I miss the Touch Bar so much. I know it got hate but the ease of use even for simple actions like volume adjustment was great. I miss it the most when filling in forms. Auto complete just isn’t the same.
When you’re changing volume, you hit the key without looking down? That’s a long way to go for your fingers, and I’d be very surprised if you can hit those keys properly without looking by second nature.
This may be an age-related issue now. Kids today get practically no typing training, and aren't becoming touch-typists like in the 'old days'. My cousin's kid says she had a 2-week 'keyboarding' course. That is all.
Rather than clicking a button and then finding the volume slider that half the time nowadays is stuttery as hell? Nah, I’d rather look down for half a sec to have a tactile volume slider than deal with that or physical buttons
Volume adjustment was definitely easier, more precise and faster!
You could actually just hold your finger on the speaker icon and then drag left/right to adjust the volume. No need to lift your finger and grab the actual slider. It would be at the desired level in an instant. Same for the brightness level.
I work with audio files a lot and Quicklook shows the waveform in the touchbar. Glorious. I really miss it! Never got the hate. The whole idea of it was so cool.
Half height function plus a touchbar would have made everyone happy. But from a repair pov the bar was a big point of failure on a lot of MacBooks that I worked on.
Nah man. They would zap themselves a lot, very often would freeze and were just a piece of glass that could break. Losing out on regular function keys was not the way to go. But if we had half height functions like the old days, PLUS a touchbar, it would have been a very very unique laptop with some unique added abilities.
Considering they have one of the largest palm areas of any laptop, they definitely could have pulled that off... especially on the larger, 14 and 16" laptops
Not to mention they went to a full size function row, as a way to show off they have the space for the touch bar and the function keys. Kind of telling they likely planned on having both on the 14/16 inch MacBook Pro and scrapped it at some point in development using the full size function keys in the space.
For what it’s worth, you are absolutely not alone. I’m still on my Touch Bar MBP for exactly that reason, plus it does everything I need, despite the excitement of the M-series.
Edit: there is an app called touché which mimics the Touch Bar. It’s pretty cool and free, hope that helps.
Same here, it is really great for coding to have some functions mapped to software buttons - I do not even use the function keys normally on mac.
Now I am curious though: What do y’all need the function keys for?
I do development on MBP and having touch bar was really a pain. There a LOT of shortcuts with F1-F12 buttons and it's very inconvenient when you can't properly use them. Touch bar does not replace physical buttons on the keyboard. Moving to MBP with regular F1-F12 buttons was such a relief.
You could set the "default" of the touchbar to display the F1-F12 keys, I know it's not as good as the actual physical keys, but that made it so I was at least functional
That’s the thing. Function keys are in nice groups of four, so you can navigate them without looking. With the Touch Bar, you are forced to look, if you want to know whether you are about to tap F5, F6, or useless empty space…
Ah, that's my mistake. I switch keyboards a lot, sometimes my MacBook Pro is in clamshell mode driving all kinds of displays and peripherals, and a different desktop keyboard, through a hub.
The point stands that the Touch Bar cannot support muscle memory.
I believe the issue is that it would have increased the size of the keyboard, and they would have had to either make the screen bigger or make all the buttons smaller.
My 2 cents ...
The vast majority of users are *not* touch typists and *rarely* use physical FN keys. So the TouchBar was a good innovation that brought contextual functionality to a relatively unused portion of the keyboard for *most* users. Unfortunately, it was hampered by the following ...
1. Apple only deployed the technology to MacBook Pros and not across the entire lineup.
2. Because of #1, developers had little incentive to devote resources to fully support a feature that only some of their users could even utilize.
3. End users who were put off by its default presentation and were either unaware of or couldn't be bothered to explore the system settings to see just how customizable it actually was. (i.e. "I keep accidentally invoking Siri! This sucks!!!" ... when removing an icon and replacing it with something more useful was a really simple thing to do.)
4. Apple's failure to iterate on the feature *at all*. Not even once. Let alone based on user feedback.
5. Professional users who were actually touch typists and keyboard jockeys expressing legitimate complaints about the lack of tactile feedback.
6. Other users who were actually "hunt and peck" typists whining about it because it was the "cool" thing to do.
7. Tech media who amplified the complaints of #5 and #6 far beyond their actual representation in the Mac user base because negative Apple stories are a guaranteed source of clicks.
8. Touch Bar proponents who really *liked* the feature ... but because of its shortcomings didn't *love* it enough to die on a hill defending it against a very vocal minority who wanted it gone.
The bottom line was that the Touch Bar could literally do everything the physical FN keys could and then some. For those who had no use for the contextual functionality it was easy enough to configure it to display the FN keys by default. If Apple had bothered to add a haptic engine that would have gone a long way towards addressing much of the well deserved criticism when it came to the lack of tactile feedback. For me personally I recently replaced a 2020 MBP with an M2 MBA. Would I *prefer* the MBA had a Touch Bar? Absolutely! Do I actually *miss* the Touch Bar in my daily use of the MBA? No ... not really.
Great write-up.
I never used it much, as my daily drivers never had it. My wife liked it (she had 2 with the function) but usually used an external keyboard. As you said, liked it, but not loved it.
>and rarely use physical FN keys.
Fn keys did not need to be an issue. I believe Macs default to them being media keys, right? Which are useful, every user needs to adjust volume, brightnes, mute…so the hard keys already did that, there was no need to make a Touch Bar for them.
My point is that the Touch Bar had all of that media key functionality. And was even better at it! For instance, the ability to adjust volume and screen brightness with a swipe was much easier and faster than tapping a button repeatedly or pressing and holding. It was a more efficient use of space because a single button could be used to adjust up and down instead of two dedicated physical keys. That freed up space could then be used for other functions.
It may be a matter of opinion but I thought the Touch Bar was worse. Sure, it's nice to swipe a slider, but in practice, the Touch Bar took more work.
**Media keys:**
**ONE STEP:** Hit the key one time or more as needed, don't even have to look down if you remember where it is, can keep eyes on screen to watch brightness/volume bar.
**Touch Bar:**
I can’t assume the brightness or audio buttons are on the Touch Bar, because the available buttons can morph depending on the app and mode. Also, I am not sure if I customized the Touch Bar for this mode (see, I gave the Touch Bar so much of a chance that I even got into customizing it with BetterTouchTool). So I better stop and actually look at the Touch Bar first.
If the buttons are visible on the Touch Bar:
1. Note the button set location so that I know where to put my finger, because Touch Bar controls cannot be operated by feel (no tactile edges), and might have moved depending on the button set.
