Apple swipes left on the last Touch Bar Mac, replaces it with a pricier 14″ model

Apple appears to have decided its controversial Touch Bar is no longer needed as on Monday the last machine that included it – the 13-inch MacBook Pro – vanished from iGiant's site. Introduced in 2016 alongside some slimmed down, USB-C-only, MacBook Pros, the Touch Bar – an OLED display strip situated at the top of the …

[aerogems]

It wasn't a bad idea

But, as the author points out, the execution left a lot to be desired. I've often thought that if someone could combine those braille things where the different bumps can be done dynamically, and scale it up so you could create physical buttons on a touch screen in a dynamic way... then you'd be onto something. Like a plastic layer that sits over the display and you can puff up parts of it with air, or run a small current through it to make it take a specific shape. The tech may not be there yet, but if you could create physical buttons that pop into being as-needed, it'd be like the next best thing to a holographic interface that can be displayed mid-air. Which is the next best thing to focus follows mind.

Also... the butterfly keyboards... I remember starting a new job and being given one of those. The spacebar was broken, so I take it to the helpdesk and they just glance at it and then start into a rehearsed spiel about how the best they can do is try to blow some compressed air under the keycaps. I stopped them and pointed out this was something else entirely. The spacebar went down, it just didn't register when it did. Then suddenly they were interested in my situation again. Can't really blame them though, if I heard people coming in with the same complaint day in and day out like they did, I'd probably just mentally check out and repeat some rehearsed line too.

[Crypto Monad]

Re: It wasn't a bad idea

It was because of the butterfly keyboard that when I bought a brand new Macbook Pro in 2017, I bought the 2015 model (which was still fortunately available).

That, plus the fact that the 2015 model still had Magsafe and USB A ports.

[theOtherJT]

I actually liked the touch bar...

...when it worked.

I've had half a dozen machines with them now - and for anyone thinking "that's a lot of macs to have in the short space of time since it was introduced" - you're right. Every. Single. One. Developed some sort of keyboard, touchpad, or touchbar related fault and had to be replaced within a year.

When it was working tho, l did like it. Not enough to buy a machine with it, after the experience I've had with the ones work issued me mind you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical apple

It's typical of Apple to add a feature that looks cool but ultimately isn't /that/ useful. I had a Mac with an early touchbar and it looked fancy but I just didn't really find a need for it long term.

btw I believe Apple was using an Imagination PowerVR GPU to display its touchbar and continued to do so even after making a big song and dance about ditching Imagination to use its own home-grown GPUs for its stuff, which would have been a bit infuriating for ImgTech

[DS999]

Re: Typical apple

using an Imagination PowerVR GPU to display its touchbar and continued to do so even after making a big song and dance about ditching Imagination to use its own home-grown GPUs

In hindsight that was probably a big clue the touchbar was on its way out. If they're getting rid of it then any engineering effort like making it use Apple's GPU would be considered wasted.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Typical apple

How long before Usagi_Electric gets a Hellorld on one?

[diodesign]

Hellorld

Damn, someone else who watches that channel. It's good stuff

C.

[Martin-73]

Re: Hellorld

Indeed it is good stuff, watching his SHEER happiness when he fixes the Hawk drive... AGAIN.... is endearing :)

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Hellorld

I'm always concerned that he's going to do a little happy jig and accidentally land on a bunny or a kitty - now _that_ would be tragedy!

[DesktopGuy]

poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

Honestly, this was a terrible idea. With proper wider testing and focus groups they likely never would have introduced this.

A keyboard that has contextual keys that change depending on the app focus. So much for touch typing and not looking at keyboard.

Providing context by a right clicking of a file is a great UI. The context is right next to the file you are looking at so closer to hand.

Having contextual row of non-tactile keys was simply a horrible idea. Made for a cool demo, but that's about it.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

A keyboard that has contextual keys that change depending on the app focus. So much for touch typing and not looking at the keyboard.

