers have never needed to do any work like that, and have never used the creative apps that expose this, so don't see the point.
But it's genuinely for the "professional" part of Pro. Not develop professionals, but creative professionals.
I've only recently started using a device with the TouchBar, but as a developer I've really enjoyed having debugging controls on it. It is nice being able to have the main screen focused on the running application and having the secondary debugging tools on the TouchBar.
About the only thing I’ve found useful is when plugging in a projector and getting the “mirror or extend” buttons directly rather than having to remember which symbol it is. Every other case it’s felt inferior and gotten in the way (like display/sound/volume access in an app that uses it)
You can also develop muscle memory with the Touch Bar as I've mentioned in my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786774
Is there some kind of force feedback?
sleep 10; kill -STOP `pgrep app`
But it's still overblown though, since the same interface is available on the xxl touchpad and would be better served with a gesture (so that aiming a narrow spot is not necessary).
As a dev I would never replace regular function keys. You certainly didn't lack shortcuts for debugging without a touchbar. But I definitely see the point it being an accessibility feature (in that case though, my thought goes to something like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard instead)
Binding a two character keystroke (cmd-shift-c for step next for me) is vastly superior ux than a function key or touchbar provide ...
i think the location of the touchbar above the useable space in the keyboard is a huge issue with it -- it's just not a useable space. it was hard to use function keys as well for this reason.
the touchbar would be kind of interesting for the creative uses i think if it was a separate physical device that you could put where you want it. a thing with a magnet maybe that you can attach to the bottom of the keyboard beneath the touchpad ... it's there when you are in an editing mentality and wanting to use those sliders -- relax and leave your fingers down close to you rather than raised and prone and stretching ...
I've found my only real use case is using Poc and launching apps. I find the text auto correct / smilie suggestion useless and borderline distracting and annoying while I'm trying to type (too much flashing).
I fully expect it to be removed from the upcoming touchscreen ARM MBP.
Most of the rumor mill close to Apple (John Gruber, atp.fm etc) all believe it's coming.
The devices (iPad/MBP) are clearly starting to converge and I think the next MBP is going to be genetically closer to an iPad than it is todays MBP, you can tell they've been leaving a ton of enhancements out of the current lineup waiting for an evolution, MBP lags behind all other premium laptops in webcam quality, LTE, touch support, pen support and screen bezel and the ARM transition is definitely the time to push this evolutionary update.
iOS apps: but consider how Apple added (is adding? I don’t use the ecosystem) a pointer to iPadOS. That’s heading towards apps not requiring touch for interactions.
Webcam quality: I dunno, most expensive laptops I’ve seen also have lousy 720p webcams. (I have a Surface Book, which is more like a tablet in this regard, having both a front- and a rear-facing camera, both fairly decent.
LTE: not particularly common in laptops. It’s always been niche functionality.
It has always seemed weird to me how much of a schism there has been between tablets and laptops in things like cameras and LTE. (Microsoft are the ones that started tearing down the dividing wall of partition in the Surface line of products; but it’s still mostly intact.)
I’ll be interested to see what comes of it (though have no plans to ever acquire any Apple gear).
You don't need tactile feedback when the feedback is real-time in the image on the monitor or the sound in your headphones. It's audiovisual feedback in the actual creative product you're creating.
And the touch bar is definitely tall enough to handle the fattest fingers. ;) Not sure why you bring typing into it.
It's not as "real-time" as the feedback from the key itself.
There are physical keyboards without tactile feedback, but studies have shown that most people will drastically slow down when typing on one.