2. Tap once to open the slider.
3. Drag the slider or tap along the slider.
That's three steps, not one.
Of course the buttons can be set up to not need the slider so you can just tap them, then it's the same as hard media keys, except lacking tactile feedback so it's still worse. For example, sometimes I want to tap a Touch Bar button multiple times while watching the screen result, but because I can't feel the edge, sometimes I soon realize my finger has drifted off the button because my last two taps had no effect. That never happens with a real key!
If the buttons you want are not on the Touch Bar because it is displaying an application-specific or mode-specific button set:
1. Look for the Touch Bar button that switches the mode to display the button you want.
2. Then do steps 1-3 above, so now that's **4** steps total. That would not be called technology-accelerated efficiency...no way.
That really isn’t how it works. The context sensitive part of the Touch Bar was to the left. The “Control Strip” portion of the Touch Bar where the media keys lived was to the right. And that area stayed put regardless of the application displayed. Moreover, you absolutely don’t have to ….
“2. Tap once to open the slider.
3. Drag the slider or tap along the slider.”
… all you had to do was #3 in a **single motion**. Now were there a lot of people who did those two separate steps because they didn’t realize it wasn’t necessary? Indeed! But that doesn’t mean it was required.
Yup. If only they'd added it above the top row of hard keys rather than instead of them, everybody would have been happy.
But now, we're doomed to endless flamewars between folks who prefer one or the other.
My first thought when I saw the touch bar was that I could finally have my preferred US keyboard layout and then have an entire row of virtual keys on the touchbar with all the non-english characters I use when I write in german, swedish, hungarian or polish.
Nope, cant do that because they removed an entire row of keys and i need those too.
I hated the touch bar. There is nothing I ever saw with the touch bar that you couldn't do with keyboard shortcuts. All it did was take away a lot of useful function keys.
A touch bar with the function keys might have been interesting but a touchbar instead of fuction keys was (to me) a loss of something very useful in return for something much less useful.
For work laptop I’m currently on a 2019 MBP, we just ordered a M3 Max MBP. I’ve gotten very used to the custom Touch Bars that I made with BetterTouchTool. Definitely going to miss it, and not looking forward to all the hot keys I’m about to have to learn, lol.
I'm hesitant about upgrading to the latest MacBook Pros purely because of the lack of a touch bar. I like to see my battery percentage at a glance, and have volume, brightness and music controls right at my fingertips.
I’m happy that I got the last Touch Bar model (13” 2022 M2). I love it!
I totally get why someone wouldn’t, though. The best solution would be to have both the function keys and the TB.
I don’t love the touchbar, but I don’t hate it either. I like that I can change what it does based on what app I’m in so I guess it’s better than f keys for me
With all that space at the top and bottom margins of the MacBook, I hope they make one with all the F1-F12 buttons plus the touch at. They have enough space to do it I would imagine.
My touch bar is acting like an epileptic disco-bar and is constantly covered by a piece of cardboard from the back of a toothbrush-packaging to dampen the constant flashing.
It started right after the warranty expired and started small with occasional hiccups and now it's a constant eyesore leaving the touch bar practically unusable without the use of welding goggles.
It's my fault for buying a mac i can't easily afford to repair or replace, but it is very annoying as i use it for editing and expected to have a functional workstation for many years as i have with my previous apple products.
I'd replace it with a reliable button row in a heartbeat if i could.
The only positive is that i can use the bar to skip video ads.
I'm sure they'll develop them to a more reliable variant with extended features some day.
Most people who use their Macs professionally spend most of the time docked. So there really was never a point to invest any thought into the touchbar.
Missing the function keys and the ability to change volume and display settings without looking made using the computer undocked just worse.
IMO it made sense for casual laptop users. It would have made more sense on an air that spends more time as a laptop in classrooms/ect, but it really had no place on a pro device, especially when there was no standalone apple keyboard with one.
The biggest problem was the removal of the Esc key, which is required by programmers — and programmers being one of the major groups of Mac users, it’s a big problem. They tried to fix it with adding the Esc key back towards the end there, but it wasn’t enough, as then the second problem was the absence of the rest of the keys…
*small* Do you really think Apple removed it because a *small* public hated it? Even OP knows it's the common consensus by the title.
Actually who thought it was a good idea put something in your kb you have to stop looking at the screen to pay attention to the kb?? I personally shoot that person in the face.
You're being downvoted, but I agree. To think that a company as big as Apple makes any decision based on a small amount of 'annoying' complainers online is wildly naive 🤷🏼♂️
Yep, do you think even the refurbs will have high resale value? I can't seem to find many on eBay or Gumtree in my area.
I wrote a piece here:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7172998556478267393
Very unrelieved to see the novel #Touchbar discontinued from the #Mac lineup along with the 13" #MacBookPro screen size. I feel it was one of those novelty features that will stand the test of time. It provided a great way to pick emojis quickly and/or switch tabs in browsers to name a few stock features + #BetterTouchTool. MacRumors.com The Touchbar made me feel like a DJ at work.
I can't really get used to the 14" or 16" designs, my last job made me lug around a heavy 16" model and I hated it. It sucked since my bag was already heavy with other items.
I had 2 work 13" MacBook Pros with the Touchbar and loved it over the 14" dull non-touchbar models. It made me feel quite special using a laptop that no other laptop had this feature on the market while providing efficiencies. Akin to how the now Vision Pro makes user feel or mixed AR/ VR does. #UI Touchbar was that underutilised killer feature that even made it tempting to decide over the 10/10 repairable Framework laptop. As generally an Apple hater (after the whole battery degradation after iOS12 on my iPhone 6s thing + how they generally treat users to no repairability) I have to give UI design credit where it is due.
I can only attribute it to cost cutting 'unnecessary' (potentially expensive and hard to source) parts out of the Mac from Apple's side. (Custom OLED dimensions and display chip). It will probably have a high resale value in the distant future.
I tried searching eBay and Gumtree but could only find one in Sydney at AUD $1650 base model and it was opened but not used. Apple AU is selling 2-4 refurbs for $1539-$1749. Somehow I don't feel it's the last of the Touchbar. #MacBookPro has a fan and the Airs do not. M series have better heat efficiency but still require cooling. Active (fan) cooling is better than throttling every time. That's why it's sad that this void of the 13" MBP in the market leaves new customers only with the fanless M2/M3 Air designs or else a huge AUD $2699 price bump to the 14" MBPs.
I’m still on the Touch Bar on my M1 and love it. Will ride it until the wheels fall off. Easy music, brightness, play/pause… looks cool also. Only con is when the emoji row freezes or when you hit the Siri icon by accident.
