Comment by mjamesaustin
13 hours ago
The hate was because it replaced function keys many people use by tactile touch, without looking. Doing the same on a touch screen is very difficult.
If the bar had been added on top of those, I don't think there would've been the same kind of hate for it.
I didn't really mind the fn keys being there. I rarely use function keys unless I'm RDP'd to a Windows machine.
What drove me crazy though was the escape key. They later added the physical escape key back but I think at that point it was a bit too late.
I haven't used function keys since I used mainframe applications on a 3270 terminal.
I’ve always been a “remap capslock to escape” kind of guy (vim), so I didn’t mind much. Access to the brightness (screen and keyboard) and volume slider was neat but superfluous with the OG fn keys. Context-driven controls were probably the best thing about the touch bar, and I don’t think it got enough love to make that stick.
Adding to the list of grievances, the functionality and the options it presented differed from app to app. I understand that the function keys also change their function app to app, but the visual noise the Touch Bar (wow - the word even gets autocorrected to have the right capitalization!) added as you switched between apps was too distracting.
Ah yea, I've only owned one with the physical escape key. That would be annoying.
Even without tactile elements it was two keys to use function keys.
I would have been fine with the touchbar if it just default displayed function keys. Hitting fn+f5 to quicksave is annoying.
But wasn’t that just a setting changing it to default to fn? It was some time since I last used them…