> Somewhere have to start the transition

By removing every single legacy port long before there's anywhere near ubiquitous USB-C? Even USB-C cables themselves are more commonly sold as USB-A to USB-C. I love having usable DisplayPort/Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB-A on my 2013 rMBP - I never need a dongle. If I went to a 2016, I'd need at least 3, every day.

> Prioritising thinness and weight over everything else

Battery life is certainly not the same, and the lack of a 16GB option or a faster processor is a well-missed loss.

> Battery life is certainly not the same, and the lack of a 16GB option or a faster processor is a well-missed loss.

Is it certainly not the same? It seems pretty much the same to me. Lack of a 16GB option? I have a 16 GB TB mac.

The FUD is getting old.

> Batterylife is the same

Quite a few folks including Consumer Reports would differ with you on that point.

Those folks had crazy results, in all possibility due to a software bug.

For example when they re-tried with Chrome (instead of Safari) the found exactly the same, and in some cases better, battery life.

>> Removing the Esc key > you can switch back to default F1... keys

Not following... the physical key is gone, replaced by the touch bar?

The key is gone. The touchbar can be set to always show virtual function keys, though. Not the best option if you touch type, of course.

Yeah I touch type. The whole idea of encouraging people to look at their keyboard seems completely off.

The ESC key being missing gets blown out of proportion. Every time I hit it, I'm amazed at how it just works. Apple has made it so hitting any where in that vicinity basically triggers the ESC.

The key not physically being there is unnerving. There's no tactile feedback, _unlike every other key on the keybord_. As a touch typist, I found this extremely distracting during the week that I tried out the MBP 2016. Not every attempt to hit Esc worked, so I found myself constantly and instinctively hitting it 2-3 times "just to be sure", and then also constantly glancing down to see whether in fact I was aiming right. That's not great UI.

Another problem with the touch bar is unintended touches. I constantly found myself accidentally resting a finger on the Esc key, which of course caused all sorts of weirdness in various apps.

Finally, as a touch typist the touch bar was simply distracting. I never look at the keyboard, but the touch bar really wants you to look down, which is a source of distraction, especially when it changes contents in the periphery of your vision.

If the touch bar brought lots of utility, I might have learned to deal with it, but it is really is of limited value. Emojis? There's cmd-ctrl-space for that (the touch bar doesn't have search so you'll be scrolling a lot to hunt down the right emoji). Safari tab previews? They're idiotically tiny. And so on.

I wondered about the lack of a tactile response, and tried out one of the new MBPs a few days back. I'm also a touch-typist, and you're absolutely right. It bugs me immensely, not having tactile feedback.

I'm a touch typist, and there's no way I'm going to use touch bar. I've tested it in the local Apple store, and it just doesn't work for me, nor do their new keyboards.

I appreciated Apple's innovations in the past, but imho Apple shows little understanding of their remaining users in the "pro" market, or rather unwillingness to cater for them. Pro users want predictable work horses and a roadmap for their software purchases, not the new shiny and Apple doing away with basic functionalities of a computer system such as standard keyboards and ports.

Why didn't Apple make touch bar optional on the higher end Macbook Pros?

Alternatively, couldn't one use CTRL-[ instead of ESC?

I doubt anyone is going to remove CTRL or [ anytime soon, so getting used to that would future-proof you quite well.

That may work... unless you're on a layout where [ is accessed with Alt (or whatever modifier is used on macOS to go to Layer 3).

> you can switch back to default F1... keys

Why not just set Caps Lock to Esc? Works well with Vim and you don't wanna use Caps Lock anyway.

I use Karabiner Elements to set it that way. Karabiner doesn't work with Sierra.

I'm using Caps Lock for Control already...