>The obvious change to make is the addition of haptic feedback.

Yeah they are called physical keys, no need to make a NASA pen... didn't Apple buy out some company making keyboards out of tiny e-ink dipslays, that would actually make sense. Making keys out of a touchscreen when the only reason to look at it is because there are no physical keys on the other hand is ridiculous.

I agree with your point about physical keys, just a quick aside about:

> no need to make a NASA pen

The "NASA pen" urban legend (often used to comment on the contrast between American over-spending on innovation and Russian common-sense) is actually a myth. Both NASA and the Soviets used pencil-based technology originally -- NASA used ordinary sharpening-based pencils (later moving to mechanical pencils), while Soviets used more crayon-like "grease pencils". There were flaws with both technologies, and a private American company (Fisher) created a pen they claimed could work in space which was later adopted by both NASA and the Soviets. NASA only paid $4.00 per pen, nowhere near the "millions of dollars" often cited as the cost of development.

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

Thanks I did not know that, however... In spite of it's truth it is an extremely useful metaphor when trying to make a point about unnecessarily complex over-engineering to no actual benefit to the user. Do you have any alternatives which are not myths? (Sincere question)

The vertical doors on Tesla SUVs. Doors are actually one of the most complicated parts of a car to manufacture and make reliable, and those doors are widely credited with why the shipments were late. In addition to people complaining about their reliability and their absurdly high cost, they provide no real benefit. Supposedly you can park in tighter spaces and get out, however the front doors still open like regular car doors. So assuming the driver also wants to get out, it's pretty fucking useless.

> ... no need to make a NASA pen

As is frequently trotted out whenever someone reaches for this analogy, http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp (tl;dr: pencils aren't great in space, another company invented the pen on their dime and sold it to NASA). There's definitely UX headroom when iterating on user input; the first gen touchbar has been undeniably meh, but that's not to say another iteration or two can't be a marked improvement over a 150 year old technology.

> Yeah they are called physical keys, no need to make a NASA pen

The Touchbar has many clear benefits over physical keys (in addition to drawbacks). Adding haptic feedback doesn't make the TouchBar equivalent to hardware keys. It makes it a better Touchbar. The fictitious NASA pen had no benefits over a pencil. Touchbar has benefits.

Pencils are inadvisable in space due to contamination control considerations. Graphite dust is electrically conductive, and wood fragments can clog filters.

I love Hacker News :) TIL!

I know you're being facetious, but..

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n...

> which many users already like and appreciate.

Really? Who? I haven't heard a single opinion on this that's stronger than lukewarm.

The DJ that played his track on the MacBook Pro with touch bar at the introduction event seemed happy about it. But scrubbing on the touch bar seems wrong . That is what the touchpad should be for.