Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards
theoutline.com
theoutline.com
My V key double-presses about half the time, and the rest of the keys are really hard to press down all the way. Some of the keys make a weird metal rattle when I press them.
Typing on that wretched keyboard for more than an hour or so literally bruises my fingers.
Since I do most of my day-to-day work at a dock with an external keyboard, I'm debating whether it's bad enough that I need to fight with IT and be the one special snowflake with a PC instead. But it's bad enough that I'm seriously considering it.
The more I write about this keyboard, the angrier I get. >:(
And also seriously, fuck the touchbar. Who the hell decided that programmers don't need a functional ESC key or permanent function keys? And who the hell decided that I should have to fumble around and mash my already-bruised finger against a tiny glass icon to change my volume level? Just so Skype can show buttons that mimic the buttons already on the screen?
The user experience of the touchbar is objectively worse and adds no value. Most apps don't even use it, and the ones that do don't use it for anything interesting. And before long I'm sure it'll be playing advertisements at me.
Though, having had the MBP now for nearly a year, it's not an issue anymore.
I also accidentally 'touch my pinky finger when typing my password (numbers) and it registers as touch even though I'm not applying downward force. In Chrome thank god I could remove the refresh button, would accidentally refresh login pages all the time.
But to answer your question: It's hidden because it doesn't have a graphic representation on the device itself. Nothing on the volume button indicates that it's somehow a hidden slider.
The whole point of a good UI is you shouldn't be reading a manual and watching videos to do X, Y and Z.
Apple used to be a pioneer at things like this.
Sad things have come down to this.
Apple had one person who was good at UX. And that guy is dead for years now. His product pipeline can't be milked further to make more money.
From here onwards its just your usual managers running the show.
Woooow, this is a revelation. Thank you!
At "Touch Bar shows".... change that from "App Controls with Control Strip" to "Expanded Control Strip". Then you will see the individual buttons. You can then further "Customize Control Strip..." and you will now see more buttons. But you will also loose "App Control".
Of course, why can't those specific buttons be a customization option there with "App Control with Control Strip" forcing you to choose between volume up/down and "App Control"? Because Apple.
For fuck's sake... Thanks for the "upgrade", Apple.
Hah, You couldn't make this stuff up... GUIs were borne out of a hatred of highly context based keyboard behaviour (VI, Xerox Parc), now Apple go full circle and revert to context hell by combining a keyboard with a touchscreen GUI. Goodbye Apple, it was nice knowing you.
This same UI is found on other touch screens including my Honda's dashboard.
I've been doing this for so long its natural to me even on a keyboard with an actual escape key.
And if you want permanent function keys then just go to the Keyboard control panel and enable it.
Plus side: less RSI-feelings in my left wrist. Down side: muscle memory makes you look incompetent on other machines.
I always hit it with 100% accuracy just like I did on my previous MacBook.
And I am not making excuses for Apple. I think they should've made Escape key in particular a physical key.
I'm not sure exactly when it happens, but I think it happens when you have some background context open on the touchbar (like some app's music controls). The X dismisses the bar you have open and then you get esc back. Often there's no esc at all and just the X.
These new Macbooks are the Wii U's of laptops.
This breaks the HN guidelines by being uncivil as well as uncharitable in the sense requested here: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."
Your comment would be fine without that first bit. Would you mind reading https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and following the guidelines when commenting here?
that unpolite remark underlines the issue pretty well: one one side there is a solution, on the other side there is a poor implemented idea
As an emacs user, I do the following on this box:
[CAPSLOCK] -> CTRL [LEFT CTRL] -> ESC (just like an old HP 9000 workstation keyboard lol)
The above works for me.
While the keyboard is bad on this $4000 laptop; I do love the performance, battery life, and the screen. I would never buy another one though. I suspect I will be on my 2nd key replacement any day now.
I'll go out of my way to buy an old mac before I spend money on these stupid new machines.
It's also why we have a notch on the iPhone X.
When Steve Jobs passed on, I read a blog post by someone saying (in response to a bad, pretentious ad from Apple targeting Samsung, the one which had a condescending tone belitttling Samsung users rather than showing what the iPhone has) that it would take years before Apple screwed up its product line, but only about a year or so until they screw their advertising. I guess they have started messing their product line.
Apple’s big problem is that they cater to everyone with a single offering. And since the keyboards are cut into the metal casing of the laptop, it would probably be expensive to offer an option here (though they probably should). So they make a decision, piss off some, make others happy. This is where PCs have an advantage, as you have more choice.
I'm still amazed that there are programmers that complain about this. As a programmer, I've avoided ESC and the function keys for years before the touchbar came out.
