Oh my word, shut up everyone about the ESC key. In interface design do you keep something around that 1% of your user base uses, or do you make something better? It's not even gone. It's on the touch bar for fricks sake.

And while we're talking about it, stop calling Apple so innovative. Innovation at Apple died with Steve Jobs. "We developed this awesome new iPad Pro!" it's just a bigger iPad with the same stupid limitations of all iPads. If you want a real portable work tablet, go buy a Surface. "We added a touch bar to the MacBook Pro!" some manufacturers of Windows laptops have had that thing for years!

😰

Finally someone who doesn't think with his ass. ++

It reminds me of the time when some manufactureres decided that f-keys (f1-f12) were relicts of the past and replaced them with multimedia keys. Sure, you could still reach them with Fn modifier but it was really uncomfortable for users who used more than one keyboard model.

The thing is, no one knows how will this touch panel work. Will you be able to pin the esc key to a single spot or will it move around? Will is send normal esc keycode or will it send some weird action codes recognizable only by its driver? Many questions and possibly less comfortable experience for some (eg. for touchtypists).

...and the lack of tacile feedback will make frenzied esc hitting less effective as a stress relief ;)

@tnnn you can still slap the keyboard or kick the machine box, though.

No, @davejlong, I won't shut up! ;-) i use ESC frequently, most often when I work on Linux nodes, but I also uses it on Windows. And I want it at the top left, and I want to FEEL it when i hit it, since I don't look when I type.

Overall, the lack of tactile feedback, as @tnnn mentions, is really starting to freak me out. Touch screens are now on everything: phones, car dashboard, coffee machines, etc.,and now they are coming on computer keyboards, Arrgh! I'm about to start a counter revolution: I want my physical buttons back!

@stormwise no one is forcing you to buy the new MBP. You can have whatever computer your budget allows, so why spend time and energy whining about this? I don't understand, you have a choice and apparently you don't like this computer. Then don't buy it!

@simeg As I mentioned in another thread, Apple ideas – good and bad – have a tendency to spread to other manufacturers. Sooner or later, there are little or no choice.