Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

vas3k.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 477 posts

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#291

Post by Cthulhu_ »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #197
p1necone wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It turns off after 1 min of inactivity" Oh wow I didn't know that, I've been kinda leaning on the "it might actually be pretty cool/useful" side of this touchbar thing, but now I'm squarely in the "it's totally useless" camp. What were they thinking?

Well it's essentially running it's own processor and display. It'd have to time out because otherwise it would eat even more of your battery than it already does.

You'd think it doesn't use that much, given it's a mostly black oled and the co-processor is from the apple watch. But, that one turns off after a little while too so nothing new there.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#292

Post by bryanrasmussen »

sundvor wrote: post #210
mikenew wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I’m just one guy, but I was planning on an upgrade before they released it and I did not, in fact, buy it anyway.

Good. :) The touch bar would be why - as opposed to price, right?

the touchbar adds to price, so if it's price it might be the touchbar.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#293

Post by retromario »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #234
azhenley wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The touch bar 13" has 4 Thunderbolt ports and Intel Iris 650 graphics, compared to the non-touch bar with 2 ports and Intel Iris 640.

Ha ha, I was happy it had 2 ports — considered briefly the MacBook Air until I realized it had only 1 port.

The Macbook Air still has two USB ports. Perhaps you meant the Macbook?

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#294

Post by frabert »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #291
FridgeSeal wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's essentially running it's own processor and display. It'd have to time out because otherwise it would eat even more of your battery than it already does.

You'd think it doesn't use that much, given it's a mostly black oled and the co-processor is from the apple watch. But, that one turns off after a little while too so nothing new there.

The key here is that it's oled: given that it's mostly static as the user above says, it would get pretty bad burn in if it was always on

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#295

Post by lloeki »

pentae wrote: post #173
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.

Thanks for the feedback. I was suspecting something as such when looking at TDP and teardowns but could not find a single review talking about this. FWIW I have a early '13 rMBP at home from before they moved to single fan (late '13) and it's definitely better at keeping things in check under load at a decent volume than my work-provided mid '14.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#296

Post by allendoerfer »

culturestate wrote: post #269
2009mobile wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D touch isn't supported on the iPhone SE or on any iPads. Given that it's not supported across the iOS hardware line, it's not assigned any essential functionality. I expect that it'll play a larger role after the next major redesign of iOS in a couple years.

They've started faking 3D Touch on iPads - see e.g. the new control center, which will respond mostly the same as it does on a modern iPhone if you use a similar "force touch" action (even though you're really just holding it for n milliseconds). I'm betting on a force-sensitive iPad sooner than later, probably the next-gen iPad Pro.

Can't you just detect force, because the surface of the touch increases slightly, due to your skin being flexible? Seems like a feature you could emulate anyway.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#297

Post by lloeki »

mikenew wrote: post #107
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.

Don't forget the huge price hike "because of the touchbar" that included the non-touchbar model.

> price hike "because of the touchbar"

To be fair it's not the TB itself that bumps the price but the addition of a second TB controller and a beefier CPU.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#298

Post by bad_user »

I have the MacBook Pro 2017 edition and this is by far the worst upgrade I've experienced for such a high-end, luxury item.

It's all USB-C. Virtually nobody else supports USB-C, not even Apple. Oh, you want HDMI? €100 please.

I also have an iPhone 8 which is on the Lightning connector. The audio jack is gone and guess what, there's no Lightning connector on the MacBook, so you'll need 2 pairs of headsets or an adapter.

The glowing logo is gone. And the Touch Bar is a clusterfuck. In an ironic touch, the default Touch Bar setup shows the Siri button at all times. I guess if you have multiple clusterfucks you make them link to one another.

I still have the 2015 at home. I think that was the best MacBook Pro made thus far and looking at the differences I'm now contemplating a move to a Linux laptop — not the same polish, but it won't be this expensive either and I won't feel bad about supporting a company that's getting increasingly hostile towards work laptops and touch typists.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#299

Post by lloeki »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #187
ubernostrum wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Please enlighten me, what's "Pro" about the touch bar?

I bounced into a guy that has his independent music label and creates music too, and he loves the thing, finds it freaking genius for the direct interaction and enhanced discoverability in his tools. He's definitely "Pro", but not tech-savvy.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#300

Post by lloeki »

abtinf wrote: post #213
snowwrestler wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D Touch is a great way to move a cursor around in text you're writing. Just push in anywhere on the keyboard until it pops, then slide you finger to move the cursor. I use this all the time; it's much more precise than the old direct touch way to move the cursor.

I’ve always used iPhones and had no idea this feature existed. Thanks.

Do it a second time to perform selection.
Post reply on HN