Apple has even had a built-in option in Mac OS to remap ESC to Caps Lock, for quite a while now. And considering how conservative Apple is when it comes to adding options, I think that says that I'm not alone.
The ESC/function key row is not suitable for ergonomic typing. It's simply to far away from home row. If that area is suitable for anything at all, it's for rare context-sensitive operations, so I think Apples idea was absolutely rational. Wether it's worth the cost is different discussion (for me, probably not).
The culture around keyboards is super weird if you ask me. You have whole subcultures around a near irrelevant thing like key-travel and mechanical switches (though I must admit there is a visceral satisfaction to clicking a really clicky keyswitch), yet people still stick to qwerty and typewriter-based physical layout. ErgoDox seems to be growing in popularity, so it might be changing.
The alternative is to map some key combination, but it's much easier to be able to hit one key instead of Ctrl-something.
You shouldn't be. Not sure about Mac. But all the big IDEs - MS Visual Studio, all the JetBrains products, Eclipse, Netbeans, etc use function keys in their default key bindings.
True, functionkey row is not suitable for ergonomic typing, BUT it is not used for ergonomic typing. It's used for... well special functions!
Maybe it is a small enough percentage of the population that it doesn't matter, but this is hacker news and we care a about a lot of strange and esoteric things here that only a small percentage of the population care about anyway. If Dell can make a 15" laptop with a full number pad Apple can find a way to have a less shitty keyboard with an escape key and maybe don't force the touch bar on everyone. It doesn't have to be a popular consumer option. You can hide it in an esoteric out of the way place for us esoteric out of the way users, but... it is ridiculous to ignore the hard core tech fan base and keyboard issues.
I've used PC keyboards for ~25 years now and I've never had one that would break if not treated ...
This ignores whether you want more ports or faster processors, of course.
a) I'm a developer, I do not use traditional function keys and would much rather have media keys, etc.
b) This laptop is not just for programmers. It is designed for many people, many of whom could benefit significantly (applications in video/music editing look very useful).
Function keys also served as media keys.
The terminal, for instance, has an instant man page key. This is kind of cool. A tiling window manager could have window management special keys. I have a very nice keyboard on my desk at home with, a glorious Unicomp PC122 with 24 function keys. I love it, but I need to confess I never used that many function keys. Ever.
So, F1 on Windows basically?
It seems to me that a lot of advantages mentioned by folks on the touchbar are born of Apple’s refusal to actually use the Fn keys as shortcut keys, unlike on Windows.
That's one of the reasons I use the F-keys on the PC122 so little - it's hard to remember what I made them do.
If they would have just placed the touchbar above the old row of ESC and Function keys, it could have been good. Now it is just shit.
I find functional keys nice, but not necessary. I also just remapped ESC to capslock since I never use capslock anyway.
Steve Jobs.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/841771
The original Macintosh didn't have them either, or Control.
What do you think is the best Linux desktop distro these days?
For hardware it seems like the higher-end Dells are the winners. I have a co-worker with one (runs Windows) and the hardware is excellent. He has some issues with the TPM and firmware but it seems like stuff that would not be a big problem in Linux.
These make it easy to set up a simple system with few moving parts, which is fast and doesn't break. I just a tiling window manager (xmonad), a terminal (urxvt), a browser (firefox with vimperator) and emacs.
And Nix-style ones, NixOS and GuixSD, are the future. Declarative system configuration and package definitions. Non-destructive changes.
In terms of laptops, I'm really fond of Xiaomi Air 12 M3. Fanless, really good quality, cheap and all stock Intel components. So it just works.
Mine hasn’t, but I’ve noticed the touchbar screen freaks out when lots of crap scrolls by in terminal. I’d be tempted to electric tape over mine if I had one. Instead, the common case for coworkers is to keep the old one for WFH, dock the new one at desks, and cope with terrible keyboards during meetings.
We have an open floor plan, so that would break my “hide in a random room to concentrate on stuff” workflow.
I’ve seen die-hard laptop screen users take 17” macs to coffee shops, and lay an external keyboards on top of the now irreparable built-in one.
Maybe that’s the right way forward for people that still want keyboards.
Not saying you're wrong, just giving my feedback. I'm definitely not a fanboy by any means. I used a mint linux setup for the last year before switching back to mac, and wouldn't touch an iPhone with a 10ft pole. :)
While I can’t really use you as an example, since you kind of need a Mac for a lot of the work you do specifically, I’ve heard the same complaints about Apple hardware from other long-time Mac users that don’t actually need to have a Mac.