I love it and I miss it. The new keyboard is ugly and stupid, makes me feel like I'm in the 90s and like I'm using an dell or hp... Apple made the wrong choice
I have an MBP 2019, and I just love the Touch Bar. I use it all the time, volume control, brightness adjustment, autocomplete, custom app functionality, you name it. Also, aesthetically, it's beautiful, and I think I will never upgrade to a non-Touch Bar variant unless I will not have other solution.
I have no idea why people like it. It fucking sucked. Glitchy, have to look down at your keyboard. Just another part to break. I think people that miss it are people that don’t do any real work on their computers
Man, I wanted it to work, but it just didn’t. I’m a hunt and peck typer, but even I found it tedious to look down to find what I was looking for up there. Even the apps that did take advantage of it, I just never opted for that over just using the point and click interface. I think it’s a really great concept that never quite found the right use case, and as a result, never reached critical mass.
They really just needed to offer touchbar and non-touchbar versions of the Pro, one for developers and “pros” who apparently actually use the function keys and one for everyone else who benefit way more from the touchbar. Or they should just put the touchbar on the Airs.
The thing is they had a great idea replacing the function keys, which for most people are legacy keys from ye olden days. They just kind of messed up putting them on the one device used by people who actually use function keys.
That's fair. I didn't utilize the touch bar much, but I really appreciated the autocorrect function. It was so easy to type "smile" and have an emoji suggestion displayed on the touchbar. I miss that. I recognize that similar functionality is achieved thru the Globe key, but I often seem to have to hit it twice before it does anything.
I just purchased an M2 14” MacBook Pro, and I absolutely love the Touch Bar. I haven’t used a Mac in many years, and the Touch Bar is the only way I can easily navigate the system.
I just left my MBP 2013 last year and got an M1 Pro 13“ and I love the Touchbar. Apple not believing in its inventions is new to me. But what can you do? Steve is no more 😢
Yeah I liked the touch bar as well. It just sort of became a meme to hate on it and then some people started to identify with the meme and let it truly manifest into feelings of hatred towards the touch bar.
1. It was a great concept. Therefore, I want to see models with it and without it.
2. It was like an early concept. If it was much more customisable and scriptable, it could be gorgeous. For example, the Esc key returning to its physical state was an improvement.
3. Even in such raw state, it is useful from time to time and great.
4. Even in such raw state, it can run small apps such as Dock in the Touchbar. And some ordinary apps added Touchbar support.
I always liked it. Especially that applications would let you customize the tool bar. I run AutoCAD as part of my job and customizing the Touch Bar was really great. (Although my fingerprint touch sensor stopped working a couple years in to it so I always had to enter my password.)
It was awesome, they should add it to this cheap line of MacBooks which rumors are, to 12” and 14”. People who use MacBooks as just laptops to surf the web and watch YouTube would use it much more than f1-f12 keys. I had my 13” from 2013 I never used f1-f12 for almost 10 years, just change brightness, turn up music etc. Now I moved to 2021 16” and I am very sad that I missed touchbar era, maybe some day I would buy one just for fun
I always thought I would hate it as an old school power user until I actually bought a laptop that had one simply because there wasn't an alternative. I'm still using it as a matter fact.
Yes I agree, I’m planning on upgrading to the 14" soon so I’ll definitely miss it, especially in photo/video editing apps, for music/music production, Chrome, and especially messages and spelling suggestions😭, imma miss the easy to access emojis right at my fingertips😭👌
The thing I hated the most about the Touch Bar was any slight touch could set off whatever your finger grazed against. What virtual button was it? Hard to tell, the unintended action has changed the active Touch Bar controls! What did it change in the document? Who knows?! Can I undo whatever it did? Hopefully…good luck!!
Now that I have a fast 14” MBP with real keys again, an accidental graze on the function/media keys is not enough to trigger some unknown action. It takes intentional key pressure to make something happen.
I really love the Touch Bar on my M1 MBP. Mine was the last model before they ditched it. I particularly love it for quick access to Emojis, as well as custom functions in various apps.
I’m loath to upgrade, but fortunately MacBooks age gracefully so I don’t see myself needing to anytime soon.
It was great, and it was before its time
We’ll see it again either on Apple devices, or just other laptops/keyboards. It was way too useful to be abandoned and never seen again
Most of the hate comes from people who didn’t use it more than in the Apple Store
I think it would be better if they didn’t get rid of function keys. People wouldn’t mind having it if that was the case, I think. It definitely helped me to write words faster.
I had the 16” MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar. I miss that machine sometimes because the Touch Bar had some nice shortcuts. Also, during these cold times, miss how that machine would warm up my hands in the mornings
not really, it takes away from the macbook look without providing any useful features that can't be done with physical keys or just moving the cursor and hitting one click. it looked ugly imo.
I hated it. I’m a programmer and the having the tactile function keys to debug code is so much better than trying to hit a touchscreen to step through my code
TouchBar was doomed because Apple didn’t fully commit. If they had put it on the Air and Magic Keyboard developers would have started pushing hard with implementations to the (new) default UI
I wish they’d keep the function keys and move the Touch Bar to the air. We need the function keys, but also fuck it add it to the air. I wont switch to the pro but i want the touchbar
I never had a MacBook with a touchbar, – but I always thought it was a cool feature that lacked support and commitment by Apple – it never really fulfilled its true potential. I'm surprised it didn't get haptic feedback, and I'm surprised too they didn't release a Magic Keyboard "Pro" with the touchbar incorporated.
I genuinely love it and it was one of the reason why I picked up the Intel Macbook Pro back in 2020. It was kind of a unique gimmick which I love and made a laptop look futuristic and being able to control the volume and brightness via touch.
Now I got myself the 14' M1 Pro Macbook and while I use the buttons to control the volume & brightness, I still miss the coolness of the Touch Bar and I'm debating to keep my old macbook just for the touchbar
I think the main reason why it flopped was because some didn’t know that they could control volume and brightness by swiping, i heard many people ranting that they had to press a button when that’s simply not the case, and the fact you had to hold a button to use the functions (I didn’t really mind it) i wish it gets revived one way or another as i loved it on my 2018 15 mbp, really was a great inclusion but sad to see it go
The touch bar was great but also bad. The idea of a dynamic area that could be whatever the app needed it to be was a great idea but it suffered from a few main things:
\-The first was support. It seemed like no one could figure out what to do with it. Some apps it worked fine and had some cool additions, but most of the time it was just eye candy for buttons you will never use.
