If you go to System Preferences > Keyboard, you can change the "Touch Bar shows" option from "App Controls" to "Expanded Control Strip" to have the default set of buttons showing all the time.

Of course if it's just going to show the default set of buttons all the time, that's a feature also achievable with... actual keys.

Default keys won’t prevent the touchbar from freezing or bugging out, which has occurred multiple times for me. It’s odd to make such important keys software based and prone to non mechanical failure.

I wonder what fails more often, the touchbar or mechanical keys. In any case, though, the touchbar is the anti-feature nobody asked for.

I've had a TouchBar MacBook Pro for about 2 years now. The TouchBar has frozen or crashed on me multiple times. Apart from the terrible butterfly keyboard on this same computer which also tends to fail, literallyt never in 35-ish years using computers I had a mechanical key failing on me.

Thank you! I couldn't figure out how to do that.

If you set the default to function keys, you can also set the fn key to show the expanded control strip too.

I felt the same way, and after maybe 2 years I still hate it - the only thing I ever want to use on it is the F-keys, rendering it useless.

Actually, worse than useless - I also run Bootstrap on my MBP, and when using keys on the touch bar you have to leave something like a 2s delay between each press for it to register. Maddening when F5 stepping through code!

When I first got it I was like "This isn't as bad as people make it out to be"... but now 1 year in and I want to throw this thing across the room at least once a day because my finger grazed something on the touchbar and totally messed up whatever I was doing.

I 100% agree with you, but definitely check out pock.dev. Saw it on HN a little while ago, it shows your dock in the touchbar and you can customize it to add music/brightness/volume controls as well. At least for me, it actually makes the touchbar useful since I can hide the on-screen dock and still see at a glance if I have notifications, which apps are open, and what Spotify is playing (I’ve heard bettertouchtool can do something similar too)

This doesn't excuse Apple's poor design, but I highly recommend Keyboard Maestro to solve this problem for you. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to actions in specific programs (and much, much more) ... super useful program.

https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/

Works normally for me, no need to exit full screen. I would say the more frustrating thing is that once you change the volume, the Touch Bar takes a while to turn off so you are left with the distraction when watching video.

Have only and exactly the controls you want on your touchbar: https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-a-complete-t...

A solution to a problem that shouldn't exist, in my opinion. That's fine if you want to try and sell TouchBars, but still give me the option to buy a laptop without one.

I'm still holding out hope for a good keyboard and a proper row of keys along the top. In the meantime, I'm typing this on a 2012 MacBook Pro.

You can set the bar to always show certain widgets. I have mine always show keyboard light, brightness and volume control. This doesn’t require any 3rd party software

But it still lights up whenever you want it to be dark (like when a full screen video starts), and is dark whenever you actually need to look it it (when you decide to adjust the volume a few minutes later).

It's cheap crap.

If they had real buttons that could be be completely dynamic it would be better. Basically what we see with a stream deck.

Not sure what you're talking about. Volume control works normally for me full screen.

Touchbar Volume controls on fullscreen video work for me - can I ask which video application are you using?

(Disclaimer: I never owned a TouchBar Mac.)

There are a few applications which enhance the TouchBar in one way or another. Perhaps the best idea I've seen is the one where it put the Dock in the TouchBar.

In VLC, you could use up/down arrow keys to control volume.

When I bought a Macbook in 2006, it came with a remote-control. I guess they don't do this anymore?

They certainly don’t come with anything nonessential anymore.

This is part of my frustration with Apple lately. Buying an Apple product, any Apple product, used to be a premium experience. You received everything you needed, and more. There were plenty of cords, controllers, etc. and even stickers! The packaging was beautiful to look at, easy to work with (no squeaky Styrofoam!), and cleverly constructed. You were excited to get the package home and open it.

Now, Apple seems to cut corners where ever possible; as someone else mentioned the power brick no longer includes an extension cable. To make matters worse, the USB-C cable they do include is a "power only" cable and won't allow you to hook up other things to your MBP. This means to hook up your monitor to your new computer you have to remember to purchase a "real" USB-C cable.

This is on a product that costs thousands of dollars! Can they not afford to provide a usable set of cables with your $2,500 computer?

They don't even come with a three prong extension cord anymore.

The replacement USB-C chargers don't even come with any way of connecting to the computer.