The touch bar on the MacBook Pro is well implemented, but is useless

With the 2016 MacBook Pro came the polarization of the user base. It was not only about the USB-C, but also the new Touch Bar of Apple

The TouchBar

The Touch Bar was to appear and function as a dynamic OLED tape of virtual keyboard keys, not confined by the physical structure of the mechanical keys. Optimally, all keys are context sensitive, changing not only the appearance but the size depending on the application in which the user is located and what the user is doing.

The old key functions have not disappeared. If you hold down the FN key, the Touch Bar returns to a standard band of 12 function keys and the ESC key. If you start Windows, the touch bar returns to the display of virtual FN keys.

After almost 21 months of use, the verdict is still on the Touch Bar here at AppleInsider . This is not a universal tool, and we do not use it for everything. Mileage may vary from one user to another.

We have already said that the Touch Bar will take some time to mature and find its best uses. Coming out of the box, he did not really fulfill his promise, but still has potential

More about this potential in a little

Missing as a video or audio editing tool [19659009] We do a lot of video work, as you can probably say. The idea of ​​a customizable digital control panel that gives quick access to shortcuts was, and is, intriguing.

Anything that can speed up the workflow is a welcome addition. We gave Apple the benefit of the doubt and we did our best to incorporate the Touch Bar – but it did not work.

The use of the touch bar is literally limited to display the brightness and volume settings. In Final Cut Pro, you have buttons to use as a shortcut, but none of them is new or innovative and you can access each one of them faster by using the keyboard. We learned a few other shortcuts that we did not know before, but we just watched the keyboard controls for them.

The best video editing feature of the touchbar is to see the video timeline and to be able to scroll. But, for maximum efficiency and speed, it is better to stick to the keyboard, mouse or trackpad.

In general

We have no complaints about the material. It's fast, and updates quickly. The images are crisp and clear, and the touch sensitivity is incomparable. This is not very good in actual use.

The touch bar has its uses for non-editors, but they are rare. Safari has some subtleties in Safari with open tabs, but since you are watching the screen for surfing, this is not the most practical thing.

As we have said, talking about the 2017 MacBook Pro as a whole later, our use of the touch bar is usually limited to displaying brightness and volume settings. With some options, Touch Bar forces users to navigate through an additional menu to find certain settings, such as adjusting keyboard backlighting and skipping audio tracks, tasks that take a simple tap on standard function keys. Apple itself does not give users much about configuration options in this regard, but there is a way to move forward.

Part Three to the rescue!

Regarding the potential, a third-party application called Better Touch Tool allows users to completely customize the touch bar. In short, the bar can become a custom keyboard extension, with just about every parameter configurable for a given application.

To the touch, Better Touch Tool can also run Apple scripts and return a value to the touchbar. So, there are already info-dense tools, including weather and stock tools

So all those things that Apple did not include for customization, Better Touch Tool can do it.

It can do even for trackpad users. It is free to try for 45 days, or it is included in a Setapp subscription.

There is another one we call called 2Touch which is not as robust, but takes advantage of Apple's accessibility options to give more choice to the user for the bar

Probably not going away

One can not imagine a scenario where Apple decides to shoot the Touch Bar. In all likelihood, it will continue to offer a low-end MacBook Pro with function keys, but will not make it optional across the board.

The Touch Bar could be great. It has the capacity to be great, as we have demonstrated. And, as we have already said, it 's more about making the Mac easier for iOS users than to help existing Mac users.

One can not help thinking that the touch bar is a transition to something else. While we prefer that the touch keys do not disappear, between the short trip on the Apple Butterfly keyboard and the Touch Bar, we begin to wonder if Apple wants to build a machine without a physical keyboard, and one with all virtual

We will see in time, of course. But, like many other courses that Apple has put, there is probably a destination on the horizon – we can not see what that is.