I am curious how many of those of us that don’t need macOS day to day have voted with their wallet away from Apple’s pro line, and what they switched to. I still use a mid-2014 MacBook Pro at work, but at home when it was time to upgrade I took the same path you did and went for the 12” MacBook. It sucked in every way.
Now I’m the owner of a Dell XPS, the supposed most Mac-like PC, and I’m simply stuck with another set of problems: it’s developed a great amount of coil whine, thermal management is spotty to say the least, and the sound card drivers have to be reinstalled every few reboots else it will not detect when I have plugged or unplugged headphones, which has me carrying around a USB DAC. When I need macOS, I’m still running High Sierra on a quad-core Mac Mini server from 2011.
The sad thing is that I don’t think there is a good option at this point. All of the “alternatives” to the MacBook contain their own faults.
No coil whine in mine, but it was hell finding just the right bios version so sleep would work. And if you don't use a specific Intel you driver version you get screen flicker. Le sigh.
The MacBook Air was a great little nifty machine, powerful enough for my (modest) needs. The MBP is expensive (even the "cheap" "Escape key" edition) with a finicky keyboard and 3h battery life if you actually use the CPU.
Sadly, iOS development is part of my work, so I'm stuck with Apple. I'm dreading the next laptop 'upgrade' I get.
The other huge thing that surprised me was how easy development is becoming with the new Windows Linux Subsystem. The only thing i haven't gotten to play nicely with it is Postgres, but I just set it up in windows and have the wls connect to it and I'm on my way.
The essence of the thing is that Apple only looks at its bottom line so that bottom line is the only way you have to influence their behaviour. Don't like what they sell? Don't buy it, get something else.
The hardware decline brings them closer to even with other laptops, all things considered, but I suspect many people prefer macOS enough to still stomach the bad hardware.
I mostly use Thinkpads which are known for having good keyboards. While I do prefer the keyboards on these machines over those on the others spread around the place I don't "halt all work until I find an IBM M1" when dealing with other machines, not even when dealing with those modern chiclet-inspired monstrosities. I might grumble a bit, miss a key here and there and wonder what the designers were thinking but those keyboards do get the job done. The same goes for touchpads, some are better than others but most of them work.
Having both two-finger-scroll and side-scroll enabled is possible and quite handy for those occasions you can't use or don't feel like using two fingers, e.g. when you're holding a hot soldering iron in one hand and a collection of parts in the other - just scroll using a knuckle.
What you say is technically correct, but you can enable all those things and Synaptics still is miles behind Apple in accuracy, comfort, additional possible gestures (I use "pinch" "four finger up" and "get outta here" gestures frequently).
Sometimes the Synaptics just doesn't recognize what I'm doing with simple two-finger scroll. That literally never happens with Apple hardware.
I bought a XPS 15" since I didn't want to dish out for a new Macbook. It's running Elementary OS. I like it well enough, but it has a lot of trouble handling HiDPI that requires constant tweaking.
TL;DR - Macbook keyboards require a light touch, which may not suit your personal style.
If Apple replaced keyboard keytops with sandpaper and people complained of bleeding, raw fingers, would you still say that it's the user's fault for "typing too hard"?
Or maybe, just maybe... that they screwed up a miniaturization attempt.
I agree that the new Macbook keyboards aren't for everyone. Some people, like my girlfriend take to them right away. Others will never adjust. And that's fine. You don't like it? Don't use it. Return it for something else.
But I think there's a large middle ground of people who could happily use the new keyboards by adjusting their typing style. Doesn't mean they were typing wrong before. But if, like me, they're coming from heavy mechanical keyboards, they will need to adjust their style to be comfortable with Apple's keyboards.
People have experience similar challenges transitioning between manual and electric typewriters. And between pianos and MIDI keyboards with unweighted keys.
I encourage you to differentiate between someone who diddles the keys for 10 minutes once a week vs. someone who dedicates 90+ hrs per week and whose livelyhood depends on quality and precision of the tools they use.
If it's consumer trash then take it to windows-craptop land. I thought Apple made rugged, performant, premium machines, but it's looking more and more like they're a fashion company.
Otherwise if you're advocating for "consumer choice" then point me to the legal hackintosh laptop market where I can get a better integrated keyboard?
Midi keyboards with unweighted keys aren't "consumer trash." Their are plenty of professional musicians who use them on a daily basis. They are merely different from pianos with weighted keys, which require more force to play. Some prefer one, some the other. It's largely a matter of which you were exposed to first.
I've been a loyal mac laptop user for over a decade, but definitely my next laptop purchase won't be a mac...
