
October Special Event Keynote [video] - 0x7fffffff
http://www.apple.com/apple-events/october-2016/
======
matt4077
Many seem to be angry about the OLED toolbar, but I'm getting unusually
exciting.

Just imagine the controls for your debugging environment on it. Or pressing a
modifier and the display actually showing you a different set of shortcuts.

I had actually been looking around at programmable keyboards with active
displays on every key. I want to switch to a keyboard-only workflow, but it is
actually incredibly hard if you use a few applications. There's no standard
for shortcuts, and not even a standard for defining custom shortcuts.

I'm hoping they're also launching a standalone keyboard in that style.

I could also imagine there will be transparent "screen protectors" that you
could apply with raised bumps so as to give tactile feedback. At that point, I
see no reason for vim users to complain (saying that as a vim user). Not that
it will be too hard to find the left edge of the bar.

~~~
skeptic2718
I have my eyes focused on the screen, now I have to look down, understand
what's on the touch bar, then look back up. It sucks.

~~~
lojack
I noticed the presenter doing this a few times. It definitely doesn't seem
like a power-user thing to me. That said, I'll be holding off on a strong
opinion on this until I get to use it. I could see it being either a usability
nightmare or something super useful.

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dmreedy
I find the OLED toolbar pretty interesting, and apparently well-implemented,
but I am a little wary of how readily it recommends itself to a keyboard-based
workflow. Most keyboards are designed such that I don't ever need to look away
from my monitor. I just sort of think and my muscle memory does the work on
the keyboard. Helpful affordances like physically distinguishable keys with
different shapes, bumps on the homerow, and predictable, unchanging layout
means that I can keep my eyes on the screen.

There are certain functionalities that might justify the cost of looking down
(not to sound too melodramatic). But one of the examples that keeps cropping
up is autocomplete. Which seems like a rather unnatural thing to put anywhere
but the text it's completing. Wondering what else the expect to show up on
this thing, in a location I currently don't really ever look at if I don't
have to.

~~~
Jtsummers
I suspect that looking at it won't take too much attention. It's at the top of
the keyboard, it's just a slight glance down, and after some time with a
particular app, you'll develop a good muscle memory for whatever features it
offers that you want.

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guessmyname
They should have left at least two mechanical buttons in the OLED bar, one to
the left and one to the right side for the ESC and Power button respectively,
then put that bar in the middle between them. How will I know that the touch
event in the virtual ESC key is being recognized? I suppose they considered
the scenario when the computer freezes for whatever reason.

BTW, what is up with the empty space between the left-border of the OLED bar
and the virtual ESC key? The space on the right side seems to be for the Touch
ID sensor, but the one on the left side makes no sense. And that Trackpad, it
seems so big, they will eventually make it full-wide and then include a
tactile pencil so you can convert it into a drawing tablet.

It seems cool though, it's unfortunate that I cannot buy it _(even when I have
more than enough money to maximize its specifications)_ , maybe in 2-3 years
when the local shops refresh their stock I will be able to get my hands in
that machine. I just hope that the RAM and CPU is powerful enough _(aka.
future proven)_ to justify the price in 2-3 years.

EDIT: BTW, how do I power-on and force-shutdown this computer?

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soccerdave
This is beyond laughable. I am genuinely so sad that they finally ruined the
MBP. Watching him tap the auto-suggested words on the 'Touch Bar' is so sad. I
have a 3 year old MBP and I was looking forward to upgrading it, but not
anymore.

~~~
trcollinson
It is beyond laughable? What exactly makes it laughable? Are you saying no
consumer would want a customizable and context aware strip of buttons? Sure
auto-suggested words might be useless for many of us who type exceptionally
fast. But how about safari (or Chrome, or Firefox) navigation aware buttons?
What about text formatting options? You can't think of any use for a context
aware multi-touch haptic strip on the top of your keyboard?

I have spent the better part of the last number of years trying to keep my
hands ON the keyboard and AWAY from the mouse. This will allow me to do that
in interesting new ways. I actually hope they make a full size external
keyboard with the same functionality.

~~~
soccerdave
Did you watch him typing an email and clicking the 'auto-suggested' words that
were showing up?

I do concede that there are some good uses for it though.

When your hands are on the keyboard are you looking down at them to see where
you are typing? Now you are going to take your eyes off the screen and see if
the touch bar has something useful for you. I would imagine you are going to
keep using the same keyboard shortcuts that you have used for years.

[edited]

~~~
trcollinson
I sure did see him doing that. It's exactly the same auto-suggested
functionality when typing an email on an iPad or a iPhone with the software
keyboard or an iPad Pro with the smart keyboard. It's actually exactly the
same functionality. I get it, it's on a laptop keyboard. He could have just
typed that stuff. And the wording was funny. But it's a learning auto-suggest.
With the iPad Pro I have found it strange how good it is at auto-suggesting
what I often say in a conversation.

~~~
soccerdave
It makes sense to use on an iphone where typing is difficult, it doesn't make
sense to touch any of those when i can type faster than reading those
suggestions. That's obviously just my opinion.

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TeMPOraL
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of vim users suddenly
cried out in terror...

