Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards • Hacker News Board

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#221

Post by mertd » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #156

I quite enjoy typing on the new keyboard (2017 MBP), and have not had any issues. 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).

As a mechanical keyboard fan, I'm quite impressed with how much tactile feedback the keys provide despite the short travel. I could live without the touchbar though.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#222

Post by api » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

This is what happens when you hyper-optimize for a single dimension in a many-dimensional optimization problem. In this case it's "thin and light."

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.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#223

Post by lallysingh » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #168

Chaebixi wrote: post #138

Don't worry everyone! Apple's going to fix this in the next version by replacing the keyboard with a touch screen!

Don't give them ideas. Just... don't. The all new Electro Tactile Keyboard. It is the most amazing typing experience you have ever had on a keyboard. 3 years later everyone is wandering around with claws for hands, having forgotten what real keyboards do for human to computer interaction.

Ahem, this isn't a new idea for them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#224

Post by api » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #203

nrclark wrote: post #5

My work gave me one of the 2016 15" MBPs as my main computer, and the keyboard is horrible. 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 extern…

It's really just an accident of history, not intentional on Apple's part, that Macs became popular with developers. In an alternate universe Jobs isn't kicked out of Apple, doesn't develop NeXT based on Unix, and Apple continues merrily snubbing developers and not accidentally attracting them the way they did. In this alternate universe I believe more energy and funding would have been directed at Linux and it would…

Agreed.

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.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#225

Post by heartbreak » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

nfoz wrote: post #95

csydas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I'm not even sure that aside from intentionally editing the PowerManagement.plist that you can do this. On my Macbook Air, you have to hold in the power button for a short period to produce the Sleep/Restert/Shutdown pop-up, and the default is cancel, I believe. Apple's own page on the matter says it requires a 1.5 second hold to produce. [0] I appreciate your over-all sentiment that when the default behavior…

Thanks. Updated, and probably this thread is off-topic enough that I should just delete it. 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.

Go tap the power button on a Macbook keyboard. It doesn't do anything. Hold the power button and it prompts.

It's a tad unbelievable.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#226

Post by nextos » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 5:03 PM UTC

api wrote: post #224

guelo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really just an accident of history, not intentional on Apple's part, that Macs became popular with developers. In an alternate universe Jobs isn't kicked out of Apple, doesn't develop NeXT based on Unix, and Apple continues merrily snubbing developers and not accidentally attracting them the way they did. In this alternate universe I believe more energy and funding would have been directed at Linux and it would…

Agreed. 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.

For me the most interesting distros are vanilla binary rolling-release ones, which ship all stuff from upstream unchanged. I love Arch, but Slackware and a few others are interesting too.

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.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#227

Post by gingerb » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

I am a developer spending 10+ hours a day on my old macbook pro (2015 model). It is without doubt the best pc I've ever had. And I am treating it with even more care now.

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.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#228

Post by heartbreak » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

executesorder66 wrote: post #66

> “Hold on,” I said. “If a single piece of dust lays the whole computer out, don't you think that's kind of a problem?” > ... > 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.

What do you expect him to say? He's not an Apple engineer. He didn't design the keyboard. He's a blue-shirt working customer service at an Apple store.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#229

Post by vosper » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

mvdwoord wrote: post #218

rbanffy wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the touchbar is much better at that specific role. It also opens up different forms of interaction for other applications. 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…

The touchbar is worse imo. The problem is the lack of tactile feedback, plus unwanted "keypresses" when your fingers wander over it. 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.

It's a mystery to me why they didn't do this, at least on the 15" Macbook. Instead they made the already-plenty-big-enough touchpad even larger. A secondary screen / input control above the full keyboard would be awesome. It'd be a great way to get notifications (tests passed, build finished, sports scores, whatever...) or have ad-hoc controls.

Re: Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards

#230

Post by blahedo » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC

BlackjackCF wrote: post #171

nrclark wrote: post #5

My work gave me one of the 2016 15" MBPs as my main computer, and the keyboard is horrible. 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 extern…

> Who the hell decided that programmers don't need a functional ESC key or permanent function keys? I find functional keys nice, but not necessary. I also just remapped ESC to capslock since I never use capslock anyway.

My years on a Sun keyboard spoiled me, so I remap backquote to escape (much more easily reachable than now-standard Escape location). Also Capslock to control and swap backspace and backslash. Everything I use more frequently is closer in. :)