I really, really, really want to like the touchbar, but it just isn't useful to me. I wish they'd put some serious effort into improving it.

Agreed. There were minor use cases were it was delightful to use (able to swipe & adjust brightness or volume). But overall it was just useless.

You weren't even able to skip to the next song, like you can on the old function keys. Play & skip to next song are probably my most used buttons, one of which never stand-alone existed on the Touch Bar.

You can/could modify the touchbar to get skip easily, see Keyboard settings

I saw an interesting idea floating around a while back: Put in a screen instead of the trackpad. I can see it being useful for drawing as well as picking emojis and so on, but it couldn’t be always available like the touch bar can.

I don't mind the touchbar - I mind that it _replaced_ the F-keys! I want proper function keys! If I get some sort of status display _in addition_ to the keys, I'm fine with that.

Am I the only one who just ignored the touchbar and didn't take it as a personal affront?

Your finger never slipped and hit the "play" button by mistake, blasting the last song you played at max volume directly into your ear. Happened dozens of times in the first year of having a touchbar (work laptop, not my decision), super jarring every time. Decades of having a physical "play" function button hooked up to do the same thing and it didn't happen once.

I can't say this has ever happened, but I have fairly skinny fingers. I can see how it would though.

Same. I had to remove all of the volume and media buttons and Siri from my Touch Bar prior to upgrading to M1. Interesting idea, poor execution, and no followup.

My work machine has one, and I use it to display status information, give me a proper Rub Out key, and for soft keys to insert certain Unicode and macros that I need occasionally, but not often enough to remember.

I think it would have been better accepted if Apple make it more customizable right out of the box, instead of relying on half-baked solutions from tinkerers to program it.

In my opinion, it should also have been in addition to the function keys, not a replacement.

The problem I have with the touchbar isn't the existence of it, it's that apparently my keyboard posture is terrible and I float fingers up their periodically. Because there's no force requirement for activation, I would keep triggering buttons. I could turn it off, but there are a few of the command/f buttons I use regularly, and so am stuck with it.

Hence, it's a nuisance. Not something I go insane about like some do, but it is a very definite day-to-day annoyance.

> apparently my keyboard posture is terrible and I float fingers up their periodically

Same. The short time I was exposed to the touchbar it felt like I was constantly being berated for my keyboard posture. Apparently the "at rest" position of my left hand leaves my middle/ring fingers hovering over the escape key (I had the earlier model that didn't have a physical escape key).

Not to mention losing access to the physical f-keys decimated my custom hotkey usage for certain software.

For me it’s my little fingers :D

The internet disproportionally reflects the most extreme views.

I think it's mildly disappointing and I won't miss it.

Oh yeah I won't miss it either but some people seem to hold rather extreme emotion over a touchbar :) . That said it is easy to be hyperbolic on the internet.

False dichotomy; I alternate between ignoring it AND being annoyed by it

I've had a touchbar on my work macbook for ~3 years and can't say I care at all. I use the touchbar controls without issue, the non-physical escape key is irrelevant to me (actually I find press-and-hold on the virtual escape key to be in some ways more pleasant). I use the touchbar zoom controls pretty regularly to leave meetings, I use the touchbar screen lock button probably 8x per day, its completely fine.

Genuinely curious, how did you avoid using it ?

I'd imagine changing brightness or sound volume + mute/unmute only with on screen controls and/or keyboards shortcuts could work, but that's a lot of shortcuts to remember for stuff that are only done a few times a day.

If it was an addition it would have been fine. Instead it replaced the escape key and all the function keys.

Personally quite like the touchbar. It's not great, but I like it more than function keys. In particular, I like that when I'm screen recording, I can use the touchbar to stop the recording. It's a trivial little thing, but it's cool.

I'd be less annoyed by accidentally touching the touchbar all the time if it were positioned at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top of the keyboard.

Hey, Apple: why not just lose the touch bar and make the whole screen taller and touch sensitive instead, huh?

I'd be fine with the bottom of the screen being touch sensitive or something, specifically where it wouldn't align with the keyboard, but they can't even get their anti-glare coating to not erode permanently when you get some finder grease on it. Not optimistic that a touchscreen would be done very well on macbooks.

Same here and I can't remember accidentally touching it. Even if I did so did I with F-keys as well (F1 in AutoCad uuh - on regular keyboard as well).