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MacBook Pro

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Re: MacBook Pro

#81

Post by toufka »

daturkel wrote: post #39

I think in a few years, we're going to be looking back at this as a half-assed hack before we were ready for a macbook with a full touch screen. Touch typists (which I'd imagine are an increasing proportion of computer users) don't look at the keyboard. Touch cues (ridges on the F and J keys, placement and size of keys) guide typing and control without the need to look. Even if you just used the touchbar to allow for…

Or maybe a full-sized touch 'interface' where the entire keyboard used to be. Imagine if the entire bottom half of the laptop was one of those touch-pads with some kind of haptic feedback. You could dynamically have mouse, keyboard, contextually customized input the entire mirror of the screen itself. Input below, output above. A curious concept. If this little touch panel merged with the trackpad (a better placement for it in my mind), you'd have a pretty powerful input system.

Re: MacBook Pro

#82

Post by n00b101 »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #20

Replacing hardware keys with a touchscreen on a laptop made for power users is a sign that Apple has lost touch with what made the MacBook Pro popular in the first place. I think they could have just upgraded to the newest CPU and put a new battery in and made everyone happy.

+ NVIDIA GPU

Re: MacBook Pro

#83

Post by rsync »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #20

Replacing hardware keys with a touchscreen on a laptop made for power users is a sign that Apple has lost touch with what made the MacBook Pro popular in the first place. I think they could have just upgraded to the newest CPU and put a new battery in and made everyone happy.

Get used to using "mac pro'd" as a verb.

"They finally mac pro'd the macbook pros."

Re: MacBook Pro

#84

Post by leejoramo »

dchuk wrote: post #12

(Posted in another thread, that probably will not make it as high as this) I think conceptually this is really neat, but it could potentially suffer from one major flaw: I hardly ever look down at my keyboard. A flat, digital screen containing changing buttons does not cater well to touch typists, of which you can reasonably assume most are who use a macbook pro. Touch ID is sweet though.

I live in terminal about a third of my day. I seldom use the function keys for anything other than adjusting the volume and brightness. I can't remember the last time I needed to use a pure Function key in any app.

I am a keyboard junky. I have long used LaunchBar (since OS X Beta), Keyboard Maestro and other utilities to do almost everything on my computer and while keeping my hands on the home keys. And I mapped the CAPS LOCK to ESC many years ago.

For me the current Function Keys are mostly wasted space. I am not sure how useful the Touch Bar will be for me, but I feel it will be more useful than the current setup.

(corrected: keeping hands "on" home)

Re: MacBook Pro

#85

Post by daturkel »

benologist wrote: post #21

TBH the touch bar seems like a half-arsed response to everyone else getting touch screens. Swiping photos, swiping timelines ... would be more natural on your actual screen, and almost as natural just using the trackpad or mouse.

Oh wow, you were 5 minutes ahead of my comment with the exact same sentiment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12807528

Re: MacBook Pro

#86

Post by [deleted] »

sandGorgon wrote: post #74

Four Thunderbolt 3 ports that support USB-C. Any one of the four ports can be a charging port. /win Hopefully, this will disrupt the rest of the industry. The XPS 13 is a brilliant machine (IMHO better than the Mac) but why did they not use the USB-C for charging is beyond me.

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Pro

#87

Post by ROFISH »

No Displayport 1.3/1.4 means no 5k displays. :( Why spend thousands on a new device when you can't even use modern displays from a standard out since 2014?

Re: MacBook Pro

#88

Post by GrandTheftR »

sfrailsdev wrote: post #19
avitzurel wrote: post #3

I can't get over the ESC key. I need to experience it in order to make a final decision but even though it's "there" the position looks awkward.

You can remap the capslock key to escape. Or do what I do, have capslock be ctrl when combined with a non modifier key, and escape otherwise. I enter normal mode with my pinky.

> Or do what I do, have capslock be ctrl when combined with a non modifier key

Re-read your comment, how do you do this at OS level? I can imagine doing this in Vim or Tmux, but OS level for any application?

Re: MacBook Pro

#89

Post by anupshinde »

It seems like they built the touch bar first and then asked people to build use cases around it. A touch screen with a software enabled touch bar would have been much better

Re: MacBook Pro

#90

Post by nnain »

blocke wrote: post #24

The touch bar examples shown are a usability disaster. You're going to hide UI from the screen and make me keep looking at the keyboard to find functionality? I stopped looking at the keyboard every 10 seconds when I learned how to touch type. The presenter spent most of his time looking at the keyboard and not the screen. This gimmick will disappear when Apple decides a touch screen is needed to complete the slow me…

Exactly, I want to look at the screen continuously with my fingers feeling the keyboard. Too much eye movement and distraction from the main task. Personally, this will just slow me down.
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