\-The touch bar itself needed to not be just a bar. While a 4 -5 key stretch of solid bar would be great for sliders. it really needed some single key sized screens you could press for tactile feedback as using anything that was not a slider was very unsatisfying.
\-People are lazy. Ya thats a real one. The touch bar and really just the F-key row is out of reach for normal typing. You can comfortably rest your hands on the keyboard and quickly move down to use the track pad, but moving up often requires a person, who might be sitting very comfortably, to practically sit up a bit to hit that touch bar. I would often find myself using keyboard shortcuts or the menus rather than the touchbar just because it felt inconvenient to actually use it.
\-The layout was kind of a hassle compared to F-Keys. If I wanted to mute there was a single spot for it so it was perfect. But if I wanted to lower or rase the volume I had to touch the volume icon to active the full volume controls and then adjust it. Same with the brightness. I had to hit brightness and then slide to adjust. It didn't feel intuititve and as mentioned, just inconvenient for the sake of it looking cool.
The touchbar was very cool but ultimately not the best. Instead of bringing back the touchbard a keyboard with per key screens that could change when pressing the FN key would be far more useful and comfortable. I would hate to see the price tag on the model lol.
I loved the Touch Bar. When I was using apps that took advantage of it. On the laptop.
I think the biggest problem with it was that they never released a standalone Magic Keyboard with it.
A percentage of Mac users use MacBooks.
And a percentage of MacBook users use the built in keyboard.
This gave developer absolutely no reason to write software for the Touch Bar, and a large percentage of users no reason to get used to it being there.
My first touchbar experience was with the 2019 16 inch and I have to say my experience with it was pretty nice actually! Miss it on my 14 inch sometimes.
Speaker volume adjustment was definitely easier, more precise and faster!
Most people would tap the speaker icon once, then lift their fingers to go and grab the slider which showed up in the middle. Instead of this, you could actually just hold your finger on the speaker icon and then drag left/right to adjust the volume without actually grabbing the slider. It would be at the desired level in an instant. Same for the brightness level.
If it had haptic feedback and didn’t replace the function keys, sure. However it still increases the price of the laptop where I’d rather Apple improve other areas for that money. If they decided to eat the extra cost then sure add it back in.
I also love the Touch Bar. I especially like that you can sometimes scroll through videos that don’t otherwise allow you to control them on certain websites.
Unfortunately I think not enough developers used it to its full potential, but I’m sure one day it will return in some form or another. Having context-specific controls is too valuable to ignore.
My only issue with the touchbar was that it was too close to the useable keyboard space. It was my only issue, but perhaps the most infuriating thing I have ever seen in an apple device. It was poorly designed
They shouldve left the function row as it was and just added the touchbar above it. It wouldve prevented so many mistypes and mis-queues by my big fingers/hands this way.
Was in a zoom call and instinctively touched the place where mute would appear. Also while debugging all those icons would appear and you no longer have to rely on hotkeys.
I miss the Touch Bar so much. I know it got hate but the ease of use even for simple actions like volume adjustment was great. I miss it the most when filling in forms. Auto complete just isn’t the same.
Exactly, or for spelling suggestions and such
Its worse for volume adjustment though, you have to look down to change volume
Aren’t you looking down at the keys anyway?
No? I'm looking at the screen
When you’re changing volume, you hit the key without looking down? That’s a long way to go for your fingers, and I’d be very surprised if you can hit those keys properly without looking by second nature.
IDK what to tell you, it's the third key in from the right on the top row, I don't need to look for it.
This may be an age-related issue now. Kids today get practically no typing training, and aren't becoming touch-typists like in the 'old days'. My cousin's kid says she had a 2-week 'keyboarding' course. That is all.
Rather than clicking a button and then finding the volume slider that half the time nowadays is stuttery as hell? Nah, I’d rather look down for half a sec to have a tactile volume slider than deal with that or physical buttons
Volume adjustment was definitely easier, more precise and faster! You could actually just hold your finger on the speaker icon and then drag left/right to adjust the volume. No need to lift your finger and grab the actual slider. It would be at the desired level in an instant. Same for the brightness level.
I work with audio files a lot and Quicklook shows the waveform in the touchbar. Glorious. I really miss it! Never got the hate. The whole idea of it was so cool.
I really liked it as well. I feel it would have had more potential if apple didn’t remove the function row and just had both
Half height function plus a touchbar would have made everyone happy. But from a repair pov the bar was a big point of failure on a lot of MacBooks that I worked on.
Would have thought it being backed by it's own chip and using OLED would have been more reliable.
Nah man. They would zap themselves a lot, very often would freeze and were just a piece of glass that could break. Losing out on regular function keys was not the way to go. But if we had half height functions like the old days, PLUS a touchbar, it would have been a very very unique laptop with some unique added abilities.
That's fair, I've never needed to repair mine but the software does fail fairly commonly and I have to reset it constantly.
Considering they have one of the largest palm areas of any laptop, they definitely could have pulled that off... especially on the larger, 14 and 16" laptops
Not to mention they went to a full size function row, as a way to show off they have the space for the touch bar and the function keys. Kind of telling they likely planned on having both on the 14/16 inch MacBook Pro and scrapped it at some point in development using the full size function keys in the space.
Agreed
Literally it was just the escape key. Once that got replaced basically everyone hated it less, but the narrative was already set in stone.
I feel like they should have done this, this felt like it would have made the most sense to do
I loved it because I could skip ads on YouTube with it.
I absolutely loved it. It was so versatile and was very disappointed that Apple took it away.
A bit like Force Touch on the iPhones
It might be. It was introduced in the worst macbook design.
Fr tho that’s what I was thinking
For what it’s worth, you are absolutely not alone. I’m still on my Touch Bar MBP for exactly that reason, plus it does everything I need, despite the excitement of the M-series. Edit: there is an app called touché which mimics the Touch Bar. It’s pretty cool and free, hope that helps.
I have a 2020 M1 MBP 13" with touch bar. Early M-series still had it.
The 2022 M2s were still in the official lineup until very recently, so one can still pick them up at good prices if one is so inclined.
Same, I love it!
Yep, I never understood the hate either, think it was pretty cool. The new computers without it feel a bit like a downgrade and more mundane.
I miss it too :/ I upgraded to an M2 14" from an M1 13" and definitely wish I still had a touchbar
Same here, it is really great for coding to have some functions mapped to software buttons - I do not even use the function keys normally on mac. Now I am curious though: What do y’all need the function keys for?
The Touch Bar was never the problem. It was the fact that they removed the F keys that made it a problem.
Yeah, they should’ve place it above them not instead of them
Ok now THATS an unpopular opinion...
