It may be "flexible" or their hand was forced. I know, personally, at least half a dozen people who have either delayed a Macbook purchased or outright moved to PC alternatives (e.g. XPS 13, Surface Laptop) because of the poor keyboard (both reliability and touchbar).

Now six people isn't statistically significant, but if that trend mirrors a wider one it could be costing Apple a measurable amount. The real question is will this be enough to satisfy e.g. programmers that actually want to bind the F keys to build/clean/run/step over/etc?

I've just ordered my first Windows laptop ever, literally. Dell XPS 13 (6 core model). I've been using Macbook Pros solely since the original Aluminium model when Apple moved to Intel processors. Apple's apparent hubris and inability to go back on their design decisions (Touch Bar...) has just pushed me over the edge.

I've been using my mid 2015 Macbook Pro and hopefully waiting for them to release a new MBP ideally without the touch or move the trackpad down/make it smaller, and have the Touchbar PLUS physical function keys (which I use for programming).

So yeah... "Pro" users at least in my case (and some friends) are moving away from Apple.

They'll go right back, don't worry.

Go back to what? They already haven't purchased a new Macbook in five or more years, that money is already lost to Apple. All Apple can do is try to get them for their next upgrade.

I don't think I am.

Why is that bad?

Apple for once listened to feedback and made corresponding changes; what's wrong with saying k, thanks, great?

Follow the money. It was cheaper to stick with that design for 3 iterations than it was to change it.

It takes a long time to get a design through the point of manufacture... especially at that scale. And even before that happens, an organization needs to admit that it has to happen in the first place. For everybody saying the keyboard sucked and needed improvement, there were at least a few people within Apple that had staked something on the design as it was.

And yet, I don’t think I’ll upgrade solely because of the touchbar. It’s horrible.

I've had a touchbar machine as my primary for a couple years now and essentially don't use the touchbar. But I didn't use f-keys all that much either.

I think there are some software improvement that could maybe make it better, but I'm not sure better enough to be compelling.

How easy is changing the volume with the touch bar. I use the function keys for that all the time.

Not bad... as saagarjha says, you can slide on either that key or the brightness key. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for me because I've set the touchbar to default to F-keys for the sake of consistency with the other keyboards I use. For whatever reason, this means that the slide-on-button trick does not work.

Yeah, I'm not sure why that disables app controls :/

For me the physical keys are better. With the touch bar, I have to look down to change the volume, and it occasionally hangs with the volume slider visible, but not actually responding to input. That's usually when I really want to turn down the volume quickly, and instead my laptop is blasting for another second while I have to adjust the volume with the mouse.

Also I really would like a physical mute button. It's often very valuable to be able to mute in a hurry.

The thing is, you can't use the touch bar without looking at it whereas I was constantly blind typing function keys. I think Apple have a different understand of "Pro" than I do.

You slide on the virtual key.

I mentioned you in a peer post that you might not otherwise notice.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21529637

Thanks, the comment thread for this post is a bit large and I probably would have missed that otherwise.

We devs are so conservative. It's ridiculous. Nobody allows Apple to innovate.

Apple can innovate as much as they wish. For example put the touchbar above the keyboard or below the LCD. Nobody is complaining about the TouchID on the power button for example, since that maintains its core purpose.

People are complaining because 30+ year old keys they rely on to do their professional work were removed to add arguably a gimmick with a worse user experience/no touch feedback.

Just like people complained when they dropped floppy and and PS/2 for CDs and USB? Or when they introduced a smartphone with no physical keyboard? Anecdotes don't make it fact.

You can see the difference in reactions to know that it wasn't wanted or desired by the target market. Its not anecdotes anymore, its data which we've had 3 years to accumulate.

Oh, don't underestimate the longevity of the no-floppy and especially the no-ethernet complainers. Just as one data point: there are non-ironic gripes about those decisions in this very thread.

I don't think there is a difference in reactions. A vocal minority complain every time Apple changes anything. Lots of people complained about the chiclet keyboard when the 2008 Macbook Pro came out. And shipping a computer without a floppy drive or a PS/2 port seemed crazy to many people at the time.

Change for the sake of change isn't innovation, it's a waste of time.

Spending hours fiddling with a dysfunctional keyboard that breaks after a week of normal use or has a gimmicky non-standard layout is not how I want to spend my finite time and mental energy.