This effectively makes the touch bar a useless feature, but at least I can customize the button mapping and always know the buttons will be where I expect them to be.
/System/Library/CoreServices/ControlStrip.app/Contents/MacOS/TouchBarAgent
You can also remove the Siri icon and add a Play/Stop icon to the default icons on the right. Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Customise Control Strip. You can then move your cursor down off the screen onto the Touchbar, drag Siri out of the way, then drag a Play/Stop icon down into the Control Strip.
Then it will always be there even if the control strip is contracted rather than expanded.
I don't like the Touch Bar, but I've grown to hate it less. However it does register unintentional presses regularly. And no, I'm not "using it wrong".
I concur with this. iTunes has on several occasions simply begun playing without me even touching the keyboard.
After a few weeks with the new MacBook the Touchbar is really the only thing I vehemently dislike about it. I especially dislike that it wants to display the Siri icon despite Siri being disabled on the machine.
Now I just accidently pause or mute my music instead.
Like this, maybe? http://www.imore.com/how-customize-control-strip-touch-bar-m...
If these are truly unintentional touches, as in, you were not touching the bar at all and it registered a key press, then you probably have a hardware issue. I just replaced a machine that would self press the touch bar on the right side when putting any sort of pressure (like resting your palms) to the right of the track pad.
Maybe they should have come up with a way of requiring a press to active buttons on the touchbar.
It got so frustrating that I gave up and added loads of whitespace to the far right side of the bar. It looks weird having a big chunk of empty space there, but it has dramatically reduced my accidental activations.
At this point though, almost two months in, I'm just apathetic towards the bar. I tried to get used to the 'app contexts' but it felt too forced for me. So now it's just a function bar with a bad UX. I rebound Caps to escape and got used to it because the touch escape, even with the extended hitbox, feels extremely unpleasant to use.
I'm hoping someone figures out a way to run an app that takes over the bar even when not in focus. I'd quite like, for example, to have a mini version of iStat Menus on it, the currently playing track, or some other cute widget.
I know the above is not how Apple intend the touch bar to be used (as a second screen), but I'd sure find it more useful than what it does now!
I have to make compromises if I want the play/pause control then I'll loose the brightness or volume because the shortcuts are limited to 4 max even if the touch bar is mostly unused black space on the left most of the time.
You can't customize the app buttons unless it allows you to which is not the case with Spotify.
1/ display the same touch bar UI when the app is in the front or background otherwise it's confusing.
2/ keep the spotify controls visible when using chrome for example (chrome doesn't have any touch bar controls yet). Right now I have to click the newly added spotify shortcut all the time. Maybe a way to decide which app should be displayed when the space is unused would help (in the OS settings).
I like the song play progress bar, it would be even better with the current and next artist/song names and covers.
https://www.boastr.net/second-touchbar-alpha-available/
I haven't played with it yet, but it looks like as long as the thing you want to do has a hotkey you can use this to make touchbar button to do it whenever you are in that particular app.
My major concern about the touch bar is that it really makes things worse. I second the author opinion.
I use Spotify a lot. Before, on my MBA, I could change the volume or hit play/pause with one key tap, straightforward and easy.
Now I have to hit the tiny expand arrow to display these keys and then hit play/pause etc.
It could get even worse because Spotify added their own touch bar buttons when you use the mac native app. But the dynamic display is different depending on whether the app is the front or in the background. When in the background it becomes a shortcut you have to click to make a different set of keys appear. You get lost very easily, plus it becomes redundant with Apple native play/pause keys... So I'm always confused when I just want to hit pause/play.
From the settings, if I'd like to fall back to the always on standard set of function keys then I lose the dynamic app keys. Which is weird. The OS should be clever enough to expand the function keys when nothing else is available instead of a black unused zone and a tiny shortcut zone on the right.
The esc key (as mentioned in the article) is really hard to reach most of the times because you have to quit the current display (cross) before it becomes available. Why not keep it always on the left ?
It feels like the touch bar hasn't been thought through very much. It needs some more work... The good news is that it's mostly software improvements so let's hope Apple / App developers can fix that quickly.