Strongly disagree, and I can not conceive of how it could be viewed as "better" than hardware keys. Maybe if they moved it above the FN row and we regained the hardware escape key, while making it a build to order option. Even then, I personally would have no interest in it, and neither would anyone else I know. I do not want to look at my hands while I type, ever.
I wouldn't mind if they made the touch pad into a screen. Probably not that useful, but it wouldn't bother me.
You mean like making the laptop LCD a touchscreen?
Like other PC manufacturers have been doing for years?
… or that's what the fanboys will think.
I hope this is hyperbole, because it shouldn't be hard to understand. The TouchBar is absolutely an improvement. I can't remember the last time I actually used a laptop keyboard's F-keys for anything, but the TouchBar makes that space useful.
Not even F5 in a web browser?
I use them regularly to switch consoles. MacOS supports multiple consoles, right?
Very awesome. I'm sure that Macs support something similar.
macOS also has Spaces, which is just virtual desktops, but again, it doesn't use the F-keys to switch between them.
My (un-trolling) point still stands, though: I use the Function keys on a daily basis, to switch between consoles.
God forbid you try to use this with Windows though. Sometimes half of the screen cuts out, sometimes one side of it shifts by a couple hundred pixels (and wraps the right edge of the image around to a stripe down the middle of the screen), and god knows what other problems that I can't even remember. This was with a GTX 900 series GPU which is definitely "supported."
I used to have it hooked up to my Windows desktop since that's the fast computer with more storage and RAM, so it should be great for stuff like Lightroom. But since the screen doesn't work reliably, I moved that back to my MBP.
A friend with the same screen had identical issues on Windows and a similar solution. It's now on his wife's desk for her to plug her Macbook into.
Display signaling has gotten a lot more complicated than DVI/VGA were, and the reliability problems that have cropped up from that are present across the industry.
MST worked: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N11K30W/
MST did not work: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XFG1YKT/
I can't say for sure if it's the cable's fault or if it's the particular combination of cable/computer/screen that has some obscure compatibility problem. Makes me miss the days when a cable was a cable and we could tell people "Just buy any HDMI cable, no need to spend $60 on it."
No problems with my Debian or Win 7 boxes which are presumably on the same switch
But holy hell do they need to work on their external monitor support. Yesterday I had one of my monitors randomly go black for a second. I’ve had audio over usbc just not show up anymore and it refusing to see my gigabit ethernet when waking up unless I unplug the actual ethernet cable. Simply amazing this passed their QA - and Id find it hard to believe no one at Apple uses clamshell mode with two monitors.