While I think it's a fantastic machine that suits my needs (mostly running Parallels Desktop for work where I use a variety of Windows applications). I have a couple of observations to share after using it extensively for 2 months.
Touch Bar
The Touch Bar looks nice, and since most mobile devices have fully transitioned to touch interfaces, it makes sense for Apple to experiment with a touch experience on their flagship laptop. The Touch Bar is essentially a 2nd screen, albeit a small one. You can even take screen shots of it by pressing command-shift-6. Its appearance and functions can change depending on the app you are using, and here's what it looks like from the Finder:
The first thing I noticed is that instead of the volume-up and volume-down keys, there is a single volume icon which, when pressed, reveals the volume-up and volume-down icons. So to adjust the volume, I had to press more icons. Touching the volume icon also reveals a volume slider which I suppose is nifty, but after 2 months I still haven't gotten used to the slider and still resort to using the volume-up and volume-down icons. Also, when switching apps or after idling, the volume-up and volume-down icons disappear, and you have to do the 2-touch thing all over again next time you want to change the system volume. I did learn that there is a way to force the volume-up and volume-down icons to always display. It is done through the Keyboard system preferences:
Under the "Touch Bar shows" setting, simply change "App Controls with Control Strip" (default) to "Expanded Control Strip" to force the volume-up and volume-down icons to persist. The disadvantage of doing this is that you will no longer see application-specific controls, but I rarely use them anyway so that's the setting I prefer. So here's what my Touch Bar looks like all the time:
Another slight disadvantage of the Touch Bar is that I sometimes press the wrong icon. I like having tactile buttons and have not fully adjusted to the touch interface above the keyboard. To be honest, I would rather go back to the old MacBook Pro keyboard with physical buttons for volume, brightness, etc.
Trackpad
My first impression of the Force Touch trackpad is that it is large--very large. In fact, Apple says that it is 2x as large as its predecessor.
That sounds great, and in fact my actual trackpad is slightly larger than the one pictured by Apple above--the width of the trackpad extends from the left border of the command key to the right border of the option key.
In any case, this is an example of how it is possible to have too much of a good thing because sometimes when I am typing, my wrist accidentally depresses the trackpad. Because of its Force Touch technology, light pressure will register as a click. This results in me highlighting and inadvertently typing over a block of text which results in me having to undo the typing or to fix the accidental changes. Since I use a mouse both when I am at home and when I travel, I really do not benefit from a larger trackpad and wish the trackpad was smaller like its predecessor.
Conclusions
I still love my MacBook Pro and would not trade it for another machine, but I do think that there are some limitations of the Touch Bar and trackpad that hopefully Apple will address in subsequent generations of the MacBook Pro.
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