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

Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 397 posts

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#71

Post by thih9 »

petereisentraut wrote: post #38
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #24

This thread is going to dissolve into a pile-up on the Touch Bar, so I wanna jump in front of this. Readers of this site are mostly “hackers,” however mutated or dumbed-down that term has become over the years, correct? Everyone here has their windows and spaces just so, a full complement of shortcuts and trackpad gestures, and if they're serious about the Macintosh tools like TextExpander. As standard as GUIs are, w…

Caps Lock is already mapped to Control.

Same here. But I've used https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements to map the key under touch bar's esc to esc.

I've also used the same program to disable touch bar esc. This way there are no accidental presses. I did it by mapping esc to 'vk_none' for the 'no product name' device, which is how Karabiner sees touch bar.

I still dislike the keyboard because of its failure rate, but the layout is ok for me now.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#72

Post by todd8 »

As an oftentimes Emacs user and a sometimes Vim user, I need more keys not less. I especially want more modifiers in consistent locations. Laptops frequently move these around, put a fn key where ctrl normally goes, or don’t even provide a ctrl key for the right hand. Apple does all of this.

Further, why does the spacebar have to be so wide? It makes the Alt and System (mapped to Hyper, Meta, leader keys whatever) harder to reach without looking. Microsoft offers an new ergo keyboard with a split keyboard, but then doesn’t provide a way to map the left and right pieces to separate bindings.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#73

Post by tomlagier »

patejam wrote: post #12
jtdev wrote: post #4

It’s unfortunate that so many design decisions are made with little regard for the true utility of what’s being designed, of which the touch bar has essentially zero.

What utility did the previous bar have? Volume changing? Screen brightness? Those are better with the touchbar. Escape key for vim or whatever? Switch your caps lock with escape! You should have been doing that the whole time! The actual function keys? I don't use them enough to need them showing up all the time. And an extra key to get them up again is no big deal. I agree that the touch bar doesn't add a whole lot…

It's very sensitive, I brush the Siri activation and "focus URL bar" all the time, at best causing a break in my flow while I get back to where I was and at worst losing data because I'm now typing into the void. I also have to look at it to figure out where things are, which slows me down.

Physical keys were a huge improvement. I'd have loved it if it was programmable keys with little LED displays, but being a flat, easily triggered surface makes it a big loss for me.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#74

Post by Kronopath »

ravenstine wrote: post #23
retrac98 wrote: post #10

99%+ of my usage of the touchbar is pressing escape, adjusting screen brightness, speaker volume, or accessing music controls. All of these worked flawlessly when I had physical keys, but now it's hard to know what I'm pressing without looking, and sometimes the controls become unresponsive to touches or drags. I'm a programmer/business owner, so perhaps it's useful for other sorts of creative professionals, but it f…

Why on earth do I need to tap twice to adjust the screen brightness? I couldn't find a way to just have two increase/decrease buttons. Why can't I adjust how long the touchbar stays active for? Why does it disappear at all? I can't imagine the touchbar would exist in its current form if Steve were alive.

Turns out if you do a small rightwards/leftwards swipe on the brightness or volume buttons, then you can increase or decrease them by one notch without opening the slider.

It’s not an intuitive or discoverable command.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#75

Post by addicted »

I have a conceptual issue with the Touch Bar. I’m struggling to understand what the Touch bar can achieve that a toolbar that exists on the screen would not be better at. Especially on a laptop with the great trackpads that the MacBooks have.

About the only benefit is that it doesn’t take up screen space, but in that case a single trackpad gesture which brings up a touchbar like toolbar right where your mouse pointer is seems like a much nicer input mechanism.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#76

Post by dmitriid »

nikivi wrote: post #66

I genuinely love my Touchbar. It's an extension of my macbook. I use it to show my active TODO, time and date, when I am on break and soon current calendar event running + Karabiner profile. https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-mac-os/tree/master/btt People who like to hate on it, didn't invest time in learning that you can program it to show what you want. And as for physical keys, with Karabiner, there is no need f…

> People who like to hate on it, didn't invest time in learning that you can program it to show what you want.

