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MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

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Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#11

Post by guitarbill »

blauditore wrote: post #6

It looks like Apple is trying to find an alternative to touchscreens just because Steve Jobs once said they're bad. For me, touchscreens are perfectly useful on laptops, since directly tapping something is much quicker than moving my hand to the trackpad, locating the cursor, moving it around and finally clicking something.

I love tablets but hate touch screens on laptops. More often than not, it doesn't work that well (edit: although last time I tried a touch laptop is now 1.5 years ago). And, oh god, the smudging.

It frustrates me that almost every Windows laptop with a nice screen is now touch. I assume you can turn it off, but you do pay more for a touch screen. This just reenforces my (outdated?) notion that it's a consumer, not professional device.

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#12

Post by 59nadir »

There's nothing in this review that convinces me that the touch bar is improving anything. If anything, paragraphs like these convince me it's at best on par with just regular keys:

> you no longer have one-touch access to brightness and volume adjustments; instead, you need to tap the button and then dial in your changes on a slider that pops up beside — not beneath — your finger. I’d be annoyed by that, but fortunately you can move the slider without actually touching it, by keeping your finger held down on the bar. It’s surprisingly inelegant, in that you end up controlling a slider that you aren’t actually touching. But it is efficient, and I got used to the new control scheme within a day, able to operate it by muscle memory the same I would a physical key.

They don't seem to have integrated this themselves, even. Why introduce something that you can't even use reasonably yourselves?

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#13

Post by [deleted] »

robert_tweed wrote: post #10

One thing I got from this review is that the touchbar brings keyboard shortcuts to people who wouldn't normally bother to learn keyboard shortcuts. I personally won't buy one because I've very picky about my keyboards (the squashed arrow keys are as much of a problem for me as the missing escape key). But for average users, I think Apple has managed another UX win here. I just wish they had made the bar a bit smaller…

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#14

Post by phaedrus »

guitarbill wrote: post #8

> I have little doubt that in a couple years, the technology Apple has been waiting for will arrive and this vision, or something closer to it, will be complete. Apple just released this machine too soon, or was too aggressive in the decisions it made. This summary makes sense to me. Luckily, I put 8GB of RAM in my Macbook Air five years ago, and it'll probably do another year. That said, does anybody use a Macbook f…

In fact I do use a 12" Macbook for development (C++). It does alright; certainly no worse than the 2011 13" Air it replaced. I should mention the CLion IDE makes it get hot and drains the battery unless you turn off certain IDE features. Code::Blocks does fine on it performance-wise, but initially the UI was too fuzzy to read due to incompatibility with Retina display. I can't remember if that's fixed in the latest version or if I found a work-around. I haven't tried to use XCode. My favorite thing about it is that the taller aspect ratio of the screen reminds me of older 4:3 monitors and IMO is a better layout for programming.

Edit: I have yet to plug anything into the single USB-C port except the charger. I don't own any dongles. I just use WiFi and bluetooth.

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#15

Post by raverbashing »

mangeletti wrote: post #3
alessioalex wrote: post #2

My potential issue with the Touch Bar is that I never look at the keyboard when I type, so if I need to adjust the volume / screen brightness I would have to change my behavior.

I never look at my keyboard when I type, either. I do, however, always look at my keyboard when I adjust the screen brightness or volume, or control iTunes (pause, next, previous). The one exception to this is ESC, and I use it gratuitously.

So, I guess you lose iTunes control keys while another app has control of the Touch Bar? Or maybe some controls can be global? This is a big issue in media apps

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#16

Post by kennysmoothx »

59nadir wrote: post #12

There's nothing in this review that convinces me that the touch bar is improving anything. If anything, paragraphs like these convince me it's at best on par with just regular keys: > you no longer have one-touch access to brightness and volume adjustments; instead, you need to tap the button and then dial in your changes on a slider that pops up beside — not beneath — your finger. I’d be annoyed by that, but fortuna…

For the power users, those of us who learn and have hotkeys streamlined into our work environment, the Touch Bar doesn't add much to us, except perhaps a new medium of fine controls (think sliders)

However to the users who aren't savvy, or who don't know hotkeys, this brings controls that would otherwise be in deep within the menu bar, right in front of the user. I think that could be incredibly useful to a lot of people.

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#17

Post by laumars »

kennysmoothx wrote: post #16
59nadir wrote: post #12

There's nothing in this review that convinces me that the touch bar is improving anything. If anything, paragraphs like these convince me it's at best on par with just regular keys: > you no longer have one-touch access to brightness and volume adjustments; instead, you need to tap the button and then dial in your changes on a slider that pops up beside — not beneath — your finger. I’d be annoyed by that, but fortuna…

For the power users, those of us who learn and have hotkeys streamlined into our work environment, the Touch Bar doesn't add much to us, except perhaps a new medium of fine controls (think sliders) However to the users who aren't savvy, or who don't know hotkeys, this brings controls that would otherwise be in deep within the menu bar, right in front of the user. I think that could be incredibly useful to a lot of pe…

While that's probably true, there used to be a time when the MacBook Pro was specifically aimed at power users. Which is likely why these features are being viewed from that perspective.

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#18

Post by intoverflow2 »

blauditore wrote: post #6

It looks like Apple is trying to find an alternative to touchscreens just because Steve Jobs once said they're bad. For me, touchscreens are perfectly useful on laptops, since directly tapping something is much quicker than moving my hand to the trackpad, locating the cursor, moving it around and finally clicking something.

Think it's more a case that a Surface-like MacBook Pro would completely cannibalise the iPad Pro and Cook is more fond of the iPad Pro than the Mac line.

The touchbar as a design decision makes a lot more sense when the brief is "Add touch to the Macbook Pro line... but under no circumstances step on the toes of the iPad Pro"

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#19

Post by pilif »

raverbashing wrote: post #15
mangeletti wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never look at my keyboard when I type, either. I do, however, always look at my keyboard when I adjust the screen brightness or volume, or control iTunes (pause, next, previous). The one exception to this is ESC, and I use it gratuitously.

So, I guess you lose iTunes control keys while another app has control of the Touch Bar? Or maybe some controls can be global? This is a big issue in media apps

The controls are global. You can try it out with the Touch Bar simulator in the current XCode.

Re: MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review: a touch of the future

#20

Post by mafro »

Steve (quite probably imo) wouldn't have allowed this to happen!

  I have little doubt that in a couple years, the technology
  Apple has been waiting for will arrive and this vision, or
  something closer to it, will be complete. Apple just
  released this machine too soon, or was too aggressive in
  the decisions it made.
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