Got news for ya, Bucky: all app-available function keys, Apple's or IBM's, have focus-dependent meanings. You ought to know which app is currently-focused, because you are looking at the screen if you're touch-typing!

Midnight Commander: F10 == Exit. Emacs: F10 == Invoke Menu. Etc. Frequent function-key use develops muscle-memory.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

Did the OP mean that with the touch bar, the virtual keys were differently sized depending on the focused app?

That's how I understood it, meaning that it's just not the same as F1-F12, which are always physically in the same place.

[Roland6]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

>” meaning that it's just not the same as F1-F12, which are always physically in the same place.”

Which for some reason reminded me of the new and “exciting” Windows 11 centre aligned toolbar (yes I know the Mac also has this), which encourages use of the Windows key etc. rather than the mouse in a complete desktop GUI design ethos u-turn.

[Geoff Campbell]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

Not that much of a U-turn. Keyboard shortcuts, including the Windows key, have pretty much always been the secret to an easy, smooth working day in Windows. This is why I liked Windows 8 & 8.1 when everyone else hated it, because the keyboard shortcuts continued to work perfectly and it was a much better operating system under the covers than Windows 7.

GJC

[Roland6]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

It’s a bigger u-turn than you think. Yes the shortcuts have been there since MSDOS - when they were the only way to do stuff. However, with Windows the focus over the decades has been on promoting the use of the mouse so users don’t have to learn shortcuts but can simply point and click, this being encouraged by not making the shortcuts so obvious - remember the bold or underlined letter in the text based menus, but are absent in the icon driven UI’s.

Yes, I know there are ways to find out the keyboard shortcuts, but you have to go looking…

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

Keyboard shortcuts, including the Windows key, have pretty much always been the secret to an easy, smooth working day in Windows

Indeed. And, for someone like me who switches between a Mac and a WIndows 10 laptop several times during the day (depending on task) it can be a pain - trying [Windows]-c to copy something (Mac uses [Apple]-c) and then wondering why it didn't work..

[Kristian Walsh]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

This used to work for me: to swap the Command and Control keys, go to the Keyboard settings and follow these instructions: https://www.techjunkie.com/switch-command-control-keys-mac-modifiers/

To preserve my sanity, I used to use the same model of keyboard (currently a Microsoft Surface Ergonomic) with both my home and work computers. When had a Mac at work, I used Karabiner to fix the mapping of Ctrl, Windows and Alt on the keyboard to be received as Command, Control and Alt by the Mac.

Doing it this way, rather than forcing the PC to pretend to have a Mac layout, opens up a wider choice of keyboards.

[katrinab]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

Yes, and sometimes they are sliders rather than keys.

[doublelayer]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

They could be of multiple sizes, and even if they weren't, it wouldn't have fixed the problem. Hitting F7 by touch is pretty easy once you get familiar with your particular keyboard, and hitting it on an unfamiliar keyboard doesn't take very long. Hitting the place where F7 would be on a flat bar is not so easy. Imagine trying to type on a touchscreen without looking at it at all. The chances of mistyping are higher than on keyboards where the keys can be located by touch.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

"A keyboard that has contextual keys that change depending on the app focus. So much for touch typing and not looking at keyboard."

If we were talking about the whole keyboard, then yes I'd agree. But it's the function keys. And they have always been contextual - right back to DOS days.

EDIT just seen that An_Old_Dog wrote literally the same thing. Must read before posting. Sigh.

[Roland6]

Re: poor idea, should have never got out of the testing labs

>” And they have always been contextual - right back to DOS days.”

One of the ‘nice’ things of buying products such as Word, Excel, et al up to Office 4.3, was getting the strip of plastic with the application specific function key labels.

It wryly amused me, visiting offices and seeing keyboard with photocopied versions of these strips, because for some reason they weren’t available for purchase separately to the box of disks and manuals…

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame it didn't work out...

Function keys on a keyboard are wasted space these days. I remember when different programs had keyboard cardboard overlays to tell you what each one did, but now there are very few programs where I can remember what they do, and mostly shortcuts use CTRL/ALT...