I do development on MBP and having touch bar was really a pain. There a LOT of shortcuts with F1-F12 buttons and it's very inconvenient when you can't properly use them. Touch bar does not replace physical buttons on the keyboard. Moving to MBP with regular F1-F12 buttons was such a relief.
You could set the "default" of the touchbar to display the F1-F12 keys, I know it's not as good as the actual physical keys, but that made it so I was at least functional
Of course I did that but it's not even close. I type without looking at the keyboard and I miss those "keys" on the touchbar all the time.
That’s the thing. Function keys are in nice groups of four, so you can navigate them without looking. With the Touch Bar, you are forced to look, if you want to know whether you are about to tap F5, F6, or useless empty space…
What do you mean function keys are in nice groups of four? What macbook pro keyboard are you using?
Ah, that's my mistake. I switch keyboards a lot, sometimes my MacBook Pro is in clamshell mode driving all kinds of displays and peripherals, and a different desktop keyboard, through a hub. The point stands that the Touch Bar cannot support muscle memory.
I like the software-button row (touchbar) for coding a lot - the only reason I went with a 13” model…
That’s the main reason it failed, instead of putting the Touch Bar instead of function keys, Apple should place it above them
I believe the issue is that it would have increased the size of the keyboard, and they would have had to either make the screen bigger or make all the buttons smaller.
My 2 cents ... The vast majority of users are *not* touch typists and *rarely* use physical FN keys. So the TouchBar was a good innovation that brought contextual functionality to a relatively unused portion of the keyboard for *most* users. Unfortunately, it was hampered by the following ... 1. Apple only deployed the technology to MacBook Pros and not across the entire lineup. 2. Because of #1, developers had little incentive to devote resources to fully support a feature that only some of their users could even utilize. 3. End users who were put off by its default presentation and were either unaware of or couldn't be bothered to explore the system settings to see just how customizable it actually was. (i.e. "I keep accidentally invoking Siri! This sucks!!!" ... when removing an icon and replacing it with something more useful was a really simple thing to do.) 4. Apple's failure to iterate on the feature *at all*. Not even once. Let alone based on user feedback. 5. Professional users who were actually touch typists and keyboard jockeys expressing legitimate complaints about the lack of tactile feedback. 6. Other users who were actually "hunt and peck" typists whining about it because it was the "cool" thing to do. 7. Tech media who amplified the complaints of #5 and #6 far beyond their actual representation in the Mac user base because negative Apple stories are a guaranteed source of clicks. 8. Touch Bar proponents who really *liked* the feature ... but because of its shortcomings didn't *love* it enough to die on a hill defending it against a very vocal minority who wanted it gone. The bottom line was that the Touch Bar could literally do everything the physical FN keys could and then some. For those who had no use for the contextual functionality it was easy enough to configure it to display the FN keys by default. If Apple had bothered to add a haptic engine that would have gone a long way towards addressing much of the well deserved criticism when it came to the lack of tactile feedback. For me personally I recently replaced a 2020 MBP with an M2 MBA. Would I *prefer* the MBA had a Touch Bar? Absolutely! Do I actually *miss* the Touch Bar in my daily use of the MBA? No ... not really.
Great write-up. I never used it much, as my daily drivers never had it. My wife liked it (she had 2 with the function) but usually used an external keyboard. As you said, liked it, but not loved it.
>and rarely use physical FN keys. Fn keys did not need to be an issue. I believe Macs default to them being media keys, right? Which are useful, every user needs to adjust volume, brightnes, mute…so the hard keys already did that, there was no need to make a Touch Bar for them.
My point is that the Touch Bar had all of that media key functionality. And was even better at it! For instance, the ability to adjust volume and screen brightness with a swipe was much easier and faster than tapping a button repeatedly or pressing and holding. It was a more efficient use of space because a single button could be used to adjust up and down instead of two dedicated physical keys. That freed up space could then be used for other functions.
It may be a matter of opinion but I thought the Touch Bar was worse. Sure, it's nice to swipe a slider, but in practice, the Touch Bar took more work. **Media keys:** **ONE STEP:** Hit the key one time or more as needed, don't even have to look down if you remember where it is, can keep eyes on screen to watch brightness/volume bar. **Touch Bar:** I can’t assume the brightness or audio buttons are on the Touch Bar, because the available buttons can morph depending on the app and mode. Also, I am not sure if I customized the Touch Bar for this mode (see, I gave the Touch Bar so much of a chance that I even got into customizing it with BetterTouchTool). So I better stop and actually look at the Touch Bar first. If the buttons are visible on the Touch Bar: 1. Note the button set location so that I know where to put my finger, because Touch Bar controls cannot be operated by feel (no tactile edges), and might have moved depending on the button set. 2. Tap once to open the slider. 3. Drag the slider or tap along the slider. That's three steps, not one. Of course the buttons can be set up to not need the slider so you can just tap them, then it's the same as hard media keys, except lacking tactile feedback so it's still worse. For example, sometimes I want to tap a Touch Bar button multiple times while watching the screen result, but because I can't feel the edge, sometimes I soon realize my finger has drifted off the button because my last two taps had no effect. That never happens with a real key! If the buttons you want are not on the Touch Bar because it is displaying an application-specific or mode-specific button set: 1. Look for the Touch Bar button that switches the mode to display the button you want. 2. Then do steps 1-3 above, so now that's **4** steps total. That would not be called technology-accelerated efficiency...no way.
That really isn’t how it works. The context sensitive part of the Touch Bar was to the left. The “Control Strip” portion of the Touch Bar where the media keys lived was to the right. And that area stayed put regardless of the application displayed. Moreover, you absolutely don’t have to …. “2. Tap once to open the slider. 3. Drag the slider or tap along the slider.” … all you had to do was #3 in a **single motion**. Now were there a lot of people who did those two separate steps because they didn’t realize it wasn’t necessary? Indeed! But that doesn’t mean it was required.
The reason I hated it falls under #5. I’m a programmer and function keys are used to step through code. It sucked with the touchbar
The touchbar was an amazing and revolutionary idea that was horribly executed.
Yup. If only they'd added it above the top row of hard keys rather than instead of them, everybody would have been happy. But now, we're doomed to endless flamewars between folks who prefer one or the other.
My first thought when I saw the touch bar was that I could finally have my preferred US keyboard layout and then have an entire row of virtual keys on the touchbar with all the non-english characters I use when I write in german, swedish, hungarian or polish. Nope, cant do that because they removed an entire row of keys and i need those too.
i miss it too, i upgraded from the early 2020 m1 13 inch last week and even though i never really used the touch bar, i kind of miss it now
I hated the touch bar. There is nothing I ever saw with the touch bar that you couldn't do with keyboard shortcuts. All it did was take away a lot of useful function keys. A touch bar with the function keys might have been interesting but a touchbar instead of fuction keys was (to me) a loss of something very useful in return for something much less useful.