~~~
ihuman
But there's still an escape button, its just digital now. If you don't like
that, you could just remap the caps lock to be escape.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Fortunately I'm an Emacs user :). But were I a vim power user, I'd definitely
had it remapped already.

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guessmyname
> Your browser doesn’t support live streaming of the event.

Can someone share the URL so I can stream via VLC or similar, please?

EDIT: Thank you @alva

~~~
sblom
I saw that, too. Their support matrix is fascinating: Safari pretty much
anywhere or... Microsoft Edge. Any guesses why that is? Is this an HTML5
<video> DRM thing?

~~~
falcolas
Worth looking up the underlying tech:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming)

It's a standards draft, but not a standard, so it's more that Edge implemented
this particular draft feature, whereas Chrome/Firefox have not.

------
danielhooper
Am I the only one who finds it laughable that Apple thinks anybody wants to
purchase or rent movies and tv shows through iTunes? The service is awful and
the pricing even worse.

edit: tv shows, not tvs. lol

~~~
ikeboy
[http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/23/npd-apples-
itunes-...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/23/npd-apples-itunes-
accounts-for-67-of-tv-downloads-65-of-movies)

~~~
dkonofalski
No, you're wrong. It's laughable that Apple thinks people would want to
purchase things through iTunes. /s

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joaomoreno
Nowadays Apple events look like they were made by Microsoft and vice-versa.

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rthille
I hope you can require a password in addition to the fingerprint for
protection against physical compulsion by law enforcement.

~~~
elcapitan
In addition to FileVault's plausible deniability feature.

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markwaldron
If only they had the option to keep the function keys. My 2011 MBP has been
serving me well all these years. Going to be difficult to justify giving it
up.

~~~
ihuman
Out of curiosity, what do you use the function keys for that couldn't be there
as a more digital button that can better display the function?

Edit: Also, if you hold down the function key, the function buttons come back.

~~~
plorkyeran
Doing things without staring at my keyboard to figure out what buttons are
available at every moment.

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landhar
I don't think the demos are making a good job at making it look "easy" to
interact with the Touch Bar. It feels very cumbersome: eyes on screen, one
hand on track pad another hand on the touchbar, so eyes on touchbar too, and
from time to time one hand on the traditional keys (e.g.: for the demos with
Messages and Mail).

Perhaps it's just me, but I find it overwhelming.

~~~
cglace
I kept thinking this as well. Without tactile feedback its an awfully small
area to work with.

~~~
landhar
Yes, that's a very good point. I could see it being more useful if it where a
much larger area. So that not so many interactions require coordinating the
keyboard, the touch bar and the trackpad simultaneously.

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elcapitan
tldr: Now you can use a "TV" app with your appleTV to watch TV on your TV.
Users have confirmed it's 100% awesome. It will also bring the family-friendly
world of twitter into your living room.

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falcolas
Oh, wow. They didn't just remove the Escape key, they _moved the location_ of
the softkey. That is crazy to me.

~~~
jackfrodo
Yeah! It's just half an inch of blank space where it used to be. Bizarre.

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protomyth
Given how much time they are taking for iOS, I get the feeling that the
Macintoshes are going to get a serious short shift. I guess the one machine
rumor is starting to look true.

~~~
jaxn
This event determines whether or not I pre-order a Surface Book. It is Apple's
to lose, but it looks like that is what is going to happen.

~~~
protomyth
What was the determination for you?

~~~
jaxn
Surface Book.

------
m_fayer
I wouldn't be totally surprised if this was a hit with many consumers. But for
many devs including myself this is a nonstarter. I'm sure Apple knew this and
decided the loss was worth it.

What I don't get is why no one, not Apple, not MS, not Lenovo, not anyone,
makes "developer editions." These would only need a few tweaks, in this case
retain the physical function keys, for PCs remove junkware and go out of your
way to make Linux/dual booting easy, preconfigure the OS for "maximum manual
operation", etc.

It wouldn't be profitable and might even generate a small loss, but as Apple
seems to be forgetting, having the favor of a huge swath of developers pays
big dividends if you've got a platform to push.

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rkevingibson
So they managed to make the touchpad twice as large, but couldn't find room
for a row of keys?

