Apple MacBook Pro Touch Bar

I don't think that's true. Apple Watch? Market leading product. Took something very nerdy and made it fashionable enough that people from all walks of life wear it. Got the form factor so right that even a decade later it has changed very little. Of course there were missteps in the quest for thinness with the laptops but I still preferred my Touch Bar MacBook Pro to any non-Apple laptop I've ever used. If that's the worst he did, that's still better than almost anyone else.

I was sceptical about the Touchbar at first, but then when I got my hand on it to test and really do some actual work, the usefulness of the contextual actions really grew on me. Then it dawned that I would only be using the Touchbar half of the time, since the other half I have my Macbook "docked" and am using an external keyboard. So I can probably never adapt the Touchbar into an daily workflow. Unless Apple releases an external keyboard with Touchbar, I wouldn't mind the cable, but the price will probably be a no-go.

Swore I'd never buy another Mac but bought one this week (had a Dell XPS15 for a year and a half) to supervise a cross-platform app development project and many things were annoying me with NixOS (clean but not quite there yet for desktop use and may never be: too many missing packages) which had replaced Gentoo (~biannual reinstall required due to portage rot), neither of which work perfectly on laptop hardware. (Also much of my Linux work is now embedded or remote and banks here in China require Windows VMs.) Wound up just going for it, not disappointed but fairly expensive as always. It's true, the touch bar is annoying, and I am a vi user so escape is critical. But it's not really any more annoying than adjusting between apple keyboards and PC keyboards: a bit of muscle memory. I just wish you could disable the whole thing entirely, at least the lights, while keeping the escape key. Haven't figured out right click on the touchpad yet, it's currently quite irritating. The press-to-drag brightness is kinda cool, and the fingerprint lock is also cute. The Mac is about 1/2 the weight of the Dell, although the Dell was last-year's model on sale 1.5 years ago so that's to be expected. My back will thank me on business trips. USB-C is the biggest physical adjustment, and I'm all for it. Yet to select an appropriate external keyboard (might buy Apple) or HDMI adaptor (won't buy Apple), happy to take recommendations.

Heavy lifting is done on the cloud. I develop web and ML stuff on a tMBP. Prototyping is done offline and the large-scale training of models is done on the cloud. My laptop is lightweight enough to put in my backpack and still leave space for groceries bought on the way home. Have a 4K display and Windows US desktop keyboard (as UK Mac keyboards are close enough to a US keyboard) and mouse. I never use split-screen as I am used to window-switching on a 13" screen.

I was in your position, but I bought new MacBook Pro 13". After some resistance I actually love it. I have to go back to my old laptop because some old work infrastructure is there, I really don't like it anymore. I actually like & use touch bar. This is my personal experience, I didn't think I have it. And in comparison, I have Windows installed on it too via bootcamp. I used it for 4-8 hours a day for last months for doing work. It's just awful. Working on macOS for many years really made me forget all the little things we're getting for granted.

When the first touch bar MBP was released I quickly got fed up by all the USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 hating. The whole point of getting it wasn't so I could use it with old, slow and inferior tech, but so I could to take advantage of the expansion options and use it with high-end, new tech. So I went ahead and bought it and haven't regretted that decision although: 1. I just mailed it in for the keyboard replacement yesterday. 2. I was slightly disappointed at the time that they didn't include a USB-C to Lightning cable for the iPhone 7, but it made sense as the iPhone 7 was released earlier. The fact that the iPhone X doesn't include that cable is inexcusable. 3. It's weird that there's an audio jack but my iPhone comes with lightning headphones. Not much of an issue in practice though as never really use either for audio, and AirPods work well on both devices. So my issues with the MBP are mostly related to how it ties in to the broader Apple line-up, and the lack of out-of-the-box compatibility/connectivity between devices. USB-C, and particularly Thunderbolt 3, is awesome though: * Sure, the power brick doesn't have ears, but you can just remove the cable from the adapter. Seems like a better solution to me. The ears are no longer necessary because the cable isn't attached to it. * The power brick can be used to quickly charge your iPhone or other USB-C PD devices. For instance, I also use it to charge a USB-C PD battery pack, which I can then use to charge my MBP at 30W on the

I got a macbook 2016 model with touch bar as a work laptop. I was scared of all things, the lack of esc, ports, magsafe. However after using it for X months, I am never going back. - The touchbar is great with sliders for brightness and volume. That's ALL I use it for though, so it is a bit under utilized. - The esc key might be the only minor issue, but it's mostly the lack of feedback. - Ports - I love having to unplug only one dongle instead of the 4-5 USD/HDMI/ETC/ETC I always have plugged in every time I need to move away. And plugging them all back in is also a single action. I'd be ok with less ports even. - Magsafe, I still love it but I haven't even missed it. - No issues with the keyboard and I haven't used function keys in years anyway. I think it 'clicked' for me after a few weeks of usage, so I understand people judging it or even returning it after a few days.

The difference is that this is a highly subjective "problem". I actually love the touch bar. I'm not in love with esc and f-keys not being physical but lots of the other stuff it does is pretty great. Like, the brightness and volume sliders he hates so much? I love them. Greatly prefer them over buttons. I've been developing on MacBooks for about 7 years now and I do almost no system configuration at all besides installing requisite apps. So yeah, I do love that developing on a Mac doesn't require me to configure it. My takeaway is that most people probably DON'T do all that much configuring of their systems. But they aren't writing blog posts about how much they love their touch bars because there's no meat to that. It's not a useful article to write. But for people who do dislike the touch bar, this article is super useful to them.

What generation of touchbar model is it? YMMV, but my observation has been that the first gen was problematic, but models since are much better. I use a (I think) second gen 15” touchbar at work and generally speaking it’s not been a problem at all. It’s about as stable as my own personal 2015 15”. Additionally, I’ve had no issues with external monitors, but I use Dell and ASUS monitors exclusively, and it seems that USB C/Thunderbolt 3 flakiness often comes from the monitor/adapter in question rather from the computer or OS.

Add me to the list. Three separate Touch Bar MBP's (work, play, spouse) and all 3 have been solid as can be. My personal one might just be my favorite MacBook of all time. I also really love High Sierra. The only thing missing for me is iMessages in iCloud. Everything works well for me and, as a developer and musician, I rarely have issues doing whatever it is I want to do. People complaining about bugs because they read about the root issue and whatnot must have an axe to grind because I don't know a single Mac user that would have experienced a problem as a result of those bugs (and I know a lot of Mac users) and it was fixed within a day or 2. YMMV but I'm having a great time here.

The touch bar is something you get used to the same way you get used to using a trackpad. I avoided the trackpad for YEARS opting for a wireless mouse and/or the eraser nub on the old ThinkPads. For me the touch bar isn't vital, but I really wouldn't want to go back to not having it. In fact, I wish the external keyboard also had a touch bar. It's fantastic for any scenario where their are no controls on the screen, such as full screen video. It also makes a fantastics scrubber for emojis, photos, etc. And the ability to change the function keys based on context, while not something you use every day in every application, actually makes a lot of sense and it's pretty bewildering that this didn't change a long time ago. It's always annoying when function keys no longer do what their icon suggests because they have been replaced, moved, or the OS has changed that functionality. And for things like brush size or changing the tool your using in a video editor, it actually is a lot more convenient. There are these things you start to realize that you always wanted physical keys for, and now you have them. The only problem that I have with the new MPB is the way the keyboard sounds. The clicks on each key are different depending on where they are and how hot the chassis is. If you haven't noticed this, I'm sorry you're reading this because once you notice it you won't be able to not. Certain keys click more than others. They do all sort of break in a bit and start to sound the same