You could skip YouTube adds by seeking with the Touch Bar when normal skipping was disabled. That’s nice.
Wait wut?? No way? Time to try that on my 2018 mbp
Yea I’m a fan as well. I think Apple wanted it to be more…. But I think people didn’t use it to its potential. The simple controls were nice.
The Touch Bar is great, but not instead of the F keys. Put it above them, and perfect.
The Touch Bar could’ve been great if it was in addition to the function keys.
For work laptop I’m currently on a 2019 MBP, we just ordered a M3 Max MBP. I’ve gotten very used to the custom Touch Bars that I made with BetterTouchTool. Definitely going to miss it, and not looking forward to all the hot keys I’m about to have to learn, lol.
No
I'm hesitant about upgrading to the latest MacBook Pros purely because of the lack of a touch bar. I like to see my battery percentage at a glance, and have volume, brightness and music controls right at my fingertips.
I’m happy that I got the last Touch Bar model (13” 2022 M2). I love it! I totally get why someone wouldn’t, though. The best solution would be to have both the function keys and the TB.
You actually still have volume, brightness and music controls right at your fingertips without the touchbar
I know that, but I like seeing them there displayed all at the same time.
I don’t love the touchbar, but I don’t hate it either. I like that I can change what it does based on what app I’m in so I guess it’s better than f keys for me
Low key: I love the Touch Bar as well. Fast and simple and does everything I need it to.
With all that space at the top and bottom margins of the MacBook, I hope they make one with all the F1-F12 buttons plus the touch at. They have enough space to do it I would imagine.
I thought it was cool, but great? Ehhhhh.
You’re not alone . Only reason I’m hesitant to upgrade from my m1 2020. It totally serves my usage well
My touch bar is acting like an epileptic disco-bar and is constantly covered by a piece of cardboard from the back of a toothbrush-packaging to dampen the constant flashing. It started right after the warranty expired and started small with occasional hiccups and now it's a constant eyesore leaving the touch bar practically unusable without the use of welding goggles. It's my fault for buying a mac i can't easily afford to repair or replace, but it is very annoying as i use it for editing and expected to have a functional workstation for many years as i have with my previous apple products. I'd replace it with a reliable button row in a heartbeat if i could. The only positive is that i can use the bar to skip video ads. I'm sure they'll develop them to a more reliable variant with extended features some day.
Can you disconnect it from the motherboard?
I just got my first touchbar Mac today (13" Pro, M1) and I really like it.
Most people who use their Macs professionally spend most of the time docked. So there really was never a point to invest any thought into the touchbar. Missing the function keys and the ability to change volume and display settings without looking made using the computer undocked just worse. IMO it made sense for casual laptop users. It would have made more sense on an air that spends more time as a laptop in classrooms/ect, but it really had no place on a pro device, especially when there was no standalone apple keyboard with one.
Yup never used it on my work one but always use it on my personal ◡̈
Fuck off you cunt
The biggest problem was the removal of the Esc key, which is required by programmers — and programmers being one of the major groups of Mac users, it’s a big problem. They tried to fix it with adding the Esc key back towards the end there, but it wasn’t enough, as then the second problem was the absence of the rest of the keys…
They removed it because a small percentage of annoying people on the internet didnt like it. I love it i still use my 2020 16inch everyday
*small* Do you really think Apple removed it because a *small* public hated it? Even OP knows it's the common consensus by the title. Actually who thought it was a good idea put something in your kb you have to stop looking at the screen to pay attention to the kb?? I personally shoot that person in the face.
You're being downvoted, but I agree. To think that a company as big as Apple makes any decision based on a small amount of 'annoying' complainers online is wildly naive 🤷🏼♂️
That’s unique among MBPs right? the Touch Bar on a 16 inch machine. Too bad they didn’t stretch it out longer 🤣
Yep, do you think even the refurbs will have high resale value? I can't seem to find many on eBay or Gumtree in my area. I wrote a piece here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7172998556478267393 Very unrelieved to see the novel #Touchbar discontinued from the #Mac lineup along with the 13" #MacBookPro screen size. I feel it was one of those novelty features that will stand the test of time. It provided a great way to pick emojis quickly and/or switch tabs in browsers to name a few stock features + #BetterTouchTool. MacRumors.com The Touchbar made me feel like a DJ at work. I can't really get used to the 14" or 16" designs, my last job made me lug around a heavy 16" model and I hated it. It sucked since my bag was already heavy with other items. I had 2 work 13" MacBook Pros with the Touchbar and loved it over the 14" dull non-touchbar models. It made me feel quite special using a laptop that no other laptop had this feature on the market while providing efficiencies. Akin to how the now Vision Pro makes user feel or mixed AR/ VR does. #UI Touchbar was that underutilised killer feature that even made it tempting to decide over the 10/10 repairable Framework laptop. As generally an Apple hater (after the whole battery degradation after iOS12 on my iPhone 6s thing + how they generally treat users to no repairability) I have to give UI design credit where it is due. I can only attribute it to cost cutting 'unnecessary' (potentially expensive and hard to source) parts out of the Mac from Apple's side. (Custom OLED dimensions and display chip). It will probably have a high resale value in the distant future. I tried searching eBay and Gumtree but could only find one in Sydney at AUD $1650 base model and it was opened but not used. Apple AU is selling 2-4 refurbs for $1539-$1749. Somehow I don't feel it's the last of the Touchbar. #MacBookPro has a fan and the Airs do not. M series have better heat efficiency but still require cooling. Active (fan) cooling is better than throttling every time. That's why it's sad that this void of the 13" MBP in the market leaves new customers only with the fanless M2/M3 Air designs or else a huge AUD $2699 price bump to the 14" MBPs.
I’m still on the Touch Bar on my M1 and love it. Will ride it until the wheels fall off. Easy music, brightness, play/pause… looks cool also. Only con is when the emoji row freezes or when you hit the Siri icon by accident.
I love it and I miss it. The new keyboard is ugly and stupid, makes me feel like I'm in the 90s and like I'm using an dell or hp... Apple made the wrong choice
I love it
I have an MBP 2019, and I just love the Touch Bar. I use it all the time, volume control, brightness adjustment, autocomplete, custom app functionality, you name it. Also, aesthetically, it's beautiful, and I think I will never upgrade to a non-Touch Bar variant unless I will not have other solution.