~~~
matt4077
How many people actually touch-type F7? In fact, how many even use the
function keys for anything but the media controls? So in most situations it
will greatly increase discoverability for shortcuts. And the only key that was
easy to hit blindly, relied on being at the left edge for that – which doesn't
change.

~~~
skeptic2718
A lot of people? A lot of time?

~~~
throwanem
Not really, no. Even a lot of the devs I know don't make more than occasional
use of function keys, aside from maybe F5. Non-devs? Are you kidding?

~~~
skeptic2718
Everybody around me (non-devs) just answered they use F5 to reload websites
all the time. Are you kidding?

~~~
throwanem
No, I'm expecting there to be a "Reload" button on the touch bar when a
browser has focus.

------
WayneBro
I can't get over the incredibly smarmy vibe that Apple emits at all times. It
permeates their entire aura and the consistency amazes me.

Every presenter has the same kind of rhythm and timing. I wonder who coaches
them?

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animex
Waiting for: And we've done away with the headphone jack...

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grzm
I like the idea of the Touch Bar, and it does look like a great feature for
customization and additional information space.

A couple of thoughts:

* What advantages does the Touch Bar have over chording? One I can think of is less need for memorization.

* One advantage of physical keys is the physical keypress. I can imagine Apple adding taptic feedback in the future.

All and all, I think this is a good move forward.

* Is the the Touch Bar the new <marquee> /s

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spankalee
I know there's a lot of hate, but I think the Touch Bar is really exciting.
The keyboard + trackpad paradigm could use a little innovation and evolution
in light of many years of touch screens. I wish they had made the trackpad
itself a touch screen, but I suspect that's an inevitability now.

I just hope that web pages can customize the Touch Bar too.

~~~
falcolas
Imagine what they could have done with a touch screen instead... No need for
special APIs or interfaces, just expose a button and people can click on it
directly. Expose a slider and people can slide it! How innovative!

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davesque
Ironically, I feel like this touch bar just underscores the fact that the
screen is still just a big slab of dead, light-emitting glass. I am constantly
amazed at how long Apple has managed to avoid the logical step of including a
touch screen with its laptops. I'm sick of having separate devices for all my
different use-cases.

~~~
asenna
They'll need to optimize the OS for touch first. And the way they're upgrading
the Macbooks and MacOS, I don't think touch screen is anywhere on the horizon.

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chejazi
Watching now; they just unveiled a "TV" app to integrate a new apple-tv-like
experience across all devices.

~~~
matt4077
Didn't catch all of that, but it may be a move into the direction to slim down
iTunes by moving parts of it into separate apps.

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elcapitan
The copper pyramid for self-healing is almost as appealing as the touchbar.

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skeptic2718
Some many jokes against 'terminal emulators' that I wonder if they understand
we have these 'terminal emulators' opened all the time while working.

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forgettableuser
Did they just kill the Macbook Air?

They kept emphasizing how the 13" Macbook Pro is thinner, smaller, and lighter
than the Air. And at the end, they talk up the 12" Macbook.

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throwanem
Now that they've mentioned a 13" model with function keys, I look forward to
seeing people fuss about how its spec isn't up to their requirements.

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wtfishackernews
Are they really pretending nobody ever uses function keys?

~~~
sblom
They're not just pretending nobody ever uses function keys--they insinuated
that no one has had a use for them since 1971.

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soccerdave
I have a friend that has unusually sweaty hands and can never get the touch id
on the iphone to work. Will that person be able to turn the laptop on?

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forgettableuser
The spacebar is a big amount of wasted space. They should make this a Touch
Bar too so you can map multiple buttons to it.

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ohstopitu
since there are so many devs here...how do you feel about them removing the
function keys?

~~~
davesque
Don't really care. I'm a vim user, but I use Ctrl-C instead of escape to get
out of insert mode, etc.

What I find obnoxious is that the hardware is already a bit outdated. Also,
they act as though this touch bar is such a huge innovation when it really
isn't. It's minor. Give me a laptop I can use for coding and also has an Apple
Pencil compatible touch screen I can use for note taking. I'd call that
innovation. But Apple has decided, for all of us, that no one really wants
this.

I will say, however, that the 4 thunderbolt 3 ports seem pretty useful. I also
like how they're going with port-types that are standard instead of their
usual proprietary nonsense.