I already program different things most of my time. Why tale away my convenience (aka part of keyboard) and make me program something on top of what I'm already programming?

Three years on Touch Bar is still a solution in search of a compelling problem.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#77

Post by toomuchtodo »

hu3 wrote: post #22
docker_up wrote: post #9

I will never ever buy a MacBook Pro if they don't get rid of the TouchBar. The sheer arrogance of Apple to think they know better than their customers infuriates me. I only use a 2018 MacBook Pro because work supplied it, and because my 2015 MacBook battery was dying and the only option the IT department gave me was to upgrade to the 2018 model. I may simply go back to Windows at home if that's the case, and will use…

I'm still salty about the magsafe.

Magsafe patent expires sometime around 2025 luckily.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#78

Post by eropple »

lloeki wrote: post #61

I am a developer. The Touch Bar is useless to me. I remapped Caps lock to Esc expecting to be annoyed, but still hit Esc nonetheless because it works. And I deftly adjust volume using the Touch Bar slider using press-and-slide (not tap then pick-and-slide), relying on the += key for tactile positioning (but the position itself is largely muscle memory by now) I am also a musician. The Touch Bar is fantastic to adjust…

> The Touch Bar is fantastic to adjust tuneables in GarageBand, without the gorilla arm or wobbly screen effect you get on touchscreens.

I futzed around with the touch bar in Logic when I got one and wrote it off almost immediately. Logic Remote (which works with GarageBand, AFAIK) already exists and works with an iPad. Clear labels, clear text, manipulating multiple elements easily at once--it's a better solution than what they tried to wedge in with the touch bar.

The bigger problem with the touch bar is that, as a developer, I end up hitting the touch bar controls all the time. VSCode "helpfully" has previous tab/next tab buttons on it--and so when I try to hit 2 or 3 on the keyboard, sometimes I brush against them and suddenly I'm disoriented and typing in a completely different tab.

This machine is a work laptop. (Typically my music stuff is done on a 2012 rMBP, which is why I already had Logic and Logic Remote set up.) When I started, I asked for a half-the-price Thinkpad on which to run FC30 and was denied because "everyone else uses a Mac." I love the job but between the garbage touchbar and the hand-wreckingly shallow keyboard travel the computer they gave me it's easily the worst part of my day.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#79

Post by mrmattyboy »

notafraudster wrote: post #39

To me the bigger news here is killing the MacBook. It's a weird product -- crazy overpriced, and with a bunch of concessions in terms of the design, but I like that it's extremely light (33% lighter than a MacBook Air) and has no fan. I had hoped never to buy another laptop with a fan again. Yes, I know performance sucks, which is why I run most of my code on a server instead of locally on my computer. I think really…

Ah, that's interesting.. I was going to comment saying good riddance to it, since it was more expensive than the air, less power and just felt like it was out of place.. sure if it were _cheaper_ than the air, then great.. but I couldn't see a reason why anyone would buy it. Of course, hadn't realised it was fanless and lighter!

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#80

Post by mrmattyboy »

mrmattyboy wrote: post #79
notafraudster wrote: post #39

To me the bigger news here is killing the MacBook. It's a weird product -- crazy overpriced, and with a bunch of concessions in terms of the design, but I like that it's extremely light (33% lighter than a MacBook Air) and has no fan. I had hoped never to buy another laptop with a fan again. Yes, I know performance sucks, which is why I run most of my code on a server instead of locally on my computer. I think really…

Ah, that's interesting.. I was going to comment saying good riddance to it, since it was more expensive than the air, less power and just felt like it was out of place.. sure if it were _cheaper_ than the air, then great.. but I couldn't see a reason why anyone would buy it. Of course, hadn't realised it was fanless and lighter!

BTW, I have neither, so I don't have much to stand on!
Post reply on HN