I suspect the problem was price, rather than than anything else...

[david 12]

Re: Shame it didn't work out...

green-screen programs used the function keys as menu/function keys. Typically identified on-screen. The PC migrated to [ALT] menus (and, to a lesser extent, [CRTL] and [WINKEY]), before moving to mouse-icon ribbons.

[Korev]

Re: Shame it didn't work out...

I use the brightness and volume "F keys" on this Mac every day

[Dave559]

Re: Shame it didn't work out...

Yes, but it's much easier to find (by feel) and use the brightness and volume keys when these are actual physical keys on the keyboard.

As an additional keyboard row, the touchbar could have had some useful potential, but, by replacing the physical function key row, it is sadly more annoying than anything else (my work Mac has the touchbar - not my choice).

[An_Old_Dog]

"Wasted Space"

Function keys are "wasted space" only for the masses who don't think beyond the windows-icons-menus-pointer model, and do not seek to maximize the efficiency of their computer use.

Part of the problem is programmers who poorly-design the UI of their programs (WIMP-only, or badly-designed KB/F-keys interface). Part of the problem is operating systems which appropriate the unshifted function keys. These things dissuade new users from learning about and using function keys.

To be efficient, you have to actively seek out and use well-designed programs.

I'm not anti-WIMP, as such; some types of editing and content creation work best with WIMP interfaces ... and some do not. I don't want to try to edit or create images using a purely keyboard interface. But I do use the keyboard shortcus in GIMP as much as possible.

Watch an expert user of keyboard-interface programs such as vi and Emacs: their cursors just fly across the screen. Then watch the people who use their down-arrow keys to move their cursors to the next screen, instead of [PgDn], or the "next-screen" vi or Emacs equivalents. It's painful.

Feel free to "walk" your computer instead of running it if you desire, but do not deny me the tools -- including function keys -- to run mine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Wasted Space"

OP's got a point, theugh: I've noticed that on recent laptops, by default, those keys are not function keys, but hardware control (brightness, volume, touchpad...).

You can use the <Fn> key to acces F1-F12, or switch the settings so it's the hardware controls that are accessed via <Fn> (which I do), but it does seem the manufacturers assume that users aren't interested in F1-F12 anymore.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: "Wasted Space"

You are right; I hate such systems with a passion, and I refuse to purchase them. Modern Chromebooks are like that, too. Seriously, how many times in a day do people really need the "airplane mode" button?

Have an upvote.

[doublelayer]

Re: "Wasted Space"

In my experience, I think the question should be "how many times in a lifetime do people really need the "airplane mode" button?". A work laptop of mine had one attached to one of the function keys, but this laptop didn't have a cellular modem in it. So that button would turn off... the WiFi and Bluetooth, both of which are perfectly fine to use on an airplane. The OS should still have an airplane mode control since it's a convenient way to disable the wireless systems, but there's absolutely no reason why they would need a key for it.

[Roland6]

Re: "Wasted Space"

“Airplane mode”

On a phone, having the menu button in the settings is useful mainly because the phone is on and in the pocket when boarding.

The laptop however, is a different matter being safely stowed in the bag until needed, typically once the plane is in the air. So that keyboard key or windows menu item, only become active once the laptop has started up in its pre shutdown/standby mode, which had all radios active…

[imanidiot]

Re: "Wasted Space"

Unfortunately it seems nowadays more and more programs are moving away from keyboard/key-combo shortcuts and into annoying things like context sensitive radial menus. Which is extremely annoying as some things SHOULD just be a keyboard shortcut. (like tool selection in CAD programs. Selecting the line tool in Solidworks used to be just hitting the L key, circle the C, rectangles the R, now I need to use the mouse or have an expensive CAD-mouse with shortcut keys I can bind to the function. No more keyboard keys. Supposedly the radial menu they implemented is faster... Not for me it isn't. Not that I use it often enough to be considered anywhere near a poweruser nowadays but I used to be about twice as fast as my fellow students in drawing stuff for the drafting classes, because I bothered learning the program, unlike most students (and most instructors unfortunately).

