[DoodleBuggy]

> but I disagree on the touchbar. It’s one of the better things Apple has added recently.

Strongly disagree, and I can not conceive of how it could be viewed as "better" than hardware keys. Maybe if they moved it above the FN row and we regained the hardware escape key, while making it a build to order option. Even then, I personally would have no interest in it, and neither would anyone else I know. I do not want to look at my hands while I type, ever.

[brazzledazzle]

I don't know how far out it would be but with the changes to their keyboard and the addition of their touchbar I wonder if their long term plan is a touch screen in the bottom half to replace the keyboard and pad. Without some kind of tactile interface I hope I'm wrong about my suspicions.

[DigitalJack]

dear God I hope not.

I wouldn't mind if they made the touch pad into a screen. Probably not that useful, but it wouldn't bother me.

[kogepathic]

> I wouldn't mind if they made the touch pad into a screen.

You mean like making the laptop LCD a touchscreen?

Like other PC manufacturers have been doing for years?

[zeveb]

Ah, but you see when Apple release the iTouch it'll be a whole new paradigm of human-computer interaction! Never before have people been able to control their computers by touching the screens!

… or that's what the fanboys will think.

[eridius]

> Strongly disagree, and I can not conceive of how it could be viewed as "better" than hardware keys.

I hope this is hyperbole, because it shouldn't be hard to understand. The TouchBar is absolutely an improvement. I can't remember the last time I actually used a laptop keyboard's F-keys for anything, but the TouchBar makes that space useful.

[vthriller]

> I can't remember the last time I actually used a laptop keyboard's F-keys for anything

Not even F5 in a web browser?

[eridius]

That's Windows. F5 doesn't do anything in Mac browsers.

[Grimm665]

What? Fn+F5 works fine in chrome.

[eridius]

Funny, I actually tested Chrome before commenting just to make sure it wasn't doing something weird, and F5 definitely doesn't reload Chrome on my computer.

[dawnerd]

so does cmd + r which is easier to hit I suppose

[DoodleBuggy]

You never use the ESCAPE key? Apple roped that into the fn keys and removed it

[eridius]

My touch bar computer still has an Esc key. It's part of the touchscreen now instead of a physical button, but it still works the same way and I've never had any problem hitting it without looking.

[zeveb]

> I can't remember the last time I actually used a laptop keyboard's F-keys for anything

I use them regularly to switch consoles. MacOS supports multiple consoles, right?

[eridius]

By consoles do you mean terminals? Terminal.app uses ⌘⌥1–9 to switch windows and ⌘1–9 to switch tabs. The F-keys aren't used by Terminal.app at all (well, they're sent to the terminal as an escape sequence).

[zeveb]

No, I mean complete GUI heads: completely separate GUI login sessions which use the same screen and can be switched between. Also called 'virtual framebuffers,' I think.

Very awesome. I'm sure that Macs support something similar.

[eridius]

macOS has something called Fast User Switching, which is completely separate login sessions, but you access it through a menu on the right side of the menubar, not with keys.

macOS also has Spaces, which is just virtual desktops, but again, it doesn't use the F-keys to switch between them.

[quesera]

I'm strongly reading GP comments as trolling, given indirect context, but I respect your approach of taking the high road by assuming simple ignorance.