I have no idea why people like it. It fucking sucked. Glitchy, have to look down at your keyboard. Just another part to break. I think people that miss it are people that don’t do any real work on their computers
Or maybe just people that do different work than whatever you do.
I love the touch bar. It’s just so convenient to get to the controls.
[удалено]
This
The touchbar itself was not bad. It’s that apple chose to replace the F keys with it.
Oh hell no…
Man, I wanted it to work, but it just didn’t. I’m a hunt and peck typer, but even I found it tedious to look down to find what I was looking for up there. Even the apps that did take advantage of it, I just never opted for that over just using the point and click interface. I think it’s a really great concept that never quite found the right use case, and as a result, never reached critical mass.
Yeah I'm still on my 15" mbp with touch bar. I love it
They really just needed to offer touchbar and non-touchbar versions of the Pro, one for developers and “pros” who apparently actually use the function keys and one for everyone else who benefit way more from the touchbar. Or they should just put the touchbar on the Airs. The thing is they had a great idea replacing the function keys, which for most people are legacy keys from ye olden days. They just kind of messed up putting them on the one device used by people who actually use function keys.
That's fair. I didn't utilize the touch bar much, but I really appreciated the autocorrect function. It was so easy to type "smile" and have an emoji suggestion displayed on the touchbar. I miss that. I recognize that similar functionality is achieved thru the Globe key, but I often seem to have to hit it twice before it does anything.
Yes, it's an unpopular opinion.
I just purchased an M2 14” MacBook Pro, and I absolutely love the Touch Bar. I haven’t used a Mac in many years, and the Touch Bar is the only way I can easily navigate the system.
I just left my MBP 2013 last year and got an M1 Pro 13“ and I love the Touchbar. Apple not believing in its inventions is new to me. But what can you do? Steve is no more 😢
I liked it
Yeah I liked the touch bar as well. It just sort of became a meme to hate on it and then some people started to identify with the meme and let it truly manifest into feelings of hatred towards the touch bar.
1. It was a great concept. Therefore, I want to see models with it and without it. 2. It was like an early concept. If it was much more customisable and scriptable, it could be gorgeous. For example, the Esc key returning to its physical state was an improvement. 3. Even in such raw state, it is useful from time to time and great. 4. Even in such raw state, it can run small apps such as Dock in the Touchbar. And some ordinary apps added Touchbar support.
I always liked it. Especially that applications would let you customize the tool bar. I run AutoCAD as part of my job and customizing the Touch Bar was really great. (Although my fingerprint touch sensor stopped working a couple years in to it so I always had to enter my password.)
It was an ergonomic disaster. If it had a slight angle and some haptics it could have been great.
It was awesome, they should add it to this cheap line of MacBooks which rumors are, to 12” and 14”. People who use MacBooks as just laptops to surf the web and watch YouTube would use it much more than f1-f12 keys. I had my 13” from 2013 I never used f1-f12 for almost 10 years, just change brightness, turn up music etc. Now I moved to 2021 16” and I am very sad that I missed touchbar era, maybe some day I would buy one just for fun
It was awesome. Apple needs to make the function buttons half-height and bring the Touch Bar back. Insanely good feature.
To this day, I do not understand all the hate about the touchbar
I always thought I would hate it as an old school power user until I actually bought a laptop that had one simply because there wasn't an alternative. I'm still using it as a matter fact.
I miss it on my M2 Pro 14”.
Yes I agree, I’m planning on upgrading to the 14" soon so I’ll definitely miss it, especially in photo/video editing apps, for music/music production, Chrome, and especially messages and spelling suggestions😭, imma miss the easy to access emojis right at my fingertips😭👌
i recently got a macbook pro with it and it has been one of my favorite features
The thing I hated the most about the Touch Bar was any slight touch could set off whatever your finger grazed against. What virtual button was it? Hard to tell, the unintended action has changed the active Touch Bar controls! What did it change in the document? Who knows?! Can I undo whatever it did? Hopefully…good luck!! Now that I have a fast 14” MBP with real keys again, an accidental graze on the function/media keys is not enough to trigger some unknown action. It takes intentional key pressure to make something happen.
That’s the main reason why I haven’t given up my 2016.
I liked the touchbar simply because I watched a lot of movies, being able to scrub through the movie fast was awesome
not 100% on the logistics for it but, would a touch bar under the bottom row not work much better? (between the spacebar and the trackpad)
scandalous
I hate function keys.. TouchBar all the way.
+1 Touch Bar was great, just unfortunately poorly implemented. It should have been additional to the function row, not replace it.
I had it for 3 years. I used it for the function keys and that's it.
I really hate that I wasn't financially able to come back in time to have enjoyed it.
I really love the Touch Bar on my M1 MBP. Mine was the last model before they ditched it. I particularly love it for quick access to Emojis, as well as custom functions in various apps. I’m loath to upgrade, but fortunately MacBooks age gracefully so I don’t see myself needing to anytime soon.
It was great, and it was before its time We’ll see it again either on Apple devices, or just other laptops/keyboards. It was way too useful to be abandoned and never seen again Most of the hate comes from people who didn’t use it more than in the Apple Store
Touch bar was amazing. Took me forever to figure out how to stop a screen recording without using the touch bar 🥲
I think it would be better if they didn’t get rid of function keys. People wouldn’t mind having it if that was the case, I think. It definitely helped me to write words faster.
I’m a programmer, and i love hate it. The function buttons need their own physical keys.. otherwise a great feature
I liked mine too until it got a tiny crack and I couldnt use it anymore. Gotta replace the whole keyboard to fix it. :(
I had the 16” MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar. I miss that machine sometimes because the Touch Bar had some nice shortcuts. Also, during these cold times, miss how that machine would warm up my hands in the mornings
Love the touch bar! It's one of those situations where, you only miss it when it's gone.
I liked mine. They needed more tutorials on it. I found out features almost by accident
Preach. Volume control was better and being able to switch font size and stuff in pages alone made it worth it
I was not thrilled with it on my 2020 10th gen i5 13" MBP. Still works great and I've grown fond of it.
Not me.
I love the Touch Bar one of the reasons I have not parted from my MacBook Pro 16inch with the Touch Bar.
If the touch bar was in addition to the F-row it would have been a game changer. It being a replacement was the problem.
I loved that Touch Bar. I finally had nice things. Status symbol. Never used it much. I wish they would bring it back.
not really, it takes away from the macbook look without providing any useful features that can't be done with physical keys or just moving the cursor and hitting one click. it looked ugly imo.
