Unfortunately, it looks a bit like they're going with the ultra-low key travel keyboards on these new models. Very disappointed to see this. I don't understand why Apple thinks its users want this.
Of all of them, my favorite (and my business partner's as well) is the last generation of 15" non-Retina Macbook Pro. That keyboard is a rocket ship.
If I were a hardware guy I'd put that keyboard in its own case and use it forever :)
But the built-in keyboard you can't switch. And there's situations where you can't be bothered with bringing your external KB around. So it's still important how the built in feels.
Similarly, I will likely buy the new MacBook Pro despite some elements being unnecessary or suboptimal. The laptop is important enough to me that if the keyboard were actually bad enough to outweigh the other benefits I might be incentivized to go to eBay to buy a used one. But realistically, I'll probably survive just fine with the new keyboard. It just makes the experience less "magical" than it could be. And I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat.
There's more than one store.
I mean, this is an Apple thread...
Or use an external keyboard (for your laptop, not your clothes).
I worry that Apple are now pursuing thinness for thinness' sake, past the point where it makes ergonomic sense. The machine was gorgeous, but felt like a child's laptop. It's the first Apple computer I've ever returned.
You try http://www.pckeyboard.com/ ?
I currently use the CODE keyboard. It's ok.
Apple has been heading down the wrong path with their PCs for the past few years, with underperforming, overpriced, very buggy hardware and an increasingly annoying-to-use OS X, and this is the last straw for me.
I'll be the first to admit, the innovation in terms of using the latest and greatest hardware and software technologies has not been there for Apple. However, this has been the case for a long time since Apple does something genius. They let other companies test new markets, built first to market products, watch them struggle, refine, and evaluate the market. Then, when the timing is just perfect, and a frenzy has been created they release a new product. Their products are like the Mercedes-Benz of cars. Sure, they aren't as fast and high performance as Ferrari or Lamborghini, but they are quality built, reliable, familiar to owners, and pleasant to drive.
Okay, here's the biggest of them all: audio applications no longer work reliably on new Apple hardware. Anything using a Haswell (or later) CPU has this issue. Dropouts, stuttering audio, crashes for no reason in Ableton Live and other apps. It's a common complaint, and it's the reason I actually downgraded my Macbook Pro from a late-2013 Haswell to an early-2013 non-Haswell model. The dropouts ceased. I can now record 24 bit audio without issue. I tried all manner of audio interfaces, thinking it must be a driver or third-party hardware issue. But it wasn't.
Not only that, but the USB stack has deteriorated to the point where the keyboard and trackpad of my Haswell Retina MBP routinely stop working. The Wifi chip -- also connected via USB -- drops about 15-20% of all packets sent over it. Even the Thunderbolt port was flaky, oftentimes I'd lose every externally-connected device as well as the trackpad and keyboard. Powering off was the only way to fix it.
It was even worse when I bought it, but a couple of firmware updates made it work just well enough that I didn't return it for a refund.
I don't know whether it's a problem with Apple's drivers, Intel's chipset, or some awful combination of the two. All I know is, I'm not the only one who's had these issues. The Ableton forums are rife with people with these exact issues on any relatively new hardware. People swear up and down that their older Macs perform much better than their newer ones, even with things like AppNap (a pox upon it) disabled.
I want Apple to succeed and I want to keep using their hardware, because I vastly prefer(red) OS X to Windows, but they seem to be working against me here in a big way.
I gave it my best try, I really did. They've let me down recently. It's sad.
I hope they can recover eventually.
On the software side, I seem to encounter plenty of little frustrating bugs - like not being able to remove AirDrop from the finder sidebar. Or having my windows reposition themselves every time my machine sleeps while connected to an external display. I've filed many an unanswered bug report...
I also feel like Apple's HCI has regressed quite a lot. They tweak Mission Control / Desktops / Spaces every damn release, but there are never any preferences to make it work how you want it to. Around about Mavericks it was near perfect. 10.10 made it glacially slow. 10.11 sped it up, but removed desktop previews. 10.12 has messed with the mouse gesture slowing the animation down, and rubberbanding on repeat gesture instead of closing. Wat.
Then there's stuff like the replacement of iPhoto with Photos.... yikes.
When you pair all the above with the ridiculously anti-consumer attitude Apple have toward their hardware now (it's 2016 and they are still using proprietary SSD blades, and glueing batteries?), it really pisses me off.
Personally, I much prefer the butterfly keys. The key strokes feel very crisp and clean. Switching back to my Macbook Pro the keys feel wobbly and isn't as enjoyable.
I use RK9000s exclusively on my desktops, and I can type all day on my MBP without pain. But I do notice that on the MBP I type differently, because key travel and activation force are so much less than the MX Blue switches I'm used to. If I used that kind of force on an MBP keyboard, with nothing really to backstop it, I'd expect to get sore pretty fast, just as I would if I used the same kind of force on MX Blues that I'd need to activate the switches on one of my old Model M finger-breakers.
Typing comfortably on an MBP I think needs a somewhat different approach. It feels less like typing than like drumming my fingers on a table, which never quite all the way stops being weird. But it works, and as I said, I can do it all day without getting sore. Perhaps you can, too!
If radio interference actually was a threat, there is no way they would let every passenger take a phone on the plane.
(Sorry, replied to the wrong comment and apparently can't delete now?)
Edit: Parent replied to wrong comment it seems.