There are rumors that Apple is discontinuing the TouchBar this year, as well as adding an SD card slot, the MagSafe charger port, and an HDMI port to their upcoming ARM Macs, so unless you have a really good reason to get a MacBook Pro right now, like running x86-64 Docker containers or Windows,, I would recommend waiting.

Personally, when the time came to replace my late-2011 MacBook Pro, I went with an iMac because I couldn't stand the keyboards they had at the time and don't like the concept of the TouchBar. The keyboards have been improved since then, but the TouchBar is still there.

The MBP I have is old enough that it doesn’t have it. I have played with it on one of my wife’s computers. It seemed to work like a touch screen. Tap once to see what it does and twice to activate.

I guess I see it as a slight minus because, by it’s nature, it will slow you slightly. I don’t see it as a deal breaker though. Also, the MBPs coming out layer this year aren’t supposed to have it.

To sum it up, there are plenty of reasons why I won’t use the Mac as my primary computer, and I have tried, but the Touch Bar isn’t one of them. If I was doolbooting windows, it might be. Let price, size, and what machine is configured best for what you’re doing influence your decision.

I don't like the Touch Bar. I have an Air and prefer having physical buttons.

I hear that Apple may be getting rid of the touch bar on future Macs if you want to wait a little while. I just got an M1 MacBook Pro with touch bar just over a week ago. I'm already used to the touch bar as it is a lot like the touch screen interactions on an iPhone/iPad. When you place a finger on the touch bar Voiceover tells you what you are touching and how to interact with it. Got used to the volume and play and pause buttons like if you are on YouTube or listening to music. And the control strip where you can double tap on launch pad to see all your apps. Some people can't stand the touch bar for Mac, both sighted and low vision/non-sighted people. I'm totally blind except for light perception, I don't mind the touch bar, I think it's cool. Looking forward to finding out if I can do any customizing to it.

I mean, it’s usable...it does announce the ‘keys’ when you touch them...but def not a good experience. I’m still using an ancient MacBook Air, but it drives me nuts when I have to use my spouse’s MacBook Pro. I don’t think I’d buy something without physical keys for myself as a voiceover user.

It works similarly to the trackpad or IPhone, however I do agree as others have said its kind of bullshit.

It's definitely not a great experience as a VoiceOver user, so unless you need a computer right now, I'd wait until the next iteration of MacBook Pros comes out later this year. I have a 2020 model which thankfully shortened the touch bar and put a physical Escape key back in. I have mine set to display the Function keys only until the Fn key is pressed, then the control strip functions appear. The touch bar works just like an iPhone with VO on, swipe or move your finger around until you find what you want, then double-tap the strip to activate the selection.

If you hold down Vo+Fn and then hit one of the number keys under the touch bar, you'll activate the function that's directly above the number key in the touch bar. So hitting Fn+Control+Option+3 will press F3 if you have the function keys showing in the touch bar, or will activate whichever control is in the control strip above the 3 key if that's showing.