1) New keyboard took a while to get used to, and it does seem like they are a little finicky. After a while, I've gotten used to the feel of it and actually prefer it for the most part. The arrow keys are really hard to use, though..
I do hate that it is such an expensive/involved thing to replace the keyboard.
2) The enlarged trackpad is kinda nice sometimes, but really hard to use other times.. The way I rest my hands on my laptop when I'm using it while sitting back or lying down always results in mis-clicks and other problems with the new trackpad. I'd rather have the smaller-sized one, but I realize others may not have the same problems I do.
3) TouchID is really handy, but the TouchBar is an unfortunate gimmick. I keep trying to find good uses for it, but it mostly ends up being kinda useless - anything I can do with it, I could do before with less work. I hope it goes away, or at least becomes an optional thing in the future.
Overall, while it is nice to have a laptop that is smaller/lighter, the way Apple is sacrificing all sorts of other stuff (performance, repairability) to minimize size/weight sometimes feels wrong for what it supposed to be a professional series laptop.
It allows you to customise it for each application and assign your own buttons based on menu items, scripts etc. For development it is amazing. I have dedicated buttons for Build, Run, Debug, Stop, Step Into and Step Over. For terminal I can adjust terminal profiles with one button.
Also blame Intel more than Apple for performance issues.
I have these in IntelliJ as standard key combos (some being Fn keys). All of these I can touch type. I can't see how this would be improved by having to look down at the mini-screen at the top of the keyboard.
Two buttons I use are to Expand/Collapse All Code Folds.
I think I've only seen one main use that works well with the bar, and that's scrubbing through video or audio.
The touchbar has used, but from what I can tell, all those uses are better solved by existing non touchbar techniques already.
Toolbars for infrequently user functions you won’t remember the shortcut for (better because they hold more and don’t require you to change the screen you’re looking at, and you can keep your hands on the touchpad/mouse as before).
Fn keys (or combo keys) for frequently used shortcuts that you would remember as they ass tactile feedback and are much more conducive to touch typing.
The trackpad for actual scrubbing like functions.
Where I can see the touchbar being useful are infrequently used global functions, but I believe these are the ones Apple explicitly prevents developers from building (and unsurprisingly the inbuilt global ones from Apple are the most popular feature of the touchbar, such as volume controls and music playback controls).
And if it’s a rarely used key then why would you put it on a premium area and not simply access it from the menu bar anyways?
And using Visual studio I already use F keys for run/build/pause/debug/step into/out/over and furthermore even get tactical feedback.
How does the touchbar improve on any of that?
One way I could see the touch bar being useful would be if it displayed functionality from the non foreground apps (so for example if I have safari open, it allowed me to execute a command on terminal in the background without needing to bring terminal to the foreground, much like how music controls work). But from what I understand, this is explicitly prohibited. Does BTT allow for such behavior?
I can hit most of these (except the function key shortcuts) by feel 100% of the time. I cannot hit any touch bar targets by feel, with the exception of the Escape key.
I will have to check out that tool, sounds like it could be useful.
I guess, though, this highlights part of why it feels so gimmicky. I, like a lot of people using MacBook Pros, spend about 60% of my time on my work laptop docked with external monitors, keyboard, and mouse. Since there are no external keyboards with a TouchBar available, I now have two very different experiences when I'm docked vs undocked.
I'm sure I could use something to create virtual function keys and get back the original functionality and have a roughly similar experience to when I'm using an external keyboard, but then I'm paying extra money for that hardware and losing tactile feedback.
Which is kind of the key — Apple didn't build in enough functionality out-of-the-box for users to make it useful. They left it to developers, and developers dropped the ball.
All of this is a separate issue from the keyboard issues. My "F" key has all but popped off. That has nothing to do with the Touch Bar.
Meanwhile, mine "works", but the short key travel makes touch typing next to impossible even after two years of use. I have just purchased an inexpensive windows computer from a Lenovo and I'm trying to get accustomed to Windows 10 so I have a workable keyboard. This is a big deal because I am deep into Apples ecosystem and lock-in.
I do not want to switch but I type all day and I can't bear to buy another Macintosh because the keywords have all gone this way. I am however considering purchasing a new old stock MacBook Air.
I love my MBP. The flash storage was a little more expensive than I wanted, and I'm going to wait an extra year to upgrade.
Anyway. this isn't a product story- the keyboard is fine.
This is a service story-- Apple should have fixed his right the first time.
PS- Touch Bar is great.
Much prefer the keyboard on the 2016 model.