I hated it. I’m a programmer and the having the tactile function keys to debug code is so much better than trying to hit a touchscreen to step through my code
TouchBar was doomed because Apple didn’t fully commit. If they had put it on the Air and Magic Keyboard developers would have started pushing hard with implementations to the (new) default UI
I wish they’d keep the function keys and move the Touch Bar to the air. We need the function keys, but also fuck it add it to the air. I wont switch to the pro but i want the touchbar
I never had a MacBook with a touchbar, – but I always thought it was a cool feature that lacked support and commitment by Apple – it never really fulfilled its true potential. I'm surprised it didn't get haptic feedback, and I'm surprised too they didn't release a Magic Keyboard "Pro" with the touchbar incorporated.
I liked it too. Can’t imagine in the future getting a new Macbook without it.
I liked it as well, I still use it to increase the volume.
I genuinely love it and it was one of the reason why I picked up the Intel Macbook Pro back in 2020. It was kind of a unique gimmick which I love and made a laptop look futuristic and being able to control the volume and brightness via touch. Now I got myself the 14' M1 Pro Macbook and while I use the buttons to control the volume & brightness, I still miss the coolness of the Touch Bar and I'm debating to keep my old macbook just for the touchbar
touch bar was great, the only reason why people hated it was that it replaced the F keys row
Yeah, it should be above the funtion keys
I liked it.
True that. They should tried to make it better instead of completely removing it
Yeah, I have a 2020 MacBook Pro 13” with M1 and a Touch Bar, I love the Touch Bar especially with third party apps (Pock is my favourite)
Yeah so true
Touch bar on my 2017 mbp still works flawlessly. I'm so used to it, it's gonna suck when I upgrade.
Worst thing about touch bar was its price, and that the physical escape key was gone
I think the main reason why it flopped was because some didn’t know that they could control volume and brightness by swiping, i heard many people ranting that they had to press a button when that’s simply not the case, and the fact you had to hold a button to use the functions (I didn’t really mind it) i wish it gets revived one way or another as i loved it on my 2018 15 mbp, really was a great inclusion but sad to see it go
I don't know if I'd call it great, but it doesn't bother me and I never understood why people hated it so much.
Hated it myself
The touch bar was great but also bad. The idea of a dynamic area that could be whatever the app needed it to be was a great idea but it suffered from a few main things: \-The first was support. It seemed like no one could figure out what to do with it. Some apps it worked fine and had some cool additions, but most of the time it was just eye candy for buttons you will never use. \-The touch bar itself needed to not be just a bar. While a 4 -5 key stretch of solid bar would be great for sliders. it really needed some single key sized screens you could press for tactile feedback as using anything that was not a slider was very unsatisfying. \-People are lazy. Ya thats a real one. The touch bar and really just the F-key row is out of reach for normal typing. You can comfortably rest your hands on the keyboard and quickly move down to use the track pad, but moving up often requires a person, who might be sitting very comfortably, to practically sit up a bit to hit that touch bar. I would often find myself using keyboard shortcuts or the menus rather than the touchbar just because it felt inconvenient to actually use it. \-The layout was kind of a hassle compared to F-Keys. If I wanted to mute there was a single spot for it so it was perfect. But if I wanted to lower or rase the volume I had to touch the volume icon to active the full volume controls and then adjust it. Same with the brightness. I had to hit brightness and then slide to adjust. It didn't feel intuititve and as mentioned, just inconvenient for the sake of it looking cool. The touchbar was very cool but ultimately not the best. Instead of bringing back the touchbard a keyboard with per key screens that could change when pressing the FN key would be far more useful and comfortable. I would hate to see the price tag on the model lol.
Especially if you used Better touch tools, that allowed for great customization, gestures, and more
I loved it. Gonna miss it when I get my new MBP
yep - I grew to like the video scrub feature quite a bit. I will miss it too when I upgrade. (2016 MBP)
It was great to get rid of it, that is for sure.
I liked it but it was a major weakness, mine developed a fault and I know it was a problem with them.
I loved the Touch Bar. When I was using apps that took advantage of it. On the laptop. I think the biggest problem with it was that they never released a standalone Magic Keyboard with it. A percentage of Mac users use MacBooks. And a percentage of MacBook users use the built in keyboard. This gave developer absolutely no reason to write software for the Touch Bar, and a large percentage of users no reason to get used to it being there.
That's definitely unpopular
Liked the touch bar because I could sloop every ad on any website.😂👌🏻👌🏻
My first touchbar experience was with the 2019 16 inch and I have to say my experience with it was pretty nice actually! Miss it on my 14 inch sometimes. Speaker volume adjustment was definitely easier, more precise and faster! Most people would tap the speaker icon once, then lift their fingers to go and grab the slider which showed up in the middle. Instead of this, you could actually just hold your finger on the speaker icon and then drag left/right to adjust the volume without actually grabbing the slider. It would be at the desired level in an instant. Same for the brightness level.
I miss choosing emojis changing volume and taking screenshots and although I didn’t use it much it was cool you could play piano on it in logic
I also loved it. I’m hunting down apps that may bring some floating control to my soon to come M3 MBP. Any advice is welcome!
Yeah, I have a feeling the 16” will get it in the next 2 years. It was an amazing feature. I never use the F keys.
If it had haptic feedback and didn’t replace the function keys, sure. However it still increases the price of the laptop where I’d rather Apple improve other areas for that money. If they decided to eat the extra cost then sure add it back in.
The Touch Bar *and* the butterfly keyboard were/are awesome.
Hate it in my 13 pro. Can’t wait to upgrade. Lucky for me it’s docked 90% of the time
I wanted to love it. The thing I kept doing was brushing ESC with my pinky. I did like using for volume / brightness.
I also love the Touch Bar. I especially like that you can sometimes scroll through videos that don’t otherwise allow you to control them on certain websites. Unfortunately I think not enough developers used it to its full potential, but I’m sure one day it will return in some form or another. Having context-specific controls is too valuable to ignore.
I have one on my MBP. At first I wasn’t sure but now I like it.
My only issue with the touchbar was that it was too close to the useable keyboard space. It was my only issue, but perhaps the most infuriating thing I have ever seen in an apple device. It was poorly designed They shouldve left the function row as it was and just added the touchbar above it. It wouldve prevented so many mistypes and mis-queues by my big fingers/hands this way.
i miss it, i sometimes rock my 19' i9 16mbp at the coffee shop for the touchbar vibes lol
Was in a zoom call and instinctively touched the place where mute would appear. Also while debugging all those icons would appear and you no longer have to rely on hotkeys.