I actually blame Johnny Ive for this clusterf*ck. Ive famously pursued a crusade for thinness. It's said that design is the art of compromise. Well, Ive took a no compromises approach to thinness and it showed. Look no further than the 12" Macbook. One port (also needed for power), lower power CPU and (I believe?) the start of the dreaded butterfly keyboard. IIRC the butterfly keyboard's raison d'etre was to shave ha…
I don't believe the Air got rid of the Touch Bar -- it never had it. It was only on the Pro. What's so "Pro" about replacing the useful function keys (including the escape key) with a bar that does nothing but pick emojis is beyond me. I strongly dislike the Touch Bar. I'm typing this on a 2019 MacBook Pro whose Touch Bar died yesterday, leaving me with no escape key, no volume buttons, no keyboard brightness buttons…
This is also why I dread having to get a new car with all the fancy electronics, they might be cool and useful now but apart from touchscreens being inferior to handle without looking on them (something I prefer to avoid while driving), that’s one thing that will both break and in general be worse than my phone, probably already when it comes out and by the next generation at the latest. (Quite ironically Bluetooth as the interface to my car was the first thing that broke and would cost EUR 900 to replace, which makes me happy I didn’t take the navigation)
I wish I could just pay a premium for longer lasting design. It also shows how silly it is when companies say they want to be net zero on emissions, then produce something that could easily work well for almost a decade were it not for some ridiculously expensive part breaking.