“Much-maligned touchbar”? I would have used something like innovative, versatile, product-defining, or beloved instead. I’m really hoping that Apple doesn’t listen to the vocal minority this time around. Outside this forum are there that many people who long to emulate a VT-100 or otherwise has a need for 20th-century-holdover physical F-keys? Setting volume and brightness is so my better with a slider rather than buttons. Having clearly labeled context-sensitive virtual buttons is clearly better than cryptic, static keys. Don’t go backwards, Apple.
As for function keys, if you consider the ESC. key to be a function key then yes they are needed. As for VT100 emulation, this may sound strange but there is still working hardware/software out there that expects to communicate with VT100's.
Beyond that Apple really needs to learn that being an ass isn't placing them in a good light. The touch bar is not a bad idea, it is the implementation that is the issue. When you completely delete functionality like function keys you basically are telling your users you don't care about their often massive investments in software. It also dismisses that some software uses the function keys effectively.
The touchbar or something like it really isn't a bad idea as a general concept. The problem is they deleted very important functionality for many users with a replacement that wasn't ergonomic. Such a supplemental touch screen has a lot of potential if they could get developers to make use of the hardware. This is the second problem, there is no cross platform solution to encourage developers to move to the tech. On top of that Apple limited the tech to a handful of Macs when it should have been implemented across the board. That includes touch bar keyboards for desktop Macs and even Mac Air.
Well said, to add to it, the touch bar added another $200 or so to the retail price of the Macbooks. I hope Apple learned some lessons about disregarding the needs of current users and forcing them into a future they want. Keyboard, Touchbar, ports/dongles, 3.5mm headphone jack, time to back track folks.
I find it hard to believe they are going to wait until fall to release new MacBook Pros, much less start mass production in "late 2021." That would be a full year since the M1 was introduced, and about 18 months since their Apple Silicon announcement. As someone else noted, they announced the transition would take two years. I've got to think portables come before the desktops.
The 16" Intel MacBooks are already being deeply discounted (10-20% in many cases). That doesn't happen unless the channel is clearing inventory. Apple still lists non-custom configs as available immediately, and 2-3 weeks for custom. But clearly, resellers are anticipating an announcement. I also can't imagine they are flying off the shelves. People spending $2,200-$4,500 for Apple's top laptop tend to follow what Apple is doing.
I work in the field with users and I have asked nearly everyone with a touchbar laptop what they think of the touchbar. I’ve literally not once had a person say they use it. Not one time.
It’s a trash feature, nobody uses it. The lack of a physical escape key means tons of accidental escape uses. Yes I know there is one now.
It’s a worse than useless design and if it goes away I will purchase a football to spike.
Bull. Shit. Also you realize that Apple has included both a physical escape key and a touch bar, right? They aren't mutually exclusive. So go back and ask "everyone" how often they use F1-F12.
Touchbar is a remarkably bad design from a UX perspective. Mixed paradigms. The screen is where you're looking. The keyboard is where you don't have to look, can touch type, have feedback when you press a key. Having a row of keys on the keyboard as a touch screen breaks the basic paradigm forcing the user to stop looking at the display and look at the keyboard instead.
There's nothing you can do with the Touch Bar that couldn't be done with some section of the display and use existing mechanisms to touch, ie mouse, trackpad. Having a changing touchscreen on the keyboard defeats the purpose of having a keyboard separate from the screen. It would make more sense to have a touchscreen display. Its been done... such as iPhone, iPad etc. But Apple won't do it because Microsoft has already done it and Apple doesn't want to be seen following Microsoft no matter how much it may make sense.
I, for one, will be very glad to see the touchbar go away. As you point out, they've already started making it go away by bringing back the Escape key. Thats only a recent change. On my work laptop I'm stuck with the full touchbar with troubles related to being able to hit the escape key, troubles accidentally brushing the touchbar and having some random action occur. I touch-type so I never look at what the touchbar may be displaying that is unique to an app. I adjust display brightness, volume. Things that I can do more easily with the specific function keys on the regular keyboard.