Just two gripes:
- keyboard is noisy as hell, very noticeable in conference calls
- trackpad is way too big, it’s hard to find a resting position. six months in i still accidentally touch it when not meaning to.
Are you trying to argue that your personal lack of experiencing a component failure means the component's fleet-wide failure rate is acceptable?
Or are you just saying you like your computer, and tossed in a flippant assumption that you don't really stand behind?
The candidate hit the Power button, located where DEL used to be. Laptop goes to sleep (candidate said it shut down but it probably just went to sleep). He gets it back up but then it needs a login etc., so he had to go find us non-remote staff to log back in, join VPN etc. Took about 5 minutes out of the interview, partly due to confusion + logging back into the things.
I can't for the life of me understand why so many vendors have put this button on the keyboard. It was so simple and sensible to have it somewhere else.
Edited: Macbook running Windows, probably just went to sleep but disruptive nonetheless, combination of hardware+software to blame.
We bought a USB keyboard + mouse for the candidates.
On Mac OS pressing the power button does nothing, it takes seconds to come back from sleep and it never drops VPN unless you are going to sleep for hours.
But with proper keyboard design, accidental presses wouldn't be a problem.
Besides that, I would consider going on standby accidentally a problem independent of the OS (hitting the power button for a shot time usually gets you in standby also).
On the older Macbook's the power key is still in the top right corner just like it is on the new ones. If you can't type properly it is still possible to hit it.
Not that tapping the power button does anything.
I appreciate your over-all sentiment that when the default behavior for power buttons was to take action, but my expectation now is that bumping the power button should ask you what to do, not do something. I'm still surprised that many Windows based laptops have a default action mapped to the power button regardless of the placement of the button, as interrupting the state of the machine just seems like something you'd want a confirmation on - aside from a few outlier "oh crap no one can see this" moments, I'm not sure why you'd need the quick bump to initiate shutdown or any action from the power button at all. Even in the above situation, a shutdown is far slower most times than just a hard shutdown.
Edit: Seeing your follow up, I feel that you should really update your original post to mention that it was running Windows via Bootcamp. macOS and Windows respond very differently to a power button press, and Windows' default is to take a sleep, hibernate, or shutdown action, and at least on our Server 2016 images, the default behavior is to initiate a shutdown. This isn't OS X behavior, it's Windows behavior.
In my head I had not distinguished between "shutdown" and "sleep", nor decide that the hardware was less to blame than the software. Those details matter, sorry for any confusion.
It's a tad unbelievable.
I had a plastic Macbook that I spilled soda pop onto. The keyboard basically got fried. I ordered a replacement part from OWC and was able to fix it myself quite quickly.
The only downside was having to carry an external keyboard in my bag while waiting for the part to arrive since it was my work computer.
It comes at a cost of larger and heavier laptops, but the XPS 13 Developer Edition I write this on is small, runs Linux, and has a beautiful display and a real keyboard I don't absolutely hate. Even Linus likes it.
I am slowly turning back towards Dell for almost all my main computing accessories (laptop/monitor).
So far, no updates. I could send it to Dell to have the keyboard replace, but that's going to leave me without a laptop for days, and will do exactly nothing, since this is a software problem.
All of that besides the fact that you cannot really use VIM any more because the ESC button is gone...
Yes, you can remap and fiddle to make it work but that isn't the point, the point is to pay the same price, sometimes more than Americans and get the same value and experience. Instead we get an inferior experience that requires hacks. Not good at all.
You can also set up multiple layouts and switch via OS shortcut when needed.
I haven't had any issues pressing the touch bar icons accidentally, not even once. Personal anecdote of course.
I'm very happy with it. Except yes the arrow keys suck.
The number of times I actually wanted to change the terminal colors or open a man page with the touchbar is exactly zero. I press them often enough by accident that I am annoyed.
The touchbar is a solution looking for a problem. Can't find one. If you want reconfigurable keys, why not put a small display in each of them? That would at least be a possible benefit without these fundamental drawbacks.
Good idea. The whole trend toward touch interfaces is really annoying. Something tactile is much better if you see it a lot. Same in cars. Operating a car heater through touch is much more difficult and requires more attention than old fashioned dials.
What serious VIM user has not remapped ESC?
One of the reasons I don't like to use VIM, is that the ESC key is so far away, and not suitable for ergonomic typing. If I wasn't already used to Emacs/Sublime and had to use VIM, I would have remapped it immediately. I probably still should, but I use it rarely enough that I don't bother.
Mac OS even has a built-in option for remapping it to caps lock. Apple is very conservative about adding options in System Preferences, so I think this is something a lot of programmers do.
