Comment by postalcoder 2 days ago
The Touch Bar implementation sucked but I'm going to defend that attempt 100 out of 100 times. If Apple didn't remove the function keys I think it would have been a hit feature. There wasn't proper commitment to the feature.
Yeah but still, function keys for me are so important I don't like switching them for any reason. Even the Fn+ functions for like volume etc I don't really like, I would much rather have additional buttons for that.
In that sense a touch bar in addition to function keys would be very nice, because it's a much smoother way to adjust volume.
Modern UI design has trended toward hiding more and more things. I think it's super useful to expose a new, hyper-malleable control surface to the user (the stream deck is popular for a reason!). If the touchbar was ubiquitous, competition would force developers to think more deeply about interaction design and building apps that thoughtfully use it.
Adoption engenders development, and development engenders adoption. All of the best use cases of a touch bar are ones we would have seen had such a virtuous cycle been allowed to occur.
> hyper-malleable control surface [...] (the stream deck is popular for a reason!).
I agree with the sentiment - making a control surface that adapts to the user's current task makes total sense to me, and is a compelling feature in theory.
The execution (and how the touchbar differs from the Stream Deck) is where I think the argument falls apart. There is effectively zero ability to navigate the touchbar without using your eyes and taking your focus off the display, and your work. The Stream Deck can easily be used without looking. A static grid of real buttons whose function changes within context is a more useful implementation in the real world, even though it is technically _less_ capable.
IMO the touchbar concept is flawed in exactly in the same way as the modern car user interface.
Why put it above the _keyboard_, though? what you described sounds just like the macOS menu bar, but perhaps a bit more customizable. Why not just do that (make the menu bar more customizable)?
As a user of the touch bar, I _hated_ having to look down from the screen, and move my hands away from the keyboard home row / touchpad area, _all the way up_ to the touchbar area to finally use it. It completely breaks the flow every single time. I don't think just inserting physical Fn keys beneath it would have won me over at all.
I'm not familiar with the stream deck, haven't even heard of it until just now.
Full agree. The TouchBar was a genuine innovation that gave new ways to interact with data and context. But without the function keys (and the real ESC) there were frequent accidental touches on the bar and a real tactile loss for existing function key intuitions. And now an extremely rare, genuine, programmable HCI innovation is scuttled because of an unthought-thru roll out. A missed opportunity. (I keep my 2019 MBP with the good keyboard largely for this, but ultimately the laptop was ruined by the super hot Intel cpu, which also makes the touch bar uncomfortable to use at times.)
Bret Victor being behind the touch bar explains so much about its potential. Apple has such a weird track record of releasing really interesting stuff that they let languish without enhancement. And then you have weird episodes where they have too much conviction on the wrong things, like the butterfly keyboard, where they release multiple iterations which all end up failing.
The worst bit was that the touch-sensitive area didn't extend as far left as the physical keyboard - so not only did the ESC key become virtual with no tactile feedback, it also shifted position.
That was when I started remapping caps lock to esc and have never gone back.
True, if they'd kept the function keys and just added the touch bar above it it would have been great. Weird thing is there was more than enough space for both so I don't understand why they didn't do that.