Sixteen (16) months ago (when the 16” MacBook Pro was released) is not a “recent” change. The Esc key was a concession, for sure, but was no indicator that the Touch Bar was already going away.
All the people “accidentally” brushing the Touch Bar has always seemed suspect to me as I have typed on the very same keyboard for over 3 years and have yet to encounter the problem. Perhaps people flail around while they’re typing? Not to mention all this talk of Fn keys being easier, as though no one ever needs to take their eyes off the screen to make sure they hit the correct key.
The Touch Bar is incredibly versatile, but takes time to exploit to its full potential. Obviously, people would rather simply mash Fixed Function buttons because change is hard.
I agree with (most of the) people on the Touch Bar - it’s a gimmicky feature that had some potential but has been ignored by the vast majority of people. The main thing I use it for is picking out an emoji. Meh. I also frequently use it accidentally when my hand overshoots a number key and i accidentally touch the Touch Bar, so it’s definitely an annoyance there. All in all, if you asked the majority of users if they’d rather have a Touch Bar or have $200 off the price of their laptop I don’t think you’d see too many Touch Bars around.
You make an excellent point. I can certainly accept the "it's not worth the added cost" argument. I think the touch bar is great and I use it every day, but if you gave me a choice of a $1600 MacBook Pro and an identical $1800 model that swaps out the f-keys for a touch bar; it would not be an easy choice for me. However we have never been given that choice, so it's not clear if a) it would add $200 to the final cost or b) how many people would pay that cost. I am certain that the proportion of people who would pay for the touch bar is less than 100% but more than 0% ;-)
Having said that, I am very confident that there is only a tiny percentage of consumers who would choose an "f-key" MacBook Pro over an indentical "touchbar" MBP at the same price. Such a model would a complete flop; the touchbar model would outsell the f-key model 10-1 or 20-1. That's idle speculation on my part, but I'd be willing bet money on it.
So, as you said it really comes down to pricing tradeoffs.
techconc said: Also, one of the deficiencies with the M1 is the lack of PCI lanes / USB 4 controllers. The M1 chip will NOT be sufficient for higher end Macbooks that need more ports. An M1x will have to support more memory, enable more USB 4 ports and have additional CPU and GPU cores. That might be fine for higher level Macbooks and maybe a lower level iMac. The top end iMac will need substantially more powerful GPU. Just doubling the M1 GPU cores probably wouldn't be enough.
The M1 has two Thunderbolt controllers, just like all the 4 port TB MacBooks have. Apple implementing only 1 port per controller in the current M1 Macs is all for product segmentation purposes. The decision to only support 2 displays in the M1 may be the same type of decision. It can go in a base model small iMac or MBP14 just fine.
And yes, whatever goes in the MBP16 and iMacs will have to be more of everything.
It doesn’t matter what people think of the Touch Bar. Developers have not embraced it, or exploited its potential. That is why you don’t see iMac keyboards with a touchbar.
Consequently, it is under-utilised and just adds significant cost to the laptop. So, I guess Apple could just keep including it until judgement day in the hope developers finally embrace it, or just give up and move on.
Yeah, not making a keyboard with a Touch Bar and not letting developers do much with it other just buttons pretty much crippled adoption. Also, it's too small. It really needs to be 2x the height. They definitely had the room as the trackpad is oversized.
The M1 has two Thunderbolt controllers, just like all the 4 port TB MacBooks have. Apple implementing only 1 port per controller in the current M1 Macs is all for product segmentation purposes.
That's good to know. So, it seems the M1 based Macs are arbitrarily port limited.
Yeah, not making a keyboard with a Touch Bar and not letting developers do much with it other just buttons pretty much crippled adoption. Also, it's too small. It really needs to be 2x the height. They definitely had the room as the trackpad is oversized.
I'm not making the case for or against the Touch Bar. However, I find it rather bizarre that anyone would expect a touch bar, especially with Touch ID on a stand-alone keyboard. That was never a possibility for rather obvious security reasons.
