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Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

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Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#241

Post by endorphone »

alehul wrote: post #108
coldtea wrote: post #78

15+ years as an Apple user, this is my biggest pet peeve. The other two being: - the touch strip, which I find mostly annoying. I'd prefer physical buttons with the ability to show different labels (a la Optimus keyboard). - whichever idiot thought putting the power plug at the bottom of the Magic Mouse was a good idea.

> whichever idiot thought putting the power plug at the bottom of the Magic Mouse was a good idea. For those not familiar with the Apple Mouse, the commenter means that the power plug is on the part that you’re supposed to have on the mousepad, meaning you can’t charge it while using it, at all. Easily the worst way to design a mouse, ever. I don’t understand how it was approved.

The thing charges in no time at all, and lasts forever. It is a seriously overstated "problem".

It is my work mouse for 99% of my working time, and as a very heavy user of it I love the mouse, and it just isn't something that enters my mindspace at all.

I feel like this conversation is one half people who have and use the mouse, and who have no problem with it, and one half people who don't use the mouse and imagine that it's some critical issue that they would face daily. And the latter are busy down arrowing anyone who isn't outraged about a non-issue.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#242

Post by rootlocus »

mrybczyn wrote: post #181
lostmyoldone wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropping the magnetic power cord connector is a major issue for me, but otherwise I wholeheartedly agree.

Magplug charging is magical! Easily the best contribution to computer design from Apple, ever. And then it gets dropped... I wonder if the poor hardware has to do with increasingly outsourced R&D. I mean, everyone at Apple is rich, why should they bother with all the hard details ...

I don't have any sources for this, but I always assumed they dropped the magplug because it was too thick and they wanted to use usb-c exclusively.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#243

Post by bnolsen »

Lack of competition in the Apple ecosystem, plain and simple. I think people know this before making the jump. Or they work for a company that forces them into choosing between a windows or osx laptop. I'm in this crowd and I have no love for either. I despise apple hardware but hate windows itself far more.

Most people are best served with a good chromebook. That crowd won't be the ones frequenting this type website.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#244

Post by Waterluvian »

endorphone wrote: post #241
alehul wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whichever idiot thought putting the power plug at the bottom of the Magic Mouse was a good idea. For those not familiar with the Apple Mouse, the commenter means that the power plug is on the part that you’re supposed to have on the mousepad, meaning you can’t charge it while using it, at all. Easily the worst way to design a mouse, ever. I don’t understand how it was approved.

The thing charges in no time at all, and lasts forever. It is a seriously overstated "problem". It is my work mouse for 99% of my working time, and as a very heavy user of it I love the mouse, and it just isn't something that enters my mindspace at all. I feel like this conversation is one half people who have and use the mouse, and who have no problem with it, and one half people who don't use the mouse and imagine…

It's a stupid design. So what if a lot of people aren't affected by it?

My mouse is wireless. When it says battery low you know what I do? I plug it in and it looks just like a wired mouse for an hour.

Tell me what exactly you get in exchange for losing that feature? Sexiness?

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#245

Post by vbezhenar »

robertAngst wrote: post #172
vbezhenar wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using iPhone and I did some Android development recently. I bought quite recent phone (cheap as hell, of course, but it's not slow). Sorry, Android is still not going to win over iOS for me. Price is awesome, yeah, that phone for $200 is as good as my $1000 iPhone, but Android is for very different kind of people than I am. And even that advantage seems to vanish in new versions (e.g. it seems that you can't reco…

Do you have any reasons? You didn't post any in your comment.

There are many little things, I just don't feel that Android UI is as polished. I can live with them or in some cases I probably can customize things, but it's still irritation.

Here are some random ones:

* When I have to enter pin (6 digits) I must press "OK". iPhone unlocks after 6-th digit automatically.

* It seems that Android app developers prefer the ad model. I don't have a single app on iOS with ads. Yet it's hard to find a single app in Android without ads. And I hate them.

* I spent something like 30 minutes trying to add a second phone number to my own android contact. I did not succeed. Theoretically I have to go to Google profile and add it there. But that button was not there. With iOS me is just another contact that I can edit as any other contact.

* To turn off all radios (airplane mode) I have to swipe from top, then swipe again to uncover the full menu, then swipe again to go to the right menu and only there I can click to enable airplane mode. With iOS it's one swipe and one click. I guess that I can customize this screen with Android and I can't with iOS... I don't want to bother, actually.

* I hate back button philosophy. I don't want to switch to other apps with back button. I prefer back buttons in app UI.

