While I agree with you here, I do think that using Steve Jobs as a consistent counterpoint to new Apple developments isn't always useful. Sometimes we forget that Steve was behind the Lisa and the original Apple TV. And the Magic Mouse original.

I'm not old enough (and certainly wasn't in a household wealthy enough to afford it at the time) to know what's going on with the Lisa, but there was nothing with the Apple Tv, or Magic Mouse. For those products, we're simply not the audience. I know plenty of casual mac users who were doing fine with those things. People in tech circles love to go on about Apple's mouse deficiencies but from my experience around casual computer users, PC users too, is that most people barely know about the second mouse button and the very concept of a "context menu" is alien to them. I keep having to remind my stepfather how to do things like copy and pasting in some apps because he always forgets about the context menu and even remembering something as simple as Ctrl+C + Ctrl+V is something he's not willing to do for a reason I can't even fathom myself, it literally makes no sense to me, it's just how it is.

So, from my point of view, Apple insistence on mostly forgetting about secondary functions on mouses is the right thing. The Magic mouse doesn't have a middle click? Most people don't even know how to right click. The only thing a mouse for casual users needs to do right, is left click and scrolling and the magic mouse has perfect touch scrolling. For the same reason Apple has hidden functionality like Cut&Paste from the finder. You need to hold the option key to activate the "move item". Apple wants you to drag&drop instead. The "default" in Apple land has always been to serve the need of the common, not the expert. So there's no traditional CTRL+X CTRL+V. Instead you need to do CMD+C as if you were copying, then CMD+OPT+V to "move". Everything advanced tends to be hidden into OPT key. It also changes the behavior of various menus to show things Apple doesn't want to show to the commons.

The touchbar is actually a very, very clever thing, we're just not the audience once again. I firmly believe it will never have much use among professionals who have nothing against learning many keyboard shortcut combinations or who even do things like customizing them (Karabiner to the rescue!). The touchbar is for people who didn't even use the mouse right click, and who don't understand concepts like context menu that change based on, gasp, context. It's actually going to be a boon for these people. Even exposing basic functionality like copy paste is going to help average users be slightly more productive with their devices.

The only issue is the MBP audience having a lot of techies and audio/visual professionals. The touchbar would be more sensible on something like the iMac and Macbook.

Can we just stop the "Steve would never..." stupidity, please?

1: He's gone. It doesn't matter anymore. 2: We'll never know what he'd have done in this situation.

Seriously. Everyone keeps pinning every single mistake Apple does to Steves absence. Have people completely forgotten that Apple made mistakes with Steve at the helm as well?

There are too many to count, but in this specific case, it could be reasonable to compare to the original Apple TV. Also something which wasn't timed right at all, and was kind of a "meh" in hindsight. In fact I'm not sure their vision for TV has really arrived yet, even now.

What about the original iPhone? What we consider now to be an absolutely essential element for smartphones was not present in the original: (third-party) apps. I remember how many people complained about that.. I'm sure they would've blamed it on Steves absence if Apple did that now.

Another one on the iPhone was the lack of 3G in the first release. Most phones of a similar price point had it at that time.