Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines • Hacker News Board

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#231

Post by dmitriid » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:08 AM UTC

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #137

As far as I'm concerned, the Touch Bar is not useful and will never be useful. I need the physical tactile ESC and F-keys back. There isn't even an option to make it emulate a standard keyboard row of ESC & F-Keys permanently (with the alternative functionality when you hit Fn, like on a Magic Keyboard). This "feature" alone has sealed the fate of Apple computer hardware for me. I will not buy another Mac until it ha…

You can have static ESC+F keys. They brought that back in a recent-ish update.

Look under keyboard preferences. You can set the default display for "control strip"

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#232

Post by hellofunk » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:10 AM UTC

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.

Every professional vi/vim user I know does not use the Escape key.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#233

Post by dismal2 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:18 AM UTC

aroman wrote: post #206

chvid wrote: post #192

I am really "worried" about two features coming out of Apple the past few years: The touch bar mentioned here and the "3D touch" feature of the iPhone 7+. These are "obviously" bad interaction designs yet they come out of a company having almost infinite resources when it comes to design. What is going on here? Is it the marketing department taking over? Is it "we have created this chip and now we have to use it some…

Have you actually used 3D touch? Because I use it just about every day, so much so that it's one of the biggest things I miss when using phones that don't have it. It also isn't touted as a major selling point anymore -- it just quietly exists, serving an extremely useful purpose as a better "right click" for touch screens. The touch bar I agree is major marketing hype.

What do you use it for?

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#234

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:19 AM UTC

azhenley wrote: post #191

ktta wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but its 13" non-touchbar max specs are same as touchbar 13". So the comparison isn't really fair.

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.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#235

Post by dandare » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:20 AM UTC

It forever puzzles me, how come modern keyboards don't have dedicate buttons for COPY and PASTE. Average user or pro, we use the silly combination of two keys much more often than maybe 5 other least used dedicated keys, ON TOP of the F keys.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#236

Post by culturestate » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:21 AM UTC

dmitriid wrote: post #230

culturestate wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about all of the ways creative professionals augment their computers for touch-based interactions: jog wheels, sliders, drawing tablets. The touch bar is a good way to make some of those interactions more portable.

it's too small for the vast majority of things that creative professionals require.

I am a creative professional - there's lots of stuff that can credibly be done on the touch bar. Just because a tool isn't suited for every possible use case doesn't mean it isn't still a useful tool.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#237

Post by hmottestad » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:26 AM UTC

dismal2 wrote: post #233

aroman wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually used 3D touch? Because I use it just about every day, so much so that it's one of the biggest things I miss when using phones that don't have it. It also isn't touted as a major selling point anymore -- it just quietly exists, serving an extremely useful purpose as a better "right click" for touch screens. The touch bar I agree is major marketing hype.

What do you use it for?

Number one thing I use it for is on the keyboard. While typing, you see a mistake you did or need to change something. Press hard on the keyboard (on the iphone) and you get a cursor you can drag around, as if the keyboard becomes a trackpad.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#238

Post by krsdcbl » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #237

dismal2 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use it for?

Number one thing I use it for is on the keyboard. While typing, you see a mistake you did or need to change something. Press hard on the keyboard (on the iphone) and you get a cursor you can drag around, as if the keyboard becomes a trackpad.

Android let's you touch & drag the spacebar for this - thing is, it works just fine on my cheap old phone, no pressure-touch required.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#239

Post by dismal2 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:35 AM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #237

dismal2 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use it for?

Number one thing I use it for is on the keyboard. While typing, you see a mistake you did or need to change something. Press hard on the keyboard (on the iphone) and you get a cursor you can drag around, as if the keyboard becomes a trackpad.

Guess it's just me, but I find the regular text selection tool a lot quicker and more intuitive. Also, I wonder how many people that haven't read about it somewhere know the feature even exists.

BTW, I have 3d touch on, just don't ever use it. It's on because I'm preparing myself for the inevitable future of variable force touch gestures.

Re: Making the Touch Bar useful by abandoning Apple guidelines

#240

Post by cstejerean » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:40 AM UTC

chvid wrote: post #192

I am really "worried" about two features coming out of Apple the past few years: The touch bar mentioned here and the "3D touch" feature of the iPhone 7+. These are "obviously" bad interaction designs yet they come out of a company having almost infinite resources when it comes to design. What is going on here? Is it the marketing department taking over? Is it "we have created this chip and now we have to use it some…

The fact that people that frequent HN complain about something does not make it an obviously bad idea. Most of the developer complaints about the touchbar are about losing the hardware function and escape keys (which depending on how you use your laptop can be a bad trade off). Outside of that audience (and for those that code most of the time using an external keyboard) it’s actually pretty great. I say this based both on my experience for the past 18 months as well as from observing others (primarily non-developers).