It all makes sense from just the financial point of view. So that means it isn't going away any time soon, unless there's a huge backlash from consumers.
Perhaps the best thing we can hope for is 1 car manufacturer deciding: "Buttons first, touch screen(s) second."
Let consumers decide with their wallets. Though, I wouldn't be surprised that many consumers go for an inferior product just because it looks cool. Because that, unfortunately, is how humans work.
Touch screens are just their 60+ year old fossils deciding "that's hip, that's what kids want!" and probably their testing audiences responding more positively to images of flashy touch screens and shiny lights.
Driving a car with touch screens (new BMW or Mercedes) has left me very unimpressed. My 2016 VW Golf has actual buttons, switches, and knobs to twist and turn and press and flip.
Car reviewers, too, often say it's a shame that car manufacturers are switching to touch screen nonsense. It's such a shameful trend if you think about it. The BMW series of pre-2022 had buttons in the dashboard, but the upcoming new series will do away with those entirely.
Touch screens even find their way onto steering wheels and doors.
Of course, it's easy to understand why:
1. It's cheaper to produce;
2. It looks more expensive, so the price goes up;
3. Testing audiences respond positively to shiny lights;
4. Fossils decided that this is what the young people want.
Honestly, I hope European legislation makes it illegal at some point. For the sake of safety. With touch screens, even the most simple task requires you to take your eyes off the road in front of you; with regular buttons you could do many task just with touch.
What was even more surprising, to me, is that Mercedes had this amazing nice center console unit to control things with your arm in a rested position. They removed that piece of brilliance!
So, now you need to do everything with an outstretched arm in a moving vehicle to operate tiny buttons on a flat touch screen.
Oh, and the touch screen can only barely hit 60 frames per second and often feels much slower. They're even saving costs on GPU power in their fancy luxury cars.
"I really love your strategic approach, and I think we should seamlessly impact our intrepid cloud-ready technology with another meeting to go more in depth. I would like you, or John Smith from Marketing, to restore backward-compatible partnerships between our team leads. That way we can continually seize efficient human capital. That will really synergise with our stakeholders. What do you think?"
And you can respond to whatever they say with a thinking nod while stroking your chin. And street-kids would say "bet", you simply say "hmhm, very agile."
I've been doing TypeScript for 4+ years and been a web developer for 20+ years. And I experience literally zero benefit from TypeScript. Never has it given me anything useful. To me, it's a massive pain in the ass that slows down myself and my team, even if they think it doesn't. They just don't know JavaScript or have shitty quality of code to begin with.
That, and TypeScript generics can get so freaking complex that the code does NOT become simple to read at alllllll. It's a massive waste of time.
I keep getting downvoted on Reddit for stating that I personally hate TypeScript to the max. It ruined the beauty of JavaScript (once you know it, anyway, I understand there are difficulties for JS-novices) and I honest to goodness 100% do not EVER find myself thinking: "Gosh, thanks TypeScript!" - on the contrary, it's always: "For fuck's sake you stupid POS TypeScript, you're wasting my time for no benefit at all."
Strong-typed languages (especially in the damn browser) make no sense to me. It's not like we need to manage memory or anything.
20+ Years of experience here, and I hate TS with the passion of a thousand suns.
What an annoying presentation. They try to make 5G look like it's invented by Apple by labeling it "innovation". No, Tim Apple, it's Qualcomm who made that chip. You just had your hardware team build it inside the phone.
The screen, same deal. A fancy name for technology that's been around for a while. Nobody will really see the difference between the screen on an iPhone X and iPhone 12, but hey, it's a sales-talk.
Speaking of 5G, they're trying to sell us onto the idea that we need it. We are still dealing with relatively low bandwidth caps from our providers, and nobody in their right mind is going to use 4GB/s to do... anything. Do they expect us to willy-nilly download games of 4GB on the go or something?
5G is technology for the providers and their benefactors, not for us the comsumers.
On to the CPU. It's faster. Great. It was already industry-leading fast. I respect processing power as something amazing and I'll respect this improvement for what it is. Great job. Not too impressed because I wouldn't use it myself, but it's nice.
Then Touch ID, wow I'm so happy they reintroduced it last-minute during this pandemic where we all wear masks when out and about. What's that? They didn't include Touch ID? You mean their superior technology that is pretty damn amazing and convenient to serve NEXT TO Face ID isn't there even though they could have?
Yikes.
Well, at least the announced 120Hz for the Pro Max and 90Hz for the smaller Pro model was nice. Hm? They didn't do that either? Oh. They're still stuck on 60Hz while the competition is delivering phones for half the money doing all of the above since about a year ago?
Yikes.
MagSafe, though. Now that is quite nice! Not even kidding. They invented magnets at Apple, like, whoa I'm going to assume that the magnetic connection will allow you to charge the phone and ALSO transfer data! Wild assumption, huh?
The case with a spare pocket for the Apple Pencil was a nice touch, though, especially now the iPhone 12 supports it. That's also a lie. I'm lying. They did not do that.
At the very least they're good for nature and such. No more charger and earphones! As a result the price has gone down a whopping $300 across the field, with a respectful nod to the people who are struggling in these dire times.
I have the first generation TouchBar MacBook Pro. And I've gotten the bottom part replaced twice: once because I spilled coffee on my desk and my MacBook decided to drink it, and the second time because they didn't attach the bottom plate properly (they forgot 2 screws and 1 other just fell out).
The keyboard they replaced it with is significantly better. It feels softer to the touch, and it's quieter. The keys don't get stuck anymore and it generally feels like a proper nice keyboard.
That said. I rarely use the laptop in an opened-up state anyway. I tend to connect it to a screen + keyboard + mouse and enjoy the computer without that idiotic TouchBar.
Last I checked you can send your MBP back to Apple and they'll replace the faulty keyboard. I did it during a vacation, it only took them 1 week to send the fixed system back.