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Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

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Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#171

Post by donw »

rorykoehler wrote: post #159
rwz wrote: post #106

The biggest problem with touchbar is that Apple intentionally made non-touchbar model inferior in terms of hardware and the amount of USB-C ports to make sure ppl buy touchbar. This is truly infuriating and I'm sure, was done for purely marketing reasons. I'd buy a non-touchbar model if it had the same hardware as a touchbar model in a heartbeat.

In the same boat as you. Had the money ready to buy a maxed out mbp to replace my 2009 mbp. Ended up buying a maxed out 2013 model for $800 instead.

Between that and the keyboard issues, yeah, there's a reason I haven't picked up a new Mac in awhile.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#172

Post by clord »

awalton wrote: post #135

...and sadly, Apple will never admit the mistake, and give us back the nice keyboard of the 2013 model. All in the quest to save a millimeter or two of height. My Late 2013 15" MBP is starting to fall apart in its old age - its battery is broken, its feet are starting to come off, it's got a ding in the display... it's just barely sufferable, but not for much longer. At this point, I don't see myself replacing it wit…

Replace parts. It’s surprisingly affordable. I got my top case, battery, and display changed through a combination of defect repairs and just paying out to go the extra mile for 500 bucks. Machine feels brand new. Still plenty fast. Everything I touch is shiny again.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#173

Post by pentae »

rwz wrote: post #106

The biggest problem with touchbar is that Apple intentionally made non-touchbar model inferior in terms of hardware and the amount of USB-C ports to make sure ppl buy touchbar. This is truly infuriating and I'm sure, was done for purely marketing reasons. I'd buy a non-touchbar model if it had the same hardware as a touchbar model in a heartbeat.

Not only is it inferior, but it runs hotter. I found out the hard way it only has one fan instead of two. I sold my previous Macbook in disgust for a variety of reasons including still accidentally pressing touchbar buttons a year after use. Anyway my tests showed that it ran about 3-4 degrees C hotter at the keyboard doing the same tasks and after some research found out the missing extra fan is why.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#174

Post by userbinator »

rwz wrote: post #106

The biggest problem with touchbar is that Apple intentionally made non-touchbar model inferior in terms of hardware and the amount of USB-C ports to make sure ppl buy touchbar. This is truly infuriating and I'm sure, was done for purely marketing reasons. I'd buy a non-touchbar model if it had the same hardware as a touchbar model in a heartbeat.

I wonder how hard (easy) it would be to swap the parts between them, given that these are (mostly) still PCs, and determined people have done some pretty amazing things to other pieces of Apple hardware:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15190199

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#175

Post by userbinator »

beamatronic wrote: post #127
usaphp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In short, it’s for the 90% of software users that float between general public and pro users. It works. Then they should have not called it a “MacBook pro” there is nothing “pro” about touch bar, it’s something useless that I have to pay extra for and I don’t need it at all.

The only time I touch my Touch Bar is to hit the Escape key. Because I use vi. Because I am a professional and theoretically the target audience of $3,000 premium quality laptops.

I haven't tried it on a Mac, because I normally use a PC, but there Ctrl+[ is equivalent to Esc and saves reaching upwards (some PC laptops have badly placed Esc too.) I've been using Ctrl+[ ever since I discovered it.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#176

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Pxtl wrote: post #170
avhon1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great application for an e-ink display. No burn-in, low power, and can always emit as much light as the keys on the keyboard do (by front-illuminating the bar when the keyboard backlight is on).

E-inks respond too slow for good touch feedback though so you'd want to have it be clicky or vibrate or something, which adds a moving part.

Vibration could be added via a speaker, not exactly a moving part. This is how Apple's current vibration scheme works, at any rate.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#177

Post by nol13 »

wiredfool wrote: post #14

I’ve been living with a touchbar machine for about two months now, and the only useful thing about it for me is the touchid spot. Escape, slow as hell. Brushing the touchbar and bringing up the man app on some random argument, useless and annoying. It’s gotten a lot better now that I’ve switched it from context to function keys, and am using an external keyboard 95% of the time. It’s really my third favorite laptop t…

Ya the touchbar stupid, that track pad tho.. only laptop i've ever been totally fine using without a mouse. Hard to go back to other laptops after using that.

Plus the touchbar, though stupid and useless, does at least succeed in making all the other laptops look old and crappy now.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#178

Post by cottsak »

rwz wrote: post #106

The biggest problem with touchbar is that Apple intentionally made non-touchbar model inferior in terms of hardware and the amount of USB-C ports to make sure ppl buy touchbar. This is truly infuriating and I'm sure, was done for purely marketing reasons. I'd buy a non-touchbar model if it had the same hardware as a touchbar model in a heartbeat.

Me too. Insanely frustrating.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#179

Post by jakebellacera »

beamatronic wrote: post #127
usaphp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In short, it’s for the 90% of software users that float between general public and pro users. It works. Then they should have not called it a “MacBook pro” there is nothing “pro” about touch bar, it’s something useless that I have to pay extra for and I don’t need it at all.

The only time I touch my Touch Bar is to hit the Escape key. Because I use vi. Because I am a professional and theoretically the target audience of $3,000 premium quality laptops.

I just remapped caps lock to esc and my woes (and left pinky pain) went away.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#180

Post by ubernostrum »

usaphp wrote: post #120
arthurofbabylon wrote: post #119

I’m a non-tech savvy person who happens to work in tech. I find the touch bar very useful. This is what I believe: the touchbar is for people like me... people who never learned to use the F keys, people who aren’t obsessive about shortcuts but appreciate them when discovered. In short, it’s for the 90% of software users that float between general public and pro users. It works.

> In short, it’s for the 90% of software users that float between general public and pro users. It works. Then they should have not called it a “MacBook pro” there is nothing “pro” about touch bar, it’s something useless that I have to pay extra for and I don’t need it at all.

The "Pro" in "MacBook Pro" has never meant "developers, exclusively developers, and nobody but developers".

As far as I'm aware, Apple doesn't and hasn't ever explicitly targeted its higher-end models at developers. They just happen to have been good developer machines, and so developers confused that for "I am explicitly the target market of this".

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