[Lord Elpuss]

Surprisingly unbiased article. Only this statement needs context:

"Apple's entry level MacBook Pro had been replaced by a stripped down 14-inch model with an M3, 8GB of memory, 256GB of storage, two USB-4 ports, a single cooling fan, and a higher starting price of $1,599."

$1,599 for the 14" is more than the outgoing 13" model, but the 14" model has actually dropped in price; from $1,899 to $1,599. So while technically true that the entry-level model is now more expensive, you get a substantially different device for your money.

[sammystag]

You'd have to mad to pay that kind of money for an 8GB machine which presumably cannot have more RAM added in what is almost 2024. I have a 16 GB Mac from work and it still ends up swapping.

[Lord Elpuss]

It's not about the amount. It's what you can do with it. It doesn't work like normal memory; it's built onto the processor die so in performance terms it actually sits somewhere between RAM and L2 cache. And it's crazy fast; real world throughput 150GB/s in the M3, up to 400GB/s in the M3 Max. By comparison the absolute fastest DDR5 modules available today offer a theoretical 50-70GB/s per module, and you'd need a VERY well designed architecture around it to take advantage.

Just out of interest, there could be any number of reasons why your 16GB Mac is swapping, but how do you know that's what it's doing? Anything M-based (M1, M2, M3) has a Unified Memory architecture where it's effectively indistinguishable from cache as far as the OS is concerned, and I'm not aware of any apps that let you see what's in memory.

[An_Old_Dog]

Swapping Detection

$ vmstat [Enter]

[Tim99]

Re: Swapping Detection

With macOS it’s $ vm_stat [Enter]

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Swapping Detection

Thanks for the vm_stat tip - that's a very detailed view of memory status. Right now my system with everything fired up shows 0 swaps in and 0 out which I assume means I have enough memory, but will need to dive into it more to really understand what it's saying.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Swapping Detection

I did not know that. Why would someone make an arbitrary change in the name of a pre-existing command, rendering peoples' potentially-previously-gained knowledge useless? Oh, right. Because Apple_Dicks.

$ ^D

$ exit [Enter]

-bash: exit: command not found

$ logoff [Enter]

-bash: logoff: command not found

$ bye [Enter]

-bash: bye: command not found

$ goodbye [Enter]

-bash: goodbye: command not found

$ logout [Enter]

-bash: logout: command not found

$ log_out [Enter]

-bash: log_out: command not found

$ log_off [Enter]

-bash: log_off: command not found

$ LoG_OfF [Enter]

mymac login:

[Tim99]

Re: Swapping Detection

My memory is probably going, but I think the vm_stat version goes back before Apple - Possibly to BSD (4.2?) via the Mach kernel in the early 1980s then via NeXT. Mac OS X has its origins in Next, Mach and Darwin and came out in 2001. The original vmstat probably goes back further to AT&T.

It would seem that Apple were not directly responsible for this at the macOS man page for vm_stat is dated August 13 1997…

[Nitromoors]

Re: Swapping Detection

Well is would have to be. Far too hard to stick with the tribe and 40 years of vmstat.

[doublelayer]

"I'm not aware of any apps that let you see what's in memory."

Are you unfamiliar with Activity Monitor? You always have CLI-based options, but Mac OS includes a program to present it graphically so you can watch it in real time if you want. It shows you various utilization statistics, including how much swap space is in use.

[Roland6]

>” You'd have to mad to pay that kind of money for an 8GB machine which presumably cannot have more RAM added in what is almost 2024.”

