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MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

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Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#41

Post by dsego »

blinkingled wrote: post #34
madeofpalk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Taking a screenshot. Opening the right file Former is PrtScn key on my keyboard. Microsoft ships Snipping Tools and lately Snip n Sketch for screenshots - never had any issues with either. Latter - not sure what you mean - opening the right file as in setting default program to open a file? That's easy enough and it's the best experience on Windows.

PrtScn only if you want to paste it into an image editing program. If you want to save it as file (which is what most people do) than it's some combo. I still remember how it was common for people to send me word files with screenshots pasted, they didn't know better.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#42

Post by jrochkind1 »

buu700 wrote: post #33

This is the sole reason I recently upgraded to a souped up 2015 MBP: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/B07WCCW4GS/R50D0AGJ5M872 I expect this to last me a decent handful of years; if Apple hasn't gotten their shit together by then, no matter how much I otherwise like their hardware, I'll have no choice but to pick something else and switch back to Linux.

"Not currently available" on the product listing.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#44

Post by hunta2097 »

iamleppert wrote: post #12

I switched to a Thinkpad after I had the horror of using a new Macbook. Running Ubuntu is lovely, so much so that for a developer there is little reason to be using a Macbook anymore. You can get a lot more bang for the buck using a Thinkpad AND have a functional keyboard. Apple should be very worried. Once they loose the developers, users won't be long to follow.

Dell XPS15 with Ubuntu has literally been my best developer environment ever.

Unfortunately my current gig is all MBP and I feel completely handicapped, even after many months - to the point I have resorted to a "proper" mechanical keyboard.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#45

Post by drspacemonkey »

ngngngng wrote: post #8

Switched to a thinkpad x1 carbon just over a month ago, coming from years of macbooks. I'm over the moon. The trackpad isn't as good, but all the things I use the trackpad for are easily replaced with keyboard shortcuts.

I went with an XPS13 a couple years ago. Display is great (I'd say on-par with Apple), keyboard is far superior to the new MacBooks, touchpad is about 90% compared to MacBooks, and I'm pretty sure it's thinner. For sure the smaller bezel gives it a smaller footprint.

Battery life was pretty decent after autotuning power settings through powertop, too. Better than I'm getting on my current work-issued MacBook, at least.

Only real annoyance for me was the wifi, which would vanish off the face of the earth after resuming from suspend. But I was able to replace it with a $15 Intel, a tiny screwdriver, and some patience.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#47

Post by abtinf »

therein wrote: 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 also dislike the keyboards, but it’s not quite enough to prevent me from buying one.

The real showstopper is that the keyboard is an almost certain failure point and fixing it means a multi-week wait. Losing my primary machine for such a long time would be a catastrophe. With Lenovo and Dell, I can easily add a 5 year next-business-day on-site service warranty—for the same price as AppleCare+. But AppleCare has no business-class warranty service options, just shitty mail-in service.

I bought a ThinkPad P1 recently. There was an issue with the touchpad I noticed as soon as I unboxed it. I called Lenovo Premier support, which has no wait time and no phone menu: calls are answered by a highly autonomous support agent (I believe in Florida) who can do whatever is needed to fix the problem. By noon the next day, technician was onsite and replaced the entire top half of the unit (equivalent to the MacBook keyboard repair).

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#48

Post by akkartik »

timfrietas wrote: post #39
hannibalhorn wrote: post #25

For everyone that hasn't seen it, reports are they've already decided to change the keyboard on forthcoming models. Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353148 Edit: