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> The keyboard on this Lenovo [T480S] is ridiculously great-- it's amazing to be able to work again :)

It is really incredible how low Apple has managed to drive people's expectations wrt keyboards. I feel like Thinkpad keyboards have gone steadily downhill since the ~2005 T4x series (I still use a T43 on a regular basis, and do side-to-side comparisons between it and newer machines). Macbook keyboards by comparison are nearly unusable, unergonomic garbage: key caps not shaped, linear action with very harsh bottoming, comically oversize trackpad that you always manage to accidentally press with your palm while typing, sharp edge case that pokes into your wrists. Typing on a Macbook is slow and results in pain halfway through the day. Even the bottom of the barrel Acer Aspire One with the flat key caps (again, a machine I actually own and regularly use and can make comparisons against) provides a better typing experience.

>>>It is really incredible how low Apple has managed to drive people's expectations

You could have stopped there.. The entire Apple Product line is the same way, Is it proof positive that Marketing Drives the world not quality, technology, or anything else.

Apple is all marketing and no substance

> Apple is all marketing and no substance

I think it would be correct to say that this is what Apple has slowly become. In the past, it was clearly innovative. The original Mac was incredibly innovative in 1984. The iPhone was innovative back in 2007. But Apple has not had a new idea in the last 10 years, and it has shifted from technology innovation to marketing. Nowadays, it lags in almost every segment, but it still has great marketing, and its reputation has not yet caught up with the sad reality of 2018.

Apple also has a mountain of cash. They could invest in innovative new technologies. But they won't. Partly that's because of the way Tim Cook's salary has been structured. Following a somewhat superficial and short-term understanding of the phrase "share-holder value", his pay is partly based on how much he can boost the stock price. And he's got no real incentive to engage in a massive R&D program, since the results would only pay off in the long run, after he had retired.

I'm currently using a MacBook Pro. I'd like to stick with Mac's, but that decision is very difficult to justify right now. For less money I could get a great Linux laptop.

If the iPhone counts as a new idea then I don't see why the Apple Watch doesn't. The airpods should probably count as well.

Q1 2018 revenue: iPhone: 61.5bn USD, others 5.5bn USD (Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, iPod touch and Apple-branded and third-party accessories.) Even if it is a novel idea it is still pretty insignificant for the bottom line.

I think when a product line crosses the $1B threshold (ATV, Watch, iPad), it's still a successful product despite being dwarfed by the iPhone.

Think of all the other technologies companies that are currently dwarfed by the iPhone's sales: Tesla, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, etc etc. Are these all insignificant? Nope...

I get downvoted whenever I mention that the payment structure for Tim Cook is probably having a negative effect on Apple's long-term prospects. Does everyone understand that the incentives offered to CEOs often influence what they optimize for? Can we agree that the most widespread understanding of the phrase "shareholder value" tends to emphasize short-term gains at the expense of long-term gains?

Except that Cook has literally said, on a public call no less, that he doesn't care what the shareholders think if the decisions they make aren't in the best interest of their customers.

I think a big issue for me, and for others on here, is that we're no longer Apple's demographic. Their machines work for me still so I'm not in the same boat as most but Apple is now making computers for everyone, not just the creative professionals or developers. The things we don't care about (Touch Bar, for example) are things that I'm constantly hearing good things about from others. In my case, I actually love the TB because it's great for Final Cut and any other media tools I use.

Apple is the one company where "shareholder value" is not a driving factor.

The more dismissive/reductive/binary you are about a complicated issue with wide ranges of perspectives, the more obligated you are to back it up with analysis. Otherwise it just comes across as BS, which is probably why you're getting downvoted. It's like, write big checks all you want, but if they're not backed by anything, they'll bounce. The solution is to either (metaphorically) put more money in the bank, or (metaphorically) just write smaller checks.

The Apple touchpad is by far the best trackpad I've ever used on any laptop. By such a wide margin it's ridiculous. I never accidentally press it with my palm or have any other issues with it.

I agree fully that the keyboards are hot garbage, though. I can type well on them, they're just painful over time due to the harshness you mention.

It used to be, not any more.

The 2016 made it so large that it was constantly reacting whilst typing. It was infuriating. I've almost never managed that on the 2015 or earlier models even though I would sometimes touch the touchpad whilst typing. I sold the '16 because of the broken keyboard - but the stupid touchpad and touchbar contributed to my hating the whole machine. Now on a 2015 again.

Even though Apple touchpads were the best I've always preferred a trackpoint to any touchpad, and their keyboards are leagues ahead of anything Apple. Mind even Thinkpad keyboards used to be better. Someone needs to figure out how to fit a Thinkpad keyboard and trackpoint into a Macbook Pro :)

> I never accidentally press it with my palm or have any other issues with it.

There seem to be two kinds of typists: ones that rest their palms, and ones that hover their palms. If you hover, you will never encounter these issues. I rest my palms to the degree that any touchpad that is not recessed gets unintentional input. I also believe, based on personal experience, that the ergonomics of a pointing device are in general inversely proportional to the amount of hand/arm movement, so larger touchpads are going to be less ergonomic than smaller ones (a corollary is that touchpad gestures will give you RSI). Having three buttons for a pointing device is essential. Macbooks fail on all counts on these criteria. The closest to ideal touchpads that I have encountered are on the T4x/T6x series Thinkpads - 2" large and deeply recessed. Unfortunately they only have two buttons.

I rest my palms. No issues.

Smaller touchpads have always been more uncomfortable and harder to use for me.

> I feel like Thinkpad keyboards have gone steadily downhill since the ~2005 T4x series (I still use a T43 on a regular basis, and do side-to-side comparisons between it and newer machines)

Actually I think that Lenovo finally nailed the keyboard in 2017/2018. I think it's a lot better than even the venerable IBM Thinkpad keyboards. The travel/response feels a lot better to me.

