Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook • Hacker News Board

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#271

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #206

aleem wrote: post #188

Apple has squandered a lot of its goodwill. It reminds me of my relationship with Microsoft products. As long as they were shipping, they were making money in the short term because people were coerced to buy in. For 5 damn years the Air didn't get a Retina display. Right now, I can't buy 2.8Ghz Macbook Pro unless I get the TouchBar. I can't buy an Air unless I settle for much lower specs. The dongles and USB-C are a…

See, I use a retina MBP touchbar and really don't agree. Apple has made some missteps but it's still the best pro laptop for my uses. Over two years with one replaced keyboard (because I spilled wine on it!) and no sticking keys. USB-C is awesome. I can reuse all my 3rd party and Apple adapters for my USB-C peripherals, including tablets and the Nintendo Switch. In retrospect, Magsafe wasn't that great (comes off too…

> Magsafe wasn't that great (comes off too easily)

THAT IS THE ENTIRE GENIUS POINT!

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#272

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

alxlaz wrote: post #174

afandian wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lenovo Yoga Book is a hinged tablet. Bottom half is a glass surface with both capacitive touch and Wacom digitiser. It comes with a Wacom pen, which has a swappable ballpoint pen nib so you can draw on paper and have it digitised. There's a backlit silkscreen-type stencil that shines through a (permanent) keyboard layout. And touchpad. So, it's touch-screen typing on a fixed keyboard layout. And you can swap betw…

It baffles me that anyone would even attempt this, considering that a very similar technology -- not touchscreen keyboard, but with roughly similar properties -- has been tried in the 1980s, repeatedly, and has been, well, pretty much a failure for general-purpose computing. (Edit: for confused readers, what we used to call a "membrane keyboard" looked like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Ma…

[deleted]

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#273

Post by dep_b » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:11 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #246

parasubvert wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the Magsafe adapter cords would fray, corrode, and blacken pretty easily, becoming a fire hazard. Every Macbook I owned, I would need at least one replacement over a 3 year period. The amount of time taken to re-plugin it in vs. times it saved my laptop from flying, really it was an overrated feature. USB-C comes out easily enough. Don't get me wrong, I liked Magsafe. But I don't understand the passion for it…

Apple is known for touting things that it ships like they’re the next sliced bread, and then promptly forgetting them or even saying the opposite: MagSafe: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2WknqkDzLTQ Phones for single hand operation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O99m7lebirE Mac App Store: https://www.macworld.com/article/1160331/WWDC_mac_app_store.... Steve Jobs used to constantly claim that Mac’s RISC processors were…

Well the G3 when it shipped it was pretty competitive if not faster, the G4 still was pretty good in some benchmarks but the Intel / AMD post Athlon fight broke loose by then so by the time Apple switched to the Core architecture they were pretty far behind in performance unless you were using 2 or 3 hand picked Photoshop filters all day.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#274

Post by ramphastidae » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

LeonM wrote: post #249

aleem wrote: post #188

Apple has squandered a lot of its goodwill. It reminds me of my relationship with Microsoft products. As long as they were shipping, they were making money in the short term because people were coerced to buy in. For 5 damn years the Air didn't get a Retina display. Right now, I can't buy 2.8Ghz Macbook Pro unless I get the TouchBar. I can't buy an Air unless I settle for much lower specs. The dongles and USB-C are a…

People should really stop complaining about the dongle situation. Just about any portable device can be bought with USB-C or wireless. For fixed desk hardware (keyboard, mouse, monitor, ethernet) you should use a TB dock anyway. Yes, if you do presentations you probably need a dongle for the projector, but that has always been a mess anyway (VGA, HDMI, DP, DVI, it's never the same connection as your laptop). Yes, if…

People should really stop defending the dongle situation ...

My 4K monitor bought in 2016 doesn't have a USB C input so I need to purchase a $20+ USB-C to HDMI or DP cable if I want to use a monitor?

My iPhone SE bought in 2016 uses Lightning so I have to buy a $20+ Lightning to USB C cable to charge that as well? I guess I should throw out all of the other Lightning to USB-not-C cables I've had to purchase over the years?

My Apple USB keyboard bought in 2016 also uses USB-not-C so I guess I have to buy an adapter for that too?

Meanwhile my 2013 MBP is perfectly capable of connecting to a monitor and keyboard and charging a phone without paying for add-ons.

On top of that you suggest we "should" be using a $200+ TB dock anyway?

How about Apple doesn't require users to buy $300+ of adapters to use their latest laptop with modern peripherals?

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#275

Post by skohan » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

thiht wrote: post #118

mschuster91 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP means real USB ports not the horror that is USB-C

What's wrong with usb c ?

