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Comment by cnst | Hacker News Reader

Touch Bar sucks. I cannot wait until they start offering the option to not have the Touch Bar; it's such a gimmick; I bet I'm not the only one who'd pay more to NOT have Touch Bar, but have the physical function keys instead.

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Lenovo tried the Touch Bar approach on the 2nd gen Thinkpad X1, and ended up getting rid of it in the 3rd gen (2015) version. Maybe Apple will follow suit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkB6T6LrhQ

Wow so this isn't even 'new' on the Macbook... I had no idea the gen 2 carbon did this...

And Art Lebedev also introduced an Optimus Maximus keyboard, where each individual key has a tiny display -- yet every key is still a physical key -- back in like 2008 at CES -- 12 years ago -- with smaller prototypes and announcements for several years prior to that (they've even got vapourware awards because production has initially been delayed after a lot of initial attention -- it's finally hit the shelves in 2008).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ5rX6WpxTk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard

https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/

They were pretty expensive, and looks like they've all been sold-out and are no longer manufactured.

Touchbar is the most stupid and user hostile feature on MBP (getting rid of replaceable battery being the most hostile).

What about foregoing all the useful ports on the MacBooks, because USB-C is the future, and yet then 5 years later still not being able to use the same headset on both the MacBook and the iPhone?

(Because your USB-C headset can't be used on an iPhone, and iPhone doesn't have a headphone jack that MacBook still has, either -- so much for sacrificing the regular USB ports so that we can all quickly switch to USB-C!)

P.S. Yes, I can use the same headset on MacBook and Android -- either the headphone jack or USB-C work great on both.

I really frigging hate it, but one of the best things I ever did was to put a custom version of the standard buttons with free spaces on both sides: now I can rest my hands on the keyboard without continuously activating the sh*tbar.

I literally camped out the refurbished macs section until I found the specs I wanted without the Touch Bar. Took like 4 months, but I got it cheaper than new so it was worth it IMO

I'll be special-ordering MacBook Air as my next laptop, because the work only provides MacBook Pro, and MacBook Pro is not available with a professional (physical) keyboard -- only with Touch Bar.

I really hope they release an Apple Silicon MacBook still without Touch Bar.

I'm using MB Air 2020 now because of that, just couldn't stand Touch Bar in my previous MB Pro. It is slower unfortunately, but at least it has normal, usable keyboard.

The only thing you're missing is the F1-F12 keys, is this really so awful for you?

With TouchBar, you cannot change volume quickly without looking at the keyboard, spotlight gets activated all the time as you lay your hands around the keyboard -- yes, it's really that awful for many folk.

A lot of people use MacBook Pros for software development and Terminal access, and F1-F12 keys are often mapped to specific functions, from console software in Terminal, to cross-platform web browsers, to VirtualBox and such. It's not that difficult to remember which Fn key stands for which functions if you're a professional, it's easier to document Fn than the special case of a pictogram that's only available on select hardware, and Fn is 100% backwards-compatible, cross-platform and supported through Terminal OSS applications, plus much faster to use if you're a professional.

If you're a non-professional user who's never used F1-F12? Yes, sure, the TouchBar might be distractingly enjoyable to look at.

As a non-mac user (and also not a professional in your terms), one of my biggest gripes about keyboards is that full 5250-style 122+ key keyboards (with f1-f24, without a fun/modifier key) are either old (massive & won't fit nicely on my desktop) or expensive ($100+). Neither one has analog volume control, which I use frequently, and windows doesn't make it easy to map them, though the new windows powertoys feature might help. The color is also annoying (older are all beige, newer tend to have beige keys, which looks even weirder), but that can be fixed.

See here for the whiny text file I've been keeping notes in: https://gist.github.com/Efreak/d0d327517ab806e2abc9f193ad5ea...

You can make the touch bar surprisingly useful if you can install some third party software and configurations. I use a one call Better Touch Tool and its really good, It's worth a try. Here is a previous HN thread on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229226

It honestly just seems ridiculous that 3rd party software is required to restore 'basic' keyboard/computer functionality to a feature that few people seem to enjoy having in the first place.

If people want the touch bar, fine, have a separate SKU for that, but at least give those of us who want a real keyboard the option to have one.

It feels to me like Apple should have taken an "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" approach. There was, and is, nothing wrong with a traditional keyboard, yet for some reason they decided that changing something so fundamental was a good idea. In fact I would probably be less miffed if their systems came setup with Dvorak, at least it's possible to argue reasons why it was a good decision.

Now in 2020, they actually already offer all keyboard layouts on any laptop in their US store, all at no extra cost -- which is really nice -- you can get a British, Japanese or Russian keyboard directly on any laptop when purchased directly at Apple.com for US delivery on a US credit card -- at no extra charge -- and it's advertised to still come with a correct US-based plug, so, there's nothing to worry about.

I wish Lenovo would follow suit. Currently, Lenovo doesn't even sell separate SKUs for non-en-US keyboard layout even on external keyboards, not to mention keyboards already integrated into the laptops. But in any case, I'd rather have the physical keys than the TouchBar strip, even if accompanied by a laser-etched keyboard layout of my choice.

> You can make the touch bar surprisingly useful if you can install some third party software and configurations.

From your link:

> I'd recommend BetterTouchTool and things like finger swipes for volume up/down and brightness up/down and showing things like Spotify.

That sounds less good than function keys. If that's the best pitch for the touch bar, that is the very definition of damning with faint praise.

You can already change the Touch Bar settings in macOS to put back the default keys as would be on the physical keyboard; the problem is that it's still not a physical keyboard, and you get phantom key presses as you lay your hands around the keyboard to be able to push any key you want without even looking at the keyboard. Not to mention the loss of the haptic feedback.

The fact that Touch Bar is a "premium" feature, yet many folks would pay MORE to NOT have it, shows you that Apple merely doesn't want to admit the defeat, because there'd be plenty of people who'd pay more just to get the newer hardware without giving up the physical keys.

P.S. The same actually goes for the oversized Trackpad on the latest 2019 MacBook Pro 16" as well: I've enabled Tap to click on MBP16 as on all my prior MacBook laptops for years, and I'm getting phantom clicks everywhere all the time now; it's really annoying, and one of the reasons why 16GB Quad-Core 2020 MacBook Air 13" is on the only decent MacBook out there, even if you have an unlimited budget to spend -- I wish they'd at least offer more RAM on it, if that's their only actual professional machine at the end of the day!

Stubbornness may be a pattern from a computer hardware company offering only a single button mouse for decades

Don't devour me… But I really like it. It can do a lot more than F keys and I've never really used those.

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