Trouble is in 2023, if it’s got DDR5 RAM expect it to be soldered and not expandable. There are a surprising number of business grade systems being sold with only 8GB of (soldered) RAM and the vendors don’t draw attention to the lack of upgradability… Given the trend, I expect in 2024 to see an increasing number of business grade systems with soldered in HDD…

[Lord Elpuss]

It's not DDR5, and it's not soldered - in fact it's not a RAM 'chip' at all in the conventional sense. It's part of the SoC, and on the same silicon die as the processor - connected directly to the CPU and GPU. In terms of speed, it has a transfer rate of up to 400GB/s*, as opposed to 50-70GB/s on the very fastest DDR5 available today.

*M3 Max. "Normal" M3 is 150GB/s.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/06/28/why-apple-uses-integrated-memory-in-apple-silicon----and-why-its-both-good-and-bad

[katrinab]

M3 Max appears to be 4 NUMA nodes with 100GB/s per node. And the binned version comes with 3 NUMA nodes instead of 4.

[Roland6]

Sorry, me not being clear, I was referring to x86 PCs, and specifically laptops, where RAM is currently soldered to the motherboard.

I knew the Macs weren’t user expandable, had assumed they had motherboard soldered RAM; hadn’t appreciated it was a SOC feature.

[doublelayer]

"but the 14" model has actually dropped in price; from $1,899 to $1,599. So while technically true that the entry-level model is now more expensive, you get a substantially different device for your money."

And, along with dropping the price, it has also dropped the storage from 512 GB to 256 GB, the RAM from 16 to 8 GB, and some of the ports. So you're really not getting a better device; you're getting a completely different laptop whose screen is the same size. If you add the RAM and storage back to where you would have, I'm sure the price goes back up to where it was before. Hence, the cheaper model is gone and the least expensive one is more than it used to be for roughly the same spec and less than the one you're trying to compare it to.

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've seen the 13" sold really well. So much so that a 14" M3 would have been still-born without its removal. This is Apple raising revenue as they always do. You can argue for most a 13" Air will do, although it does thermal throttle under load and more-so in hot climates, but when I last looked it had comparatively shite torsional rigidity which doesn't bode well for use in a secondary student's bag who has to BYOD whereas the Pro had that covered. It did so for a minimal price difference - cheaper where I am - and the kids love the touch bar and use it regularly. Like f*ck would I pay the extra for a 14" when the performance would still be comparable once the Air is M3'd but the price difference unjustifiable. Fortunately those purchases have already been made.

[Brian Scott]

About time

A failing touch bar on my previous mac was the final reason it had to go. The thing strobed at me and caused the machine to randomly reboot.

Quoted price to have it fixed was about $1k because it involved a new case. Scratches on the case meant that it was my fault apparently?

One of my most used keys after the letters, numbers, return and space would have to be the escape key. To have an escape key that was only there when the lights were on was a absolute cockup. You sometimes needed to hit that spot twice (once to wake it up) unless you were unlucky. I think they moved to a physical escape key later on.

The other major problem (as others have mentioned) is that the last thing you want as a touch typist is having to watch the keyboard to see where the keys you want are located in this particular application.

All that now remains is to make sure that whoever approved the thing going into production never works in IT again.

[david1024]

Overlays?

Showing my age, but overlays went out of favor for very similar reasons. Folks don't like having to study their keyboard layout as they use an application. we can only track so many screens at once.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Overlays?

The overlays are so you can <u>learn</u> which function keys / function-key-combos do what. If you use, say WordPerfect only once a week, you're probably not going to develop muscle-memory for knowing Control-Alt-F7 reformats the current paragraph* (or whatever). If you use it every day, as I did for a while, you will memorize the functions you actually use (open, close, save, save-to-new-name, reveal codes, print, etc.), and refer to the template for the functions you rarely use.

I once owned a green-screen terminal which had a little strip above the function keys with flip-charts showing the function keys of four or five popular (in the 1980s) programs.

*I don't recall what Control-Alt-F7 does in WordPerfect. I was making up an example.

[John Robson]

My touch bar is almost entirely unused

Primarily because the laptop sits on a pole mounted shelf (an old CRT TV wall mount) and I use an external keyboard/trackpad/mouse (yes, all three).