I've been considering moving to a 12 MacBook but hearing stuff like this scares me
That occasional glorious press on "Return" key may lock it... and it feels terrible.
My first computer was the ZX 81 with its pressure-sensitive membrane keyboard. While I was tinkering around, I accidentally dropped a screw driver on the "K" key, which was now permanently depressed, and subsequently I had to lift it up a bit with a suction cup (or, well, orally) before I could type...
My first laptop was a Toshiba Satellite something or other. It was plasticky, had a shitty screen hinge, terrible battery life, poor trackpad, and eventually the video stopped working (I suspect some of the GPU's BGA pins came loose). At the time it cost ~$1000.
Even this POS laptop's keyboard didn't have "issues weekly or so". I don't understand how this is acceptable in a premium product. Remember, the keyboard is a Macbook's primary input device. This is like if the touch functionality on your smartphone started misbehaving once a week until it got "unstuck".
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macboo...
My only minor criticism would be that the up and down arrows are a little tricky to hit quickly without looking, but it's really minor for me.
Overall, in my experience, this was a solid upgrade on the previous keyboard (which I had to use a few days ago to prepare my old MBP to be sold).
Not because of the specs, I had given up a Dell costing a quarter of the price with higher resolution display, more memory, a nicer keyboard and faster CPU.
I was sold because, unlike any of the other Windows & Linux computers I owned at the time, it did not make me angry when I used it.
I miss _that_ MacBookPro.
Jobs never would have let this nonsense happen. He'd have pressed the key and thrown the machine at whomever invented this "butterfly" switch.
My b and n keys acted up randomly. B would hit twice on each press and n would miss keystrokes sometimes. Cleaned it with air, massaged the keys, removed caps and cleaned etc. Other keys started following. Apple here in Turkey does not have the same support you guys in US seem to enjoy.
They gave me a 15 day repair window, no offer of replacements etc. I simply can’t live without it for 15 days so I’m still using this piece of shit broken laptop.
I’d buy a replacement and send this one to repair only to sell it but then I’d still need to buy a MBP because of macOS.
One of these days I’m gonna pull thr plug and go all linux.
I usually don't buy Apple Care, but as I look at the 1 year mark approach, I'm thinking I may need to suck it up and buy it if the alternative is a $400-700 top case replacement ever few months on my dime until Apple decides to issue an extended warranty. Even if they do issue one, with my last laptop, I had to fight them to replace my main board a second time with the GPU failures because they tried to claim that since they repaired it once, it was impossible that the issue could happen a second time even though all of their diagnostic tests showed that it indeed had.
On the plus side, ever time they replace the keyboard, you get a brand new battery and new USB-C connectors (which I'm also paranoid are going to have longevity issues).
Been there, done that. Even to fix once. "Well, it fails that specific diagnostic and there's a bulletin about it, but we don't think that's the issue", even though I could repeatedly make it kernel panic due to a GPU fault merely by browsing a page in Safari (and the console spewed forth the same errors).
I know people claim Apple has uniformly excellent service and I'd agree that for the most part, they do, but there's also polarizingly bad service, too.
With the new MBP, after one month of purchase, the display is down. I went to Apple Store, and they told me 3 days for repair but I never get any email/tel contacts after a week and their online status remained "repairing". Until I call them back, they told me they contacted and I didn't pick up their phone.
Now after 2 months, I found a video quality issue on their FaceTime camera (with sunlight, same issue): https://imgur.com/a/AQTOw
Has anyone with the same experience?
My previous laptop, the original 2012 MBP Retina, lasted 5 years. I have my doubts this one is built as robustly...
That said I actually enjoy typing on this keyboard. The short travel and sharp, stable clickiness has lowered my typing error rate and makes it feel like I'm typing faster. I was never a good typist though.
3 years later everyone is wandering around with claws for hands, having forgotten what real keyboards do for human to computer interaction.
Umm. I earn modestly good money developing software and my 2010 MBP is starting to show its age. How much does he think an Apple Store employee makes? How much DOES an Apple Genius in NYC make?
[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Apple-Mac-Genius-New-Yo...
The way to go imo.
The images themselves are coming from the imgix CDN for outline-brand so they do seem to be providing their own adverts, but maybe using doubleclick for some sort of engagement tracking. I'm not really sure.
> ...
> The Genius shrugged empathetically. He cast around and pointed to a nearby pre-2015 MacBook Pro with relatively thicker keys. "I have one of those," he said apologetically.
Wow. That's got to be the worst tech-support I have ever heard of.
