> It's YOUR fault if you easily forget about foreign objects in your ear

I don't use them. My friends do, and they don't lose them when they're in their ear. Also, guess what? I don't risk losing my headphones just because I fall asleep on long trips. It's not my fault, it's Apple's product being poor at fitting an extremely common usecase.

> Subjective. Source?

Go to an audio store and ask them for monitoring headphones. You can't explain audio quality to someone that has never experienced it, these things are a night/day difference.

> Can you tell me how YOU would design something without any wires that's not easy to miss?

I would use shorter, interchangeable wires for the right occasion rather than go wireless and have to charge my headphones, tolerate a worse audio quality than I'm accustomed to and risk easily losing them.

> Does not diminish its advantages.

Yes it does, same pros but with an extra con and on top of that, the touch bar is not a free addition to a screen and keyboard you already have.

>"No proper tactile feedback unlike a proper key" can be used to downplay the utility of all the phone and tablet touchscreens in the world, too.

Smartphones and tablets have a single screen, or at worst, they're contiguous on the same plane.

> A mouse does not provide visual feedback depending on what you're doing.

No, that's the screen's job. I don't have to look at my mouse to change volume, I just look at the screen. Or rather, I use my keyboard (caps lock+[s/d] in my case), since I don't see the benefit of more than 5% stepped increases.

> I'm looking straight at the screen right now on a 2016 MBP, and the Touch Bar is within my field of vision.

And my phone is technically in front of me beyond my monitor, but without focusing on its smaller screen with a different DPI I can't read it. Which is why I started using KDE Connect after all: to get notifications on my desktop.

> In any case, it's no worse than having to discover, learn and remember what each FN does in each app.

In how many apps do you exactly use its FN-options? And how is it any different from labeling them in the screen next to the button it means? You'd still not have to look at the keyboard. You can even do it for apps using the Touchbar API: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-get-a-touch-bar-on-your-o...

> Hyperbole.
If you carried 5 different devices with your laptop, you would need to carry at most one USB/USB-C adapter and maybe a multiport USB hub.

For 5 yes. For 4, no. The old laptop I mentioned has 4 USB ports, where I regularly plug an external kb and mouse, an USB stick and my phone for tethering or debugging an app on a real device.

> I have an iPhone, iPad, a Bluetooth Mouse, a Bluetooth keyboard (for games) and a WiFi harddisk. I haven't needed to plug them into my 2016 MBP yet, nor do I carry all of them in my backpack, but I do have one small USB/USB-C adapter for when I need it. File transfers of even several GBs work flawlessly with AirDrop.

Cool. I only need my laptop charger when I leave home.

> Which "all downsides?"

Again, cost and having to actually look down at the small thing to be able to use it.

> You still have a mouse, trackpad and keyboard. Why are you comparing it with them? The Touch Bar replaces FN keys, and it's better than them.

Last time I checked, the FN keys are on the keyboard.

> Say I have contacts named after companies/organizations, and I use tens of different custom labels for each phone number/email for the different people working at them. Which of these is faster/better?

Assuming you have more than 10 of them, the keyboard and input with autocompletion rather than the scroll list on a separate screen.

Or the same thing as the touch bar but on the screen. We've had this technology for a while: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/Norton_Comman...

> Subjective. "Gimmicks" can be used against any feature from any company. All of these things highly increase user convenience

When all you can offer is copies of barely useful things that have already been done, you can hardly call your company "amazing" or "futuristic". The rest of the quote speaks for itself.

> Your dismissals are a classic example of the tall poppy syndrome; Were Apple a smaller company, you probably wouldn't be putting so much effort in downplaying their accomplishments.

And your relentless shilling is a classic example of blind fanboyism (as redundant as it sounds) and choice-supportive bias. You're literally attaching a label to anyone criticizing a corporation you're trying to sell. Do I need to link my comments shitting on smaller companies too? Or when I praise Apple/{insert corporation here} when they do a good thing? Do yourself a favor and reflect on your thought process for a bit. Unless you're doing marketing work for Apple, in which case you should grab a PR book.