Hacker News Reader

Comment by roryisok | Hacker News Reader

When I'm wearing my cynic hat, the touch bar is the beginning of a plot to replace our physical keys with another screen with an image of keys. The 2030 MacBook will basically be two iPads taped together

View on HN

I think so too, especially with further improvements to the Taptic Engine. This might also lead to a more “solid state” device with less mechanical parts to worry about. I wonder if there will be a backlash or if we will all get used to it.

I think that would be horrible. Yoga book has already brought this idea to market, and typing on it is a nightmare.

It's okay, if you don't like it you can just plug an external keyboard into the dongle you have plugged into the dongle you have plugged into the only USB-C port they plan on offering!

It's all about the implementation/execution. We'd need some new technology to really make this work well.

There was this [1] a few years back, not sure what happened to it.

[1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved...

Yoga book isn’t Apple. People were saying the exact same thing about iPhone vs Blackberry.

If done right, it is completely possible. But the old neck beards will certainly have a conniption fit.

Not sure I agree with the lenovo equals RIM comparison. By the way, lenovos had an oled bar on top of their keyboards but removed theirs when people said they didn't like it.

Lenovo keyboards are the industry leaders. ThinkPad keyboard is pretty much the gold standard on laptops

Is it a nightmare? I haven't used it but I had heard positive reviews

I couldn't use it without a lot of typos, but ymmv. It looks nice though.

I think Taptic engine + force touch is the key (ahem) to such a scenario working.

If there were little localized bumps every time my fingers moved outside the area of a given letter, and if the keys could tell the difference between resting, setting, and actually typing, then I'm not sure there would be any problem.

The new Macbook keyboards have such low travel that they feel like a step in that direction. I like the laptop overall but I make a lot more typos than I did on my old one.

For me the only acceptable improvement would be if each individual mechanical key had a OLED display integrated and was fully programmable.

That’s so 2008. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard

It's possible. There is a keyboard you can buy like this, and one of razers laptops had an OLED numeric keypad I think. But they won't do this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com