I tried the Mac Touch Bar and here is why it failed
Apple introduced the touch bar in 2016 for their Pro line of laptops, giving their users a futuristic vision of what computer controls could look like. This, however, quickly turned into a list of grievances and lack of use after a couple of months for most users. I started using Mac computers fairly recently, so I jumped into a 2019 Macbook Pro with an open mind and tried it in a multitude of applications related to my software development work environment.
Let me start by saying that the concept is not “bad”. It’s great to have a dynamically changing interface that gives you a more intuitive and granular control than on or off. This is of course one of the reasons why phones became so popular in the first place.
Interestingly enough, the dynamic controls were exactly one of the problems for me. I’m used to ‘blind’ typing at this point, so I rarely look at my keyboard if at all. This only works however if the keys are in the same place and easy to separate. The touch bar has a constantly moving interface, making me look at it all the time, at which point it would have been just as fast to click or use a shortcut.
To me, having no feedback from the button click or the touch of the edges of the button made me never just press it, but take a look before. This meant that while changing volume by sliding is a more ‘satisfying’ way to do it, it ended up being slower to look down, locate the volume slider, tap on it and then drag, than to just press a button twice.
Professional users have no problem remembering what the function keys do on frequently used applications. Having the touch bar show rename instead of F2 looks pretty, but at the end of the day, irrelevant to your speed or even detrimental.
Most people who use laptops — or any device for that matter — are increasingly reliant on web pages and applications instead of desktop ones. This is convenient but completely incompatible with the touch bar. While browsers like Chrome have some integration, even they only offer pretty lackluster features, like a dedicated button to search or reload a page.
When I tried watching YouTube videos or Disney Plus in fullscreen, all it showed was the URL bar, which is completely useless and usually hidden by most browsers for this reason. I would have appreciated some video controls, which the Spotify desktop application, for instance, does offer.
This might not influence everyone too much, but Apple really puts a lot of effort into how their devices feel. This is why my switch from Windows went really smooth and I loved every second of using my new Mac so far. Even my scripts, written for Linux work perfectly! In this case, however using a touch screen just after typing on a great keyboard feels.. pretty bad. You don’t hear the click, you don’t feel the slight bump of the key.
It’s not all bad though, there certainly are some features that the touch bar introduced I’d love to stay. Touch ID for instance is awesome and currently the best way to authenticate yourself quickly. Touch controls can work, but they must not replace the entire function row. Maybe leave escape and a couple of other keys?
With better browser integration, more control for professionals to personalize it precisely as they want, and custom buttons, and shortcuts, I’m sure they could make this work in a couple of years.
I did enjoy the Zoom integration for example, where I share my screen fairly often and the big green button did help me get started quicker, as I’m not sure I would have spent the time to familiarize myself with the shortcuts on my own. The same goes for turning the camera on or off.
Let me know your experiences with the touch bar! I’d love to know some of the tips and tricks you might have come up with to make it more useful.
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