...which makes macOS-using developers' negative reactions to the 2016 MBP touch bar kind of odd/ironic, no? We all agree that nobody needs the F keys on a Mac... so why was it such a big problem when they got virtualized under the equivalent of a car infotainment display?
(Yeah, the escape key was taken out as well at first, but then it was brought back, and people still were quite hateful toward the touch bar after that.)
The biggest issues with the touch bar, from my perspective:
- It couldn’t be used without being looked at, due to it having no physical keys
- It was always kind of hacky, being essentially a long thin Apple Watch (down to running a watchOS variant) that would occasionally freeze up
I think it would’ve been better received had it been composed of Stream Deck-like display keys powered by macOS itself which would’ve brought much of the dynamicism of the touch bar while also keeping tactile feedback and eschewing bolted-on watchOS-variant bugginess.
> had it been composed of Stream Deck-like display keys
Mind you, a majority of the useful "things the touchbar can change into" involved non key-shaped interaction surfaces. The volume and brightness sliders; the iMovie/FCP video scrubber; the keyboard autocomplete suggestions; etc.
The only way this would have worked is if arbitrary regions could have been dynamically raised/tactile-ized to match the interaction elements being shown.
The last time someone tried to make a highly-tactile touchscreen we got the BlackBerry Storm, and it was awful. I owned one and dropped it in a lake by accident. I did not miss it.
That said, a touchscreen with software-positioned raised areas would be very neat, if it existed.
(Yeah, the escape key was taken out as well at first, but then it was brought back, and people still were quite hateful toward the touch bar after that.)