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Comment by jacooper | Hacker News Reader

I really disagree about the Touchbar.

I don't understand the negativity against it.

Even though I don't use a Mac, the touch bar is extremely useful, you can click buttons through it, scroll videos, have per-app shortcuts, text suggestions and much more, it really felt like a magical experience.

I was disappointed when Apple removed the touch bar, they could've just added the function row without removing it.

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You accidentally touched it ALL the time leading to random functions being called. I had to turn it off. A capacitive bar right on top of the physical buttons you use all the time was not a fantastic implementation. Apple reverting it is testament to that.

I do not recall ever accidentally touching it in the two years I had one. However I did not like it replacing the Fn and Escape keys. Having a section of contextual keys and controls was nice but not to replace the top row.

I found it the exact opposite - I very nearly never touched it. My problem with it was you need to look at it to interact with it, which meant you weren’t looking at the screen. It felt like someone designed it and said “but that won’t be a problem, because you can have the bar show you what you need” without considering it’s impossible to see what’s under your finger. If they’d somehow put it at the same angle as the screen, so you could interact with it and while focusing on the screen, it could’ve been amazing - for me at least.

Happy Touch Bar enjoyer here, however it did not receive much love from 3rd party software developers and only single hardware iteration by Apple. MacBook Pro 13" 2022 still has Touch Bar, so it is still living, but more like a zombie.

I think the short lifespan is a big part of why no body supported it. It only lasted one generation.

One generation? The new 13” MacBook Pro with M2 still has it.

Its still the same design

Touch Bar had one revision, so two versions. First with software Esc key, second has hardware Esc key.

Iirc it bumped up the price of the MBP and was something I would definitely decline if it were an option. But it wasn't. So for me it was a ham handed excuse to get a few hundred more out of me.

Didn't hate it, but didn't care for it either. Happy it's gone.

I mean the macbook didn't get any cheaper now, did it?

No but at least it got way faster. Even if there were no price difference, I think I'd still go for no touchbar.

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