* I can't tap top bar to scroll to the top. Some websites provide that button as part of their UI, so may be it's just an iOS habit.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#246

Post by usaphp »

muraiki wrote: post #160

I had slowly been moving into the Apple ecosystem, buying an iPad, iPhone, and even a HomePod and Apple Music. I was largely motivated by a respect for Apple's stance on privacy. Then it came time for me to buy a laptop and I encountered these numerous reports of Apple screwing up one of the most basic parts of the computer. I couldn't justify spending so much on a laptop plus AppleCare, which would only result in ge…

> I couldn't justify spending so much on a laptop

Apple MacBooks lately are being priced on par with the competition. You want premium screen and trackpad - you will have to pay just as much for a windows laptop.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#247

Post by endorphone »

Waterluvian wrote: post #244
endorphone wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing charges in no time at all, and lasts forever. It is a seriously overstated "problem". It is my work mouse for 99% of my working time, and as a very heavy user of it I love the mouse, and it just isn't something that enters my mindspace at all. I feel like this conversation is one half people who have and use the mouse, and who have no problem with it, and one half people who don't use the mouse and imagine…

It's a stupid design. So what if a lot of people aren't affected by it? My mouse is wireless. When it says battery low you know what I do? I plug it in and it looks just like a wired mouse for an hour. Tell me what exactly you get in exchange for losing that feature? Sexiness?

The magic mouse is easily the best mouse I've ever used. It feels nice, works great, and the capacitive touch feature is one I now consider mandatory.

Could they put the port somewhere else? Not with the current design (and it's a design that works spectacularly well for flicking and scrolling with fingers on the touch surface -- it seems to be a bit more than a design for looks). Well I suppose they could put it on the left or the right, but that would be stupid. They can't fit it on the ends. So they should have designed it for a non-issue that users of the mouse have no trouble with?

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#248

Post by bnolsen »

robertAngst wrote: post #154
vbezhenar wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is good experience to be able to buy Apple device and be sure that everything there is pretty good. Choosing among thousands of alternatives is pretty frustrating. What brand should I choose? HP, Dell, Lenovo, IBM, Acer, Asus, whatever? I need good display, fast CPU, good battery life, enough RAM. Pretty vague requirements. You are buying Macbook and it's just good, you don't have any regrets, because its CPU is o…

>buy Apple device and be sure that everything there is pretty good. The alternative is that you spend 30 minutes of research and get a superior product cheaper. This isnt an opinion, this is reality. You can find a computer with better specs than Apple, cheaper. I'm not sympathetic to the 'mom' who doesn't know what RAM is, they get penalized by Apple for being an uninformed consumer. Is there any reason for a 'Nerd'…

The apple hardware: crap keyboard, any slight usage leads to blaring fans and immediate thermal throttling. Options mean end users could actually pick something that fits their needs and not have to live with what Apple thinks YOU need. There have been times when choices haven't been good on the non apple side but in recent years the apple's few top down dictated choices on the hardware side have led to clearly inferior products.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#250

Post by ravenstine »

Okay, they haven't admitted their mistaken design to the public. So what? That says nothing about what design changes they might make in the future.

There are definitely things to point out about Apple's current generation of MacBooks, but I really don't get the vitriol people currently have for them.

Sure, I liked the MagSafe charging port, but USB-3 has so far been better than I expected. I only need one kind of cable for most things now, and can charge my phone and my MacBook off the same charger.

The touchbar is kind of bullshit to me, though. It hasn't provided any benefit and is really just a nuisance when I somehow inadvertently touch virtual keys when reaching for the delete key. Other times, it shuts off after non-use during things like Google Hangouts, in which case what's the point of the virtual keys if I can't see them all the time? Yet the touchbar doesn't offend me enough that I wouldn't buy another MacBook in the future.

These are still good computers. I used to be a Windows and Linux guy, but all the non-Apple laptops I owned had significant flaws that usually didn't reveal themselves at first. My experience with 2014+ MacBooks has been excellent in contrast, with updates always being very smooth, no hardware failures besides soy sauce jamming up my spacebar, and a consistent experience overall.

I get people's criticisms, but I also think people need to chill out a bit, and that some of the vitriol is being manufactured by journalists(for better or worse, it's popular right now to attack Big Tech).

If you don't like the butterfly keys, you can still buy a 2015 MacBook brand new or refurbished and it's really just as good for most purposes. My main laptop is a mid-2014 MacBook Pro and it's still working great with Mojave.

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