Imagine your lawn mower broke, and took it to a repair shop. You complain it doesn't switch on. The repair guy says maybe there is a piece of grass that got inside, and that's why it's not working. You say that sounds like a really bad design if a lawn mower can't handle a piece of grass. He says, "Oh, well I use some other model."
How is that even remotely helpful?
MacBook Pros have been thin and light enough for nearly a decade. If I want tiny I have a smart phone that I can pull out of my pocket. I want a laptop to be a portable "real computer" with a lot of power, durability, and good ergonomics. Long battery life is also important. I'd be very happy with a thicker Pro with more CPU, more RAM, and a big battery.
The latest Macs are such a disaster I'm currently thinking about how I can extricate myself from the platform and go back to either Windows or Linux. The OS is fine but the hardware has gone bozo. My latest Mac was a refurbished older model which I consider to be superior in many ways to the newer ones.
What I do think is completely useless is he touchbar, nice idea but no real use.
I really don't want the new model as replacement, for more reasons. I don't expect Apple to recover from the loss of Steve Jobs, at least not in terms of quality. I see they are trying to remain a financial success.
Which laptop will be an improvement compared to the one I have now? I don't want Windows, but a Linux distro would be great if the OS happened be as robust as OSX in all respects. I tried Arch, Ubuntu flavours, etc.. none of them compare in many ways. I actually never had a touchpad on any other laptop that behaved as smooth as the mbp one for example.
I still maintain that the 2012 rMBP, which were the last Macbooks that came out under Jobs IIRC, were the most stable developer-focussed iteration of the MBP. No heating issues, a sexy screen, stable non-glitchy non-hanging OS, and a wonderful experience overall!
How can it be that to get a seriously good keyboard for programming, I need to get a novelty laptop and get it fast until it sells out. If you have a chance to test it somewhere and can take a hit with a FHD panel, this is definitely a fast and robust laptop.
96 ppi is the old standard. 140ppi generally gives a very nice and crisp screen. The 220 or so on most MBP retina is nice, but probably overkill starting around 180ppi in my estimation.
Not complaining though, everything else in this T25 is so much better.
I will say that the panel itself is a good panel, 1080p aside. It is like the one in the T450s - good white point, linear constant-current backlight driver (no flickery low-freq PWM!)
Anyhow, looking at new Microsoft machine, with great graphics card and every feature I would want (sd card, thank you!), couldn't help but think about how things have changed.
Oh and biggie, it has Esc key! Can you imagine that :)
I am in the same boat, I am just not as messed up as you downvoters.
If I actually paid for the machine I would be pretty mad. The keyboard misses clicks and the lack of the escape key still bothers me.
Fuck that.
I've had nothing but good things to say about Apple's repair policies. If it's in warranty, wander into an Apple Store, explain the issue, come back an hour or two later for your free fix or replacement.
Done and done. I've also heard horror stories, but they're a pretty big company. I'm not surprised it's a mixed bag. I can say that there are almost no companies that have a store a couple blocks from me that I can walk into and get free same day repair service for some devices.
The vast majority require me to mail my device into some unknown depot and be without it for a much longer period of time.
The worst kind of controversial Apple design is one that people grumble about because it's aesthetically pleasing but actually makes the product less user-friendly. See: the hockey-puck mouse on the first iMac.
Regarding that second kind, sometimes Apple recognizes their mistake and, in a future iteration, completely replaces the bad design with a better one. More recently, they seem too infatuated with their initial design decisions and just keep putting band-aids on fundamentally flawed implementations. The butterfly keyboard mentioned in TFA is on its third(!) revision, and it's still clearly flawed. Another example: Apple "fixed" the impossible-to-tell-in-the-dark-which-way-you're holding-it Apple TV remote by putting a single tactile ring around one button, rather than just designing an ergonomic remote that makes it tougher for you to accidentally engage the touchpad and cancel out of the movie you're watching.
So why might Apple underestimate the severity of bad design decisions?
Apple's direction with the Mac lineup as of late is a great example of "success hides problems." [1] Supposedly, the 2016 MacBook Pros sold very well, despite a number of bad design choices that put form over function:
- The keyboard design as described in TFA
- The touch bar (only available on the high end models). The designer must have really hated those useless, ugly fkeys. But instead of putting the touch bar above the fkeys, they eliminated them. The touch bar is not a substitute, unless all you used the fkeys for was changing volume, etc.
- Eliminated all other ports in favor of USB-C, which while great in theory is in fact a highly fragmented incompatible ecosystem of poor quality peripherals and cables that don't give the user any visual indicator as to whether they work together. [2]
IMHO, many if not most of these MacBook Pro customers are buying not because of these bad design decisions but in spite of them. Computers are amazing because they're fun and powerful general purpose machines. These machines may meet some subset of people's needs better than the old ones did. But in exchange for that, they've stopped (or soon will stop) meeting the needs of many, many more.
