Comment by CountSessine | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CountSessine | Hacker News Reader

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I don’t get all the hate on the new MacBook Pros

I'm a heavy tmux/vim user.

Apple replaced the best programmer's laptop on the market (their previous-gen MBP) with the MBP model that they sell now. It's not a bad laptop per se, it's just that it's not a programmer's laptop.

Apple sells the MBA which doesn't have enough pixel density to support tmux with multiple panes.

Apple sells the MB and the MBP with that execrable butterfly keyboard which is terrible for touch-typing for long periods.

There's nothing else anymore. They stopped selling that Ivy-bridge-era MBP model they were keeping around for serious touch-typists. Everyone I know who has one of these turkeys defends the keyboard, but then admits that, "anyways, I usually use an external keyboard anyhow." I need the built-in keyboard to be useable and Apple has given up on making those.

I'd buy a new programmer's laptop from Apple, but they just don't make those anymore. Apple took something we loved away from us - that's why the new MBP gets so much hate.

I'm not an expert in keyboard, I'm just a software developer that spends a bunch of time in front of a computer: I had some adjustment period to the new keyboard but now I'm used to it and it feels perfectly fine.

What is the problem with "touch-typists" and the new keyboard? Is the layout different in such a way that confuses you? Is it the lack of feedback from the touchbar?

If you're a vim user the touch bar mbp is pretty much a no-go. Most users just map capslock to escape and they're mostly okay, but if you're like me and like to map capslock to delete, then having to press escape on the touchbar just doesn't work. (i've tried to map some other key to escape, but haven't found anything that feels natural)

I am a regular vim user (every day) and I really just got used to using ESC on the touchbar. It’s not a big deal.

Mis-taps on the touchbar are my main annoyance.

Have you tried mapping caps lock to escape?

Yeah. But I found it didn’t make sense to me, my muscle memory is for my pinky to reach up. Hitting a flat surface was less weird than hitting caps lock.

I have a 2016 touchbar MacBook Pro. I’ve been learning vim, but I agree using escape is hard with the touchbar. I ended up mapping “jj” to escape. Seems to work well and keeps my fingers on the home row.

I have remapped Caps Lock to Ctrl and Escape to Ctrl + ].

US users can map caps lock to esc an be fine with it, but pretty much the rest of the world uses more characters than english does. Many people use caps lock as a switch to the local keyboard layout. This way you can get the best of both worlds.

You know Ctrl + [ is bound to escape doesn't even re-bind. I use a Thinkpad but I won't reach all the way for escape. Ctrl + [ is way easier.

I’m a heavy vim user and have not had an issue hitting the escape key past the first couple days as long as I don’t look down.

The keys don't have enough tactile feedback. That tricks (my) brain into hitting the keys harder because they instill less confidence. That's exhausting when typing for a few hours.

The ESC key issue isn't as bad - I have 'jk' remapped to ESC anyways. But the lack of feedback with the butterfly keys makes my hands feel like I'm setting myself up for repetitive stress injury.

The keyboard is just awful. Can anyone honestly say that they prefer the feel of the butterfly keys?

Yes. Typing for a whole day on my 2013 MBP would give serious wrist pains. This is not the case on my 2016 MBP.

> Apple sells the MB and the MBP with that execrable butterfly keyboard which is terrible for touch-typing for long periods.

The MacBook and MacBook Pro's keyboards are markedly different. Sure, they're both butterfly, but MacBook Pro's keyboard is a lot more clickly/springy than MacBook's, which I can only describe as mushy. Have you tried using them for an extended period of time?

God I love my MacBook Air 2013 keyboard. I still think it’s tons better than the 2018 MacBook Pro crap. The MBP was given to me my the employer but I don’t quite enjoy typing. It’s like walking on grass vs walking on tarmac. One just makes your fingers so goddamn happy when you type. The MBP keyboard keys get stuck all the time. The spacebar get stuck at times! WTF! That’s just terrible engineering.

Steve jobs or whoever it was doing QA, I gotta say really had a knack for what is usable and makes the evokes a feel good emotion. The new macs nowadays look beautiful but horribly lack in usability in many ways. Steve Apple was very focused on usability. Aesthetics came later, now it’s the reverse.

Steve jobs or whoever it was doing QA, I gotta say really had a knack for what is usable and makes the evokes a feel good emotion. The new macs nowadays look beautiful but horribly lack in usability in many ways. Steve Apple was very focused on usability. Aesthetics came later, now it’s the reverse.

Agreed, and there's a name for this. It's 'bullshit'.

Making a laptop with a terrible keyboard to save 2-3mm of thickness when no one really cares about such extremes of thinness. That's bullshit.

Making a laptop with largely unsupported USB-C ports and nothing else. No transition-year with both new and old ports, just tossing the old ports out abruptly and making customers buy fucking dongles. That's bullshit.

Eliminating function keys for a gimmicky touch screen which almost no one will use on a day-to-day basis a month after buying the laptop. That's bullshit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

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