I prefer the old feel and travel, as it's more like a proper keyboard, but not enough to avoid the Thinkpad chiclet on feel.

What kills it for me is the rearrangement needed by going from 7 row (with web forward/back and a proper editing block), to 6 rows with keys jammed in wherever they can make a space.

If they had done the redesign of keycaps and backlighting, but kept 7 row, it would have been stellar...

The best Apple keyboard is just "OK". Have a 2015 MBP, and it's OK.

Whether Macbook Pro or the extended iMac keyboard they seem designed to be nice to look at with no consideration of what they are like to actually type on.

I bought an external mechanical. "OK" is enough for when travelling or browsing.

If your criteria for judging laptop keyboards is, "does this feel like an external mechanical keyboard", then you're always going to be disappointed. I like mechanical keyboards too, but most people don't, so they're generally not appropriate for non-niche laptops. I don't blame computer companies for not making them. Although: if you feel strongly about that kind of typing experience, and don't mind running Windows or Linux, there do exist PC laptops with mechanical keyboards.

IMO the keyboard and trackpad on the last last-gen MBP were as good or better than anything on the market. This is what makes the new ones even more of a heartbreaker to me. I don't want to buy a new computer and feel like it's a step down from what I was using before, especially such a precipitous drop for what was literally my favorite aspect of the old hardware. It also feels like a bad precedent, a move in a direction that I personally don't want any further moves to be made in. I've been using MBPs for so long and have generally been so happy with them. It sucks that I feel like something I've trusted for so long may be moving away from me, like being in what you thought was a great relationship, then getting dumped out of the blue.

> If your criteria for judging laptop keyboards is, "does this feel like an external mechanical keyboard"

Hardly, but then I don't say or even imply that by mentioning I bought an external mechanical. I bought it during my brief spell with the 2016 where I was especially disappointed by the keyboard. I still bought Apple even though the keyboard was a mark against. It fits with work and I prefer MacOS/*nix to Windows.

I've never been disappointed by Thinkpad keyboards, so it appears someone is able to make a laptop keyboard, the brand has received praise for the keyboard for decades. They (even the recently redesigned one that I see as a step backwards, mainly from poorer layout) are an order of magnitude above anything Apple has used in years. I've always been a bit surprised since my first Macbook years ago that they haven't been trying to surpass Thinkpad for "keyboard experience".

To me it seems that Apple should care highly about keyboards as they clearly care enough to be opinionated about many aspects of their products. They don't seem the least bit interested in anything but thinness in keyboards even on the iMac. The keyboard on my 2015 is OK, so is the keyboard on the iMac. Neither is good in my limited personal opinion, but OK enough for daily use.

That the new one felt worse, was surprisingly loud, and turned out to be ridiculously fragile in a normal environment is quite some achievement.

Keyboards always get pretty diverse opinions so I doubt we'll agree. Touchpads are much easier - Apple have always done consistently better than anyone until the '16 which became newly prone to false activations.

The Apple butterfly keyboard, sadly, is designed for people who don't type and don't do most of their work via key entry. It's frustrating to use it for software engineering, especially if you use vim or emacs to edit code. And because of other key optimizations I'm used to, it's even worse.

For instance, I have the Vimium plugin installed and I use the home row keys to navigate web pages. It's more efficient but clearly I'm asking for trouble by working this way, given the failure rate of the new keyboard.

Apple needs to go back to the drawing board and create an ergonomic keyboard with lots of focus group feedback from software engineers, writers, and content creators, and stop treating the MBP as if it's a consumption device (that's what the iPad is for).

Couldn’t agree more about Lenovo keyboards. Every time I see someone extolling how amazing their keyboards are, I can only think about how they have been so affected by the Thinkpad reputation that they have no independent thoughts left on the matter. Maybe you could say Lenovo keyboards are the best available on today’s laptops, but that’s only because the level of quality in general has gone down so much.

I'm sorta in the same boat, but after Google announced Chromebooks will be getting first party support for Linux apps that is tempting me. I occasionally work on Linux, but I would love something more polished like ChromeOS.

just give me emacs and a decent terminal with ssh and git on chromeos and I could live on it.

Oddly enough, I love this keyboard. I like it a lot better than any other keyboard I've used on many laptops I've owned.

People complain about the short throw and the bottoming out but they are typing too damned hard. I find that by exerting smaller amounts of force with less travel that I can type on the butterfly keyboard without triggering my RSI symptoms, by contrast my Cherry MX Brown with double o rings requires so much physicality to get work done that it hurts after extended use.

The Lenovo T25 has an "old-style" Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad keyboard.

Separately, there are do-it-yourself modifications to stick one onto e.g. a -30 model ThinkPad.

I've held off due to the circa $2000 price (it's been a tough winter, financially), one generation older tech stack, and still somewhat under-performant display. But I really hope to pick one up before they're gone. Even this ThinkPad "chicklet" keyboard I'm typing on doesn't compare.

I wish -- hope -- Lenovo might continue to include one such model in the lineup, each year (T25 -- 25 for twenty-fifth anniversary). For people who really rely on heavy -- and comfortable, fast, accurate, reliable -- use of the keyboard, there is no comparison.

My W520's keyboard is pretty fantastic. I just need something that travels better (doesn't have to be a "wafer") and has longer battery life.

I just bought a used 2013 MBP, because why not? It's not like a new one has more RAM, or a bigger SSD, and new cpu is only 16% faster. But it does have a shitty keyboard and no function keys.

Also, $900 vs $2,599+tax.

I have been using Thinkpads exclusively since T40 was released in 2003 and the main reason was always the keyboard.

That's great to hear because I'm about to buy a T480s and my main reason is I've heard such great things about the keyboard!