Yeah, not making a keyboard with a Touch Bar and not letting developers do much with it other just buttons pretty much crippled adoption. Also, it's too small. It really needs to be 2x the height. They definitely had the room as the trackpad is oversized.
I'm not making the case for or against the Touch Bar. However, I find it rather bizarre that anyone would expect a touch bar, especially with Touch ID on a stand-alone keyboard. That was never a possibility for rather obvious security reasons.
Apple has a "special" USB bus, an "Apple USB T2 bus" that all the security sensitive peripherals are hosted on, like the T2 controller, Touch Bar, keyboard, trackpad, webcam, mic, etc. There was nothing stopping them from doing en external keyboard with a Touch Bar, and Touch ID as it would have been external wires versus wires in a PCB. They just didn't want to, likely because of the expense and maybe number of unit sales. It would have been a $400 to $500 keyboard, but the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro is close to that level, so perhaps it was something else.
If Touch ID was too much of a concern, an external keyboard with just the Touch Bar should have been done. The Touch Bar is a UI element requiring developer adoption. It needs to be on every device. Kind of like Force Touch never made it to every device, even within one iPhone lineup I think, and never made it to iPads. Not having it on every device retards adoption. Since the Touch Bar never made it to every laptop, and no external keyboard, and with the limitations for what developers could do, it seemed to be fated to go away eventually, and it looks like it is with the next round of rumors are right.
For far too many of us, TouchBar = Hockey Puck Mouse.
You like the TouchBar, feel free to buy a $200 more machine. I used it on a work laptop for 3 months, it is certainly not worth 200 to me.
I am looking forward to the 14" MB/MBP (whatever form it takes) to replace my mid-'10 ,13" MBP which is the most useful long-term Mac I've ever owned. Apple makes plenty of flubs, but that was not one of them.
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The 16" Intel MacBooks are already being deeply discounted (10-20% in many cases). That doesn't happen unless the channel is clearing inventory. Apple still lists non-custom configs as available immediately, and 2-3 weeks for custom. But clearly, resellers are anticipating an announcement. I also can't imagine they are flying off the shelves. People spending $2,200-$4,500 for Apple's top laptop tend to follow what Apple is doing.
All the people “accidentally” brushing the Touch Bar has always seemed suspect to me as I have typed on the very same keyboard for over 3 years and have yet to encounter the problem. Perhaps people flail around while they’re typing? Not to mention all this talk of Fn keys being easier, as though no one ever needs to take their eyes off the screen to make sure they hit the correct key.
The Touch Bar is incredibly versatile, but takes time to exploit to its full potential. Obviously, people would rather simply mash Fixed Function buttons because change is hard.
Having said that, I am very confident that there is only a tiny percentage of consumers who would choose an "f-key" MacBook Pro over an indentical "touchbar" MBP at the same price. Such a model would a complete flop; the touchbar model would outsell the f-key model 10-1 or 20-1. That's idle speculation on my part, but I'd be willing bet money on it.
So, as you said it really comes down to pricing tradeoffs.
And yes, whatever goes in the MBP16 and iMacs will have to be more of everything.
Yeah, not making a keyboard with a Touch Bar and not letting developers do much with it other just buttons pretty much crippled adoption. Also, it's too small. It really needs to be 2x the height. They definitely had the room as the trackpad is oversized.
I'm not making the case for or against the Touch Bar. However, I find it rather bizarre that anyone would expect a touch bar, especially with Touch ID on a stand-alone keyboard. That was never a possibility for rather obvious security reasons.
If Touch ID was too much of a concern, an external keyboard with just the Touch Bar should have been done. The Touch Bar is a UI element requiring developer adoption. It needs to be on every device. Kind of like Force Touch never made it to every device, even within one iPhone lineup I think, and never made it to iPads. Not having it on every device retards adoption. Since the Touch Bar never made it to every laptop, and no external keyboard, and with the limitations for what developers could do, it seemed to be fated to go away eventually, and it looks like it is with the next round of rumors are right.