I've been gradually moving over to all USB-C peripherals, and the experience is great. It's an ergonomic connector, and it's nice not to have a bunch of separate subtypes for different applications (normal, micro, that weird long one etc.). The main problem has been lack of support for USB-C in peripheral manufacturers.

For instance, in the last couple years I purchased a high-end E-Reader and a pair of noise-canceling headphones, and neither of them had USB-C as an option (the headphones do as of the most recent iteraation, but oh well). Also it's impossible to find a Thunderbolt over USB-C external SSD which has a small form-factor and isn't obscenely expensive.

I'm ready to move into the USB-C-only future, but the ecosystem still isn't quite there yet.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#276

Post by zamfi » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

ramphastidae wrote: post #251

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the warm and fuzzy feeling USB-C gives nerds, cause of the open standard and interoperability, and cause it only takes one attempt to actually plug it in; but I just cannot fathom how Apple replaced Magsafe with USB-C. Magsafe was one of those magical Apple features from the mid 2000s that just delight and work incredibly well and almost seem like science fiction. It's not like they had shitty power adapters an…

You don't understand because you haven't shifted your mindset about Apple correctly. As a former Apple fan I was the same way. Apple under Tim Cook is motivated by shareholder value , not usability or design leadership, as they were under Steve Jobs. They got rid of Magsafe and the rest of the useful ports and added USB-C not because of the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives nerds, but because it streamlines factory pro…

> They got rid of Magsafe and the rest of the useful ports and added USB-C not because of the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives nerds, but because it streamlines factory production and makes the laptop thinner.

A “former apple fan” should surely remember the hand-wringing over the iMac USB switch too. And Lightning?

Apple has always pushed almost-there technologies with benefits over legacy tech, this isn’t about “shareholder value”.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#277

Post by Larrikin » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

clolege wrote: post #253

parasubvert wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the Magsafe adapter cords would fray, corrode, and blacken pretty easily, becoming a fire hazard. Every Macbook I owned, I would need at least one replacement over a 3 year period. The amount of time taken to re-plugin it in vs. times it saved my laptop from flying, really it was an overrated feature. USB-C comes out easily enough. Don't get me wrong, I liked Magsafe. But I don't understand the passion for it…

I wonder if you had a counterfeit Magsafe adapter? They commonly get shipped with used Macbooks, and get quite a bit hotter than their genuine counterparts. I have personally preferred the Magsafe adapters ever since I had a USB-C powered Macbook slide off my bed by accident. It didn't fall far, but it landed right on the power cable and damaged both the USB port and the cable. Understandably, Macbooks are not design…

I never had any cords fray ever on any product I ever owned.

Except for basically every single Apple product I ever got that had one of those stupid white cords no matter how gently I treated it. I've never bought anything Apple related from somewhere other than Apple and have been buying Apple products since the first iPod with the physical moveable wheel.

I think within the last few years they finally changed how they made the cords. My replacement Apple brick for my Macbook pro still looks filthy after a couple years of use, but has surprisingly not started fraying.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#278

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

mdemare wrote: post #268

pier25 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're obsolete. That is simply false. The biggest mice and keyboard manufacturers still ship with USB-A cables. Even Apple itself ships its mice and keyboards with USB-A cables.

Apple doesn’t sell any wired mice or keyboards AFAICT.

The wireless keyboards and touchpads have a Lightning-to-USB-A cord, which can be plugged into the computer directly. Primarily for charging, but if you charge off the computer it'll use the wire instead of Bluetooth for typing.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#279

Post by puranjay » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

aleem wrote: post #188

Apple has squandered a lot of its goodwill. It reminds me of my relationship with Microsoft products. As long as they were shipping, they were making money in the short term because people were coerced to buy in. For 5 damn years the Air didn't get a Retina display. Right now, I can't buy 2.8Ghz Macbook Pro unless I get the TouchBar. I can't buy an Air unless I settle for much lower specs. The dongles and USB-C are a…

How do people see removing Magsafe as a downgrade? My wife's Air has a Magsafe and the damn thing just keeps falling off.

My new Air's charger has none of those problems. And if the cable gets torn, I can just plug in another.

Even better, I can charge my other devices from the same cable. Right now, I'm charging my OnePlus phone with the same cable.

This was definitely one case where Apple actually practiced some pragmatism

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#280

Post by skohan » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

hyperbovine wrote: post #191

gourou wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like gently pushed out, he's still consulting for them. I hope they revert other changes: bring back magsafe and USB ports

The "consulting" thing is pure window-dressing IMO. I have several friends who work for Apple, and from talking to them (+ everything I've ever read about their culture) either you're in the tent or you're out. Outsiders have no meaningful role in their process.

It really makes me appreciate how valuable it is to have a physical mute button on every device which makes sound. Especially when it gets hung for a few seconds, and I have to manually mute from the task bar using the cursor.