Apple's new MacBooks are misguided

I am deeply disappointed with Apple's new MacBooks. I have heard no viable explanation as to why Apple made new MacBooks after 3 years that provide no real improvement over most three-year old models. Oh yeah, they are thinner and they have a touch-bar. No, people aren't clamoring to use their laptops as letter openers. With the touch-bar, Apple continues its assault on crippling input devices. As if all the damage done to mice and keyboards and trackpad was not already enough.

The touch-bar scares me. It takes a key reliable hardware function (the Escape key) and makes it into a far more vulnerable software function. It makes something that Apple is (still) pretty good at - Hardware,  and turns it into something Apple sucks at - Software.  

Guess Apple fundamentally wants to remake the Mac in the image of the iPhone. While the roots of that desire are pretty obvious, the future is dubious at best and disastrous at worst.