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Comment by rcleveng | Hacker News Reader

I always considered the butterfly keyboard[1] the point at which Apple's design system jumped the shark as it focused on it's own aesthetics vs. building quality and reliable products.

Funny enough, it's the only time period since 1999 that I was apple free for a while. My MBP broke. I've previously had a butterfly keyboard on my work mac, and it got replaced on a regular bases. While unfortunate for a work computer, this was not acceptable as my personal one with no spares)

Thankfully Apple returned to making great products that work, and I bought the next MBP.

Seeing that Apple's returning to it's "design roots"[2], I really hope they do not loose sight of building great products that work well for their customers.

[1] https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Butterfly_keyboard

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-09-14/apple-...

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> Seeing that Apple's returning to it's "design roots"

There's a very important and relevant design quote from Steve Jobs that keeps popping up in my head:

https://mastodon.world/@lensco/115184866965741757

When Steve died, so did the Apple we all knew and loved.

I worked at Apple in the years shortly after his death, and was trying to convince myself this wasn't true, but it is.

Tim should find someone smart and willing to take a real look at the company and ceed power to the next generation.

> Funny enough, it's the only time period since 1999 that I was apple free for a while.

Same here. After the butterfly keyboard era, I spent about 5 years with Windows 10/11 and powershell, then WSL. There's still a lot of annoyance in the Windows space (NTFS is slow due to all the filesystem filters), but Linux package managers are much better than homebrew and WSL does make Windows a pretty reasonable developer system. I'm back on the MacOS now but I wouldn't hate a nice Windows machine.

Yes, WSL2 is quite good. WSL1 was even a step up, but WSL2 gives me an environment that I can use quite well and be productive with.

The NTFS speed thing is kinda amazing. I use cursor on MacOS. My friend has a windows laptop which is likely 2-3x more powerful than my Macbook Air. I can install a new cursor in 2-3s tops, on the Windows machine it takes minutes. Wow. It's all file copying speed.

> I always considered the butterfly keyboard[1] the point at which Apple's design system jumped the shark as it focused on it's own aesthetics vs. building quality and reliable products.

This statement describes pretty much every mouse Apple ever made, from the circular ones to the horrendous magic mouse with charging port underneath.

This is true, but Apple mice have always been consistently bad. A laptop where getting a single grain of dirt under the keyboard meant you couldn't type was a very new thing in 2015.

Ooh, the mouse myth! Love it when this one gets dragged out. Turns out it’s not really a problem - the battery life is measured in months, you’ll get several hours from plugging it in for thirty seconds, and days if you plug it in for a few minutes while getting coffee.

People love to hate it, but it’s never been a real problem. The ergonomics are bad. The charging isn’t.

So the ergonomics are bad and the charging port is in inconvenient location. What's good about it? Anything? Most Logitech mice go for months on a set of batteries too.

>Most Logitech mice go for months on a set of batteries too.

Definitely not true for the two MX Masters I have owned - they need charging every couple of weeks. But also I often just leave them plugged in, because, get this, they put the charging port at the back.

I own and like apple products, android, Google, Microsoft, razr, keychron, Logitech.

The apple mouse is one of the worst mainstream products I've ever had to use. It has no advantages that can even begin to scratch away at the terrible TERRIBLE ergonomics alone.

The main thing it has going for it is the whole surface of the mouse is touch sensitive, so you can do 2/3 finger gestures on it.

I hated that feature SOOO much. It was so difficult to grab the mouse without accidentally doing some additional gesture. I'm really glad that feature never caught on.

It did catch on, in that you can still do it with a brand new Magic Mouse on today's macOS.

I use a Magic Trackpad day to day, but back when I worked in an office I would occasionally use a Magic Mouse, and I liked the gestures. (Hated the charging port location, of course.)

>The ergonomics are bad. The charging isn’t.

Yes, it was the ergonomics I particularly despised. The charging was salt in the wound.

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