Somebody once said "design is how it works." If you live in a sterile white world where there's no dust and you never plug anything into your laptop, maybe this product works for you. The rest of us don't have that luxury.
Personally, I really like my new 15” Pro. I’m in favour of anything which can make it thinner and lighter, to a point, as I like to be able to carry it around easily, while still having a large screen. The design looks beautiful.
In regard to the specific points you raised:
- I prefer the keyboard to the old one. It feels satisfying to type on in my opinion. The only thing I would change is the noise of the keys, it’s hard to type quietly.
- The touch bar isn’t perfect but I think it’s a worthwhile effort, as most people (me included, and I’m a developer) rarely use the function keys for anything aside from the media functions you mention, mainly because it’s hard to remember what they’ll do and having shortcuts visible there is a good idea.
However, the lack of tactile feedback and visibility in sunlight is an issue. I’d rather they’d gone with distinct keys with e-ink displays or similar, but like I say, to me the Fn keys are no great loss (I’ve been remapping escape to caps lock for years anyway!)
- I find the new port set up much more flexible and have had no problems using my old USB devices with adapters or via a hub. I did find the article about USB-C interesting though - hopefully the industry can sort this out in due time.
I don’t make these points to say you’re wrong, but just to show that not everyone agrees that all these design choices are bad.
I constantly (multiple times a day) use F1 (help, least used), F3 (search again, next match), F4 (both for the famous close window shortcut and to get to the explorer address bar), F5 (reload in browser, run in other apps), F9 (toggle breakpoint in VS), F10 (step over in VS), F11 (step into in VS).
Occasionally F8, F12.
Couldn't live without those, I guess, and I can find all of those blindly.
On the debug thing, having the debug controls on the Touch Bar with XCode (available from any app) is one of the few actually definitely useful things about it. Spotify integration could be, except they decided not to show song name or anything else useful on there.
The major advantage of the touchpad that I can see is for someone who is new to the app, since it increases discoverability if shortcut keys. However this problem was already solved using toolbars. There may be a few apps where the screen real estate may be too expensive to lose to toolbars, but I can’t really think of any where simply fading the toolbars in isn’t a better solution. Maybe 4ak video editing is a better option?
I’d also imagine controls where scrubbing is better might benefit from the touchbar, but again, that’s probably better handled by the touchpad which is far more ergonomically accessible than the touchbar.
I got dust under mine last year, had to get the Apple repair under warranty, and then bought this $12.95 insurance. It's been working great ever since. If I pull the cover off, the keyboard looks brand new.
The only negative is that it leaves key impressions on the screen when you close the laptop (due to the the cover touching the glass), but these are easily cleaned off with water/alcohol once every 2 weeks.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/UPPERCASE-GhostCover-Keyboard-Protect...
I love Apple, I really do. The magsafe connector sold me on my first Macbook in 2009 and I've been buying Apple laptops ever since. However when the new MacBook Pros were announced the first thing I did was buy a fully specced, refurbished "last gen" Macbook pro because the butterfly keyboard is a bridge too far for me in terms of typing feel. Apparently it's a bridge too far in reliability as well. This might be my last Macbook.
Secondly, I liken this to getting a silicon case for your phone. You don't have to get one, but the second you drop your phone, you will be thankful you had it.
I think the MacBook keyboard is wonderful, though I prefer my HHKB. It requires a different method of hitting the keys, but I have no problem going between the two, or to any of the other keyboards I use.
I recall when Apple first came out with the thin aluminum keyboards that it took me some time to adjust from what I was using at the time, a Microsoft Ergo something or other with huge key travel and vague key actuation feel.
If you get pain while using any keyboard you should look into how you're using it, and why you're getting that pain.
I just received my MacBook Pro back from service 2 weeks ago (I had popping/cracking noises coming from the hinge / case when opening the computer or when heating up or down). I don’t remember this B issue happening before :(
I have it connected to an external monitor most of the time, but I relish any chance I get to work away from the office - just for the opportunity to use the built-in keyboard.
I switched to Thinkpad with Linux from Macs 18 months ago. Adapting took maybe two months. I would not like to go back.
If only the displays were 16:10 or 3:2 and as nice as a MacBook's. Otherwise, yeah, they're better.
Same "retina" resolution, but the matte display makes reading text a pleasure.
- Org Mode
- Google Hangouts
- There are plenty of calculator options on Linux
Where can I get an old-style MBP?