The only thing I use it for is the touch ID - and if that could be on the external keyboard that would suit me just fine (no I'm not buying a newer magic keyboard, my current keyboard works just fine)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: My touch bar is almost entirely unused

Should have probably bought a Mac Mini and a UPS if that's your use model.

[John Robson]

Re: My touch bar is almost entirely unused

It's a work issued machine, and it does sometimes get used as a laptop... but travel has been rather curtailed recently (and even before that I stopped commuting for other reasons)

[MachDiamond]

Ports, baby, ports!

The touch bar was something I could never get my head around. I get the idea that there just isn't room for more key so "soft" keys might be the answer, but I really hate controls that perform different functions based on things I don't have much control over. I have loads of actions in Photoshop and need to press the Fn button, but that's muscle memory now. If it were programmable touch bar options, I'd lose the other functionality. I keep telling myself I'm going to build a hardware button panel for Photoshop and Lightroom so I can put finger mangling key presses on a single button. Someday, I suppose, I should write a little reminder.

I like having lots of ports on my laptop (2012 MBP). If they weren't on the computer, I'd need a breakout box and have to remember to carry it around with me when I go places. I'd likely want two so one lives in my laptop case. The one thing about laptops is they are portable and encounter all sorts of things along the jungle path that flexibility is a good thing. My cheese grater wouldn't be as hampered since I'd get a breakout box and fasten it to the underside of my desk and it would live there for the year it takes for that sort of thing to fail and then I'd get another one. It would make it easier to pull the computer out more often and give it a good blow to evict all of the dust bunnies.

[Solviva]

Re: Ports, baby, ports!

Thankfully the M1 MBP series re-introduced all the ports that Apple locked away in the safe since I think 2016 or 2017, and ditched the touchbar. They also, oddly, fattened them up too, such that physically it's almost identical to the 2012 - even the ports, with the exception of no thunderbolt & USB-A, instead just 3 USB-C. It really was a happy accident my 2019 MBP didn't take kindly to imbibing honey sweetened coffee in November 2021... The only downside was the lead time for the M1 ended up being over 4 months, so it was back to the 2012 with the decaying screen coating (that being the 4th replacement screen for that issue).

[Joe Gurman]

“Dream of a touchscreen Mac”

Nightmare, more like.

If you want to get your grubby fingers on an Apple device screen, buy an iPhone or an iPad.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

I still have..

.. a touchbar MBP upstairs.

The keyboard is utterly knackered as the result of a cat/orange juice/keyboard incident. It was time to upgrade anyway so I got a nice Apple Silicon MBP. Some of the keys on the old MBP were failing anyway and, because I'd missed the warranty repair period, Western Computers quoted me £700 to fix it. Which is way more than the MBP is worth.

And the same cat promptly knocked over my glass of red wine - which went all over the keyboard of my nice new Mac.

Fortunately, it was a light dry red and, after carefully cleaning the keyboard (power Mac down, hold it upside-down, dab with damp cloth until no more red appears then leave in the airing cupboard overnight). Some of the keys made a small crunching noise for a while but everything still works.

[neilo]

Kinda nice... until it failed

I had one on my 2018 MBP. It was ok; as the author said, it was a nice idea but the software let it down.

My biggest problem with it was how it failed near the power button / Touch ID sensor: maybe an eights of the display just dead. The touch part still worked; I just couldn't see anything - and this was where the volume control was located. Took it to Apple, and they said maybe a grand to fix it, as the whole top plat of the machine needed to be replaced (how I cursed Jon Ivey and his "screw the customer, glue everything down" attitude). My wife and I couldn't justify spending the much money on a computer we both agree would be replaced within 18 months (the M1s were on the horizon), so I left it.

[spireite]

Worst Mac ever?

I'd always admired Apple for their computer kit, but this was the pits...

This was classic functionality for a solution that nobody needed.

The butterfly debacle highlighted the fact there was insufficient testing and the entire thing was rushed out of the door for the lemmings.