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MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

ryanbigg.com

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Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#22
post #10

> If Apple releases their new Macs with an identical keyboard, then I'm ditching Macs and will pick up a Microsoft Surface Book or something similar. Whatever it is, I'll make sure to pick a laptop that has a god damned functional keyboard. Same here, MBP keyboards are unbearable. Trying to develop on OSX has become a hassle. Gotta jump through hoops to get gdb to work. Windows with WSL on a Surface Book feels extrem…

Go give windows a try and report back.

I've been using Windows for the past couple of weeks and, granted maybe I haven't really given it a chance, using it after using Macs for 10+ years is not great.

Maybe developing on macOS has become a hassle (I don't see that, but sure), but doing everything on Windows is a hassle. Taking a screenshot. Opening the right file. Displaying UI at a reasonable scale. Think what you want of macOS 'recently', but Windows is just full of bets and decisions that show they're not really concerned about the user experience.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#23
post #10

> If Apple releases their new Macs with an identical keyboard, then I'm ditching Macs and will pick up a Microsoft Surface Book or something similar. Whatever it is, I'll make sure to pick a laptop that has a god damned functional keyboard. Same here, MBP keyboards are unbearable. Trying to develop on OSX has become a hassle. Gotta jump through hoops to get gdb to work. Windows with WSL on a Surface Book feels extrem…

i'm surprised anyone can develop on a laptop keyboard anyway.

an interesting product would be a keyboard sleeve. it doubles as a carry sleeve when the macbook is closed.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#24

> For the most part, it sits on one of two desks that I use or it sits on my lap on the train. If this is the case, do yourself a favor and go and buy two ergonomic screens, keyboards and mice - one for each location. It'll save you becoming a hunched over laptop gremlin.

I already have a mechanical keyboard for one of the two desks, and in the new year I'll only have _one_ desk, so I'll move that keyboard over to there. I don't mind the trackpad, but I've considered getting one of those vertical mice.

I think using an external keyboard should just be a general assumption for laptop usage. The built ins are terrible due to the misaligned priorities of manufacturers both in terms of key depth and wear resistance. I type strong, maybe even stronk, so keyboards have a definite lifetime to them.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#26

I'm glad that others are voicing the same issues I'm experiencing. Sometimes I wonder if I'm taking crazy pills. My solution has been to place an Apple bluetooth keyboard -on top- of my 15" MBP keyboard and that seems to work pretty well, but wow, it shouldn't have come to this...

Thankfully I get to make my own hardware decisions, so I've made a point of ordering a new MBP every time a new revision is released, and promptly returning it to Apple the next day when I realize the keyboard is still absolute rubbish.

I would like to think that maybe if some person at Apple runs a report for returns and see that "keyboard" accounts for a huge majority of returns, they may actually act with some semblance of haste.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#27
I used to be the guy saying that this wasn't such a big deal, not worth the fuss. Until it happened to me. I have issues with spaces (random spaces inserted here and there). It's not bad enough that I have to get my computer fixed urgently, but it is annoying. It's not what you expect from such a high-end device. I haven't taken the time to see what's Apple answer to these problems, but I do hope that this will be fixed free of charge without them keeping my computer for too long...

> I'm ditching Macs and will pick up a Microsoft Surface Book

I'm not to that point yet. I'm not an apple fanboy, and I'm not really happy about the direction Apple is taking. But I still prefer Mac OS to Linux or Windows, and I've never seen a non-apple laptop that I've found particularly attractive. And they usually have their own issues too.

Let's hope they'll fix this particular issue.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#28
post #10

> If Apple releases their new Macs with an identical keyboard, then I'm ditching Macs and will pick up a Microsoft Surface Book or something similar. Whatever it is, I'll make sure to pick a laptop that has a god damned functional keyboard. Same here, MBP keyboards are unbearable. Trying to develop on OSX has become a hassle. Gotta jump through hoops to get gdb to work. Windows with WSL on a Surface Book feels extrem…

The Surface Book 2's (the model I own) keyboard is probably one of the best laptop keyboard on the market today. Proper key travel and spacing and it's even backlit. I particularly like that they volume controls are on F1-F3 since they plus the Fn key can be operated single-handedly.

I just wish it ran Linux better - I find Windows unusable.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#29

I'm glad that others are voicing the same issues I'm experiencing. Sometimes I wonder if I'm taking crazy pills. My solution has been to place an Apple bluetooth keyboard -on top- of my 15" MBP keyboard and that seems to work pretty well, but wow, it shouldn't have come to this...

??? People has been voicing this for years.

While it had been a common complaint before, Casey Johnson really blew the story up in 2017 https://theoutline.com/post/2402/the-new-macbook-keyboard-is...

WSJ: "Appl Still Hasn’t Fixd Its MacBook Kyboad Problm" https://www.wsj.com/graphics/apple-still-hasnt-fixed-its-mac...

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