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   What's Wrong with the Touch Bar

   Josh Centers

   Last October, when Apple unveiled the redesigned MacBook Pro, I wanted
   one immediately (see '[1]New MacBook Pros Add Context-sensitive Touch
   Bar,' 27 October 2016). Practically speaking, I needed a second Mac,
   and a portable one at that. But I was mostly lured in by the Touch Bar,
   both for its novelty factor, and because, as a technology writer, I
   like to have experience with each unique Apple device to inform our
   articles.

   Alas, closing in on a year later, I've found that I don't use the Touch
   Bar much. I was forced to confront this unhappy fact when Adam
   suggested that I write an article about interesting uses of the Touch
   Bar. After some research, Adam and I agreed that there wasn't enough
   there to warrant an article. Although there was a flurry of fascinating
   developer projects after launch, nothing significant ever shipped.

   I'm not saying the Touch Bar is useless, because that isn't true. At
   least in theory, it's more capable and more flexible than a row of
   physical keys. And Touch ID is fantastic for logging into my MacBook
   Pro and authenticating 1Password. But if you were to ask me today if
   you should spend the $300'$400 extra on a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar,
   I would say no for two reasons:
     * Per Apple's own [2]Human Interface Guidelines, no functionality
       should be exclusive to the Touch Bar. That makes sense because
       Touch Bar Macs are a small minority, but the flip side is that the
       Touch Bar provides no additional functionality apart from Touch ID.
       That wouldn't be terrible if using the Touch Bar was faster than
       using other interface elements, but it's not, because of the second
       problem.
     * The Touch Bar offers no tactile feedback, and it's impossible to
       use it without looking, as you can do with the function keys. On my
       iMac, my keyboard of choice is the Apple Wireless Keyboard. If I
       need to adjust volume or pause audio playback, I just tap the
       appropriate key, generally without looking. On my MacBook Pro, I
       have to take my eyes off the screen to find the right button on the
       Touch Bar, and then in the case of volume (as of macOS 10.13 High
       Sierra), adjust the slider accordingly.

   Those two factors alone make the Touch Bar largely pointless. Here's a
   simple example: in Microsoft Word, the Touch Bar offers shortcuts to
   items in the toolbar. Let's say you want to bold some selected text. On
   a Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro, you have three main (there are
   others, but they're even slower) ways to do this:
     * Press Command-B on the keyboard, which lets you keep your hands on
       the keyboard and eyes on the screen.
     * Click the Bold button in Word's toolbar, which takes your hands off
       the keyboard but keeps your eyes on the screen.
     * Tap the Bold button on the Touch Bar, which takes your eyes off the
       screen and your hands off the keyboard.

   In most cases, the Touch Bar is the slowest way to perform an action!
   It's a cool-looking racing stripe that slows you down in many cases,
   and even worse, eliminates useful physical keys that you probably reach
   for reflexively, like Esc.

   That's not all. The screen is too small to be useful in some cases. For
   instance, you can use the Touch Bar to switch tabs in Safari, which
   looks cool, but you can barely make out what's in each tab.

   [3][tn_TouchBar-Safari-tabs.jpg]

   The upcoming macOS 10.13 High Sierra doesn't do much for the Touch Bar.
   You can double tap its volume button to mute your Mac's audio, and you
   can swipe to adjust both volume and display brightness. It also adds
   buttons to activate Night Shift and send audio and video to an AirPlay
   receiver (most likely an Apple TV).

   Should Apple abandon the Touch Bar concept? I'm not ready to go that
   far, but Apple needs do some work if it's to become useful.

   Making the Touch Bar Useful -- There are a handful of potentially
   useful Touch Bar applications, but they're hampered by Apple's
   restrictions. As far as I know, and this is [4]backed up by Keyboard
   Maestro's Peter Lewis, there's no Apple-approved way for an app to add
   actions to the Touch Bar without being in the foreground. Eliminating
   that restriction would go a long way toward making the Touch Bar more
   practical.

   If background apps could present Touch Bar icons, automation utilities
   like Keyboard Maestro could allow users to trigger custom macros from
   the Touch Bar without requiring a potentially obscure key combination.
   Was it Command-Shift-Option-M or Control-Shift-Option-M?

   I always struggle with this, because it's challenging to create
   memorable keyboard shortcuts that don't conflict with existing
   shortcuts. Here at TidBITS, we have a Keyboard Maestro macro that runs
   a BBEdit Text Factory in any app to fix things like non-curly quote
   marks. Another macro we use combines iPhone screenshots. But I often
   have trouble remembering the key combinations, particularly for the
   second one, which I use much less frequently. Being able to activate
   those from the Touch Bar would make the Touch Bar instantly useful for
   me.

   Some developers have figured out how to hack an extra button into the
   Control Strip ' the handful of controls that are always visible on the
   right side of the Touch Bar by default. [5]BetterTouchTool, [6]Mute Me,
   and [7]TouchSwitcher all add a fifth button to Control Strip, but
   they're ugly hacks. You can't configure these buttons in keyboard
   settings, and if you have more than one of these apps running, they
   fight over which one gets that fifth spot.

   Even most regular apps that support the Touch Bar now just replicate
   existing functionality in it, rather than allowing users to choose
   which commands to show there. Command-B is faster than tapping a Bold
   button, but if you were in a word processor and had defined a custom
   character style, accessing it from the Touch Bar might be faster than
   finding it in a contextual menu or palette that isn't always visible.
   Apple should set an example here and implement some non-obvious uses of
   the Touch Bar in its apps.

   Giving the Touch Bar some level of tactile feedback would help too. The
   near-mythical [8]Optimus Maximus keyboard did this by putting little
   OLED displays on each key. I can't see Apple doing that, but Apple
   might be able to use its Taptic Engine technology to simulate gutters
   between buttons while still letting a slider remain smooth as you run
   your finger along it. Given how convincing the software Home button in
   the iPhone 7 is, I think this could be an effective solution.

   In the here and now, if you're looking at a new MacBook Pro and can't
   decide if you want the Touch Bar, I don't think it, by itself, is worth
   the money. Of course, buying decisions are never that simple, since the
   Touch Bar-equipped models add a few other niceties, such as two more
   Thunderbolt 3 ports, faster CPU options, and faster Wi-Fi, that might
   make it worthwhile. And Touch ID is nice. But until Apple opens the
   Touch Bar up to developers, don't assume that the Touch Bar will
   increase your productivity.

References

   1. http://tidbits.com/article/16869
   2. https://developer.apple.com/macos/human-interface-guidelines/touch-bar/touch-bar-overview/
   3. http://tidbits.com/resources/2017-08/TouchBar-Safari-tabs.png
   4. https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/touch-bar-suggestion/5345
   5. https://www.boastr.net/
   6. https://muteme.pixelpoint.io/
   7. https://hazeover.com/touchswitcher.html
   8. http://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/