MacBook – How to customize the Touch Bar interfaces for the tremor

macbook protouch-bartrackpad

I have an essential tremor. This means that the slightest unintentional graze on the Touch Bar or touchpad on my MacBook Pro can have extremely undesirable consequences.

So how can I change the sensitivity on those input devices and yet retain the key functionality of those devices? The key functions provided by the Touch Bar are the escape key (accidental grazes are easy and can have extreme consequences), and changing the sound volume or screen brightness. All other features of the Touch Bar are accessible by other means.

The touchpad also has key functionality, but not quite as critical as the escape key. But once again, slight grazes can result in highly undesirable effects.

How can I change the sensitivity on the Touch Bar and the touchpad and still retain the essential functionality provided by those input devices?

Best Answer

Quoting from your comment to @IconDaemon's answer:

This answer suggests adding a usable keyboard and a usable touchpad. Oh, my aching back! I want those capabilities built-in to my luggable-around laptop, in the form of a usable UX

You can consider getting a recently introduced (released November 13) 16" MacBook Pro (or at least give it a try in one of the nearest Apple stores). Your issue primarily appears to be with the following things:

  1. Difficulty using the keyboard.

  2. Touch Bar sensitivity.

  3. Unintentional taps on Esc key and difficulty using it.

While #1 can be subjective, the 2016 - Mid 2019 Mac portable lineup with Butterfly key mechanism has been widely regarded as being not as intuitive as the previous 2015 and older, Scissor mechanism based keyboards.

Recently introduced Late 2019 16" MacBook Pro apparently fixes all the above issues (especially with regard to keyboard and the Esc key)to a great extent. They are discussed below respectively:

  1. The Scissor switch mechanism is back. The keys are marginally smaller in size and a tiny bit further spaced apart compared to one from Butterly era (2016 - Mid 2019). They have more key travel (approximately somewhere between older Scissor switches and the Butterfly switches), thereby giving better tactile feedback. The keys themselves are more stable and doesn't wobble as much as it did in the older Scissor switches (2015 and older). As an additional benefit, there's much lesser bleeding of backlight from the sides of the keys.

  2. Touch Bar is spaced further apart from the numeric keys row, thereby reducing the chance of accidental taps to a certain extant.

  3. Physical Esc key is back.

So if the keyboard is the major sore point with the MacBook, your can consider test driving a 16" 2019 MacBook Pro.

As far as the Trackpad is concerned, try tweaking the Trackpad settings under System Preferences and see if that resolves the issues to a certain extent. There are many 3rd party apps available that lets you further fine tune the Trackpad settings.

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