Hacker News News Feed for the Mac Touch Bar

I find it quite usefull at times. One thing I really like are the settings you get while taking a screenshot, when you press the shortcut for the area screenshot tool you have the option to change the destination or copy it to clipboard, you can also change it to another tool. I’m not sure if that was possible before.

I use an external keyboard most of the time, so the TB goes unused.

I've customised it with BetterTouchTool so at least I have some useful shortcuts the few times I'm on the road, but I wouldn't cry if it went away. It's one of those things I would have loved when I was 16, but grown-up me doesn't see much value in it. The fact that I cannot reliably reach a button without looking at it, basically disqualifies it for any keyboard poweruser, I think.

Touch-ID addition is wonderful, no complaints there (beyond a bit of extra paranoia).

The rest of the keyboard is a love-hate thing. I find myself banging on it, the travel is really short, especially for people using mechanical or simil-mechanical keyboards; and it's pretty noisy compared to the previous one. I also hate the collapsed arrow keys.

To be honest I bought this MBP only because I found it uber-discounted in Japan. The power upgrade is nice, but everything else (the TB, the dongles, even the outsized trackpad) is change for change's sake, and it makes the experience overall worse compared to the previous model, IMHO.

I've been searching for alternatives too. Problem is I don't know of any laptop that has a similar quality touchpad compared to MBP. Apparently Apple has invested much more in touchpad responsivity, especially to small movements.

I have a feeling the touch-bar is part of Apple's strategy to slowly convert keyboards into touch-screens for their desktops and notebooks. They're doing it a lot more carefully than on the phone where they could jump all-in.

If they can improve the haptic feel of it by iterating on a less-critical portion of the keyboard and show people what a more adaptable layout can do, maybe they'll be able to produce a touch-screen keyboard most people want.

This is definitely interesting and well excuted, but there are two problems which prevent me from using this regularly. These are, of course, just my opinions and I completely understand that others may disagree:

Firstly, the interaction paradigm doesn't really make sense. Swiping should advance / go back, not open or hide, and tapping on the headline should open the link in the browser. The headlines should automatically cycle through with a customisable delay, or work like a scrolling ticker system.

Secondly, there's no way to view the HN comments on any given article, since swiping takes you directly to the article. If I read an article linked on HN while I'm browsing here, I am invariably more interested in the discussion surrounding it than the article itself. Ideally, tapping the headline would open the comments on HN, and I could then open the link to the article myself if I choose to. Alternatively, a short press could open the article, and a long press could open the comments, or something like that.

Overall, I really like the concept, and I especially like the fact that it turns the Touch Bar into something actually useful for a change, but I can't see myself using this app without the above changes.

EDIT: I don't seem to be able to quit the app, either. I had to kill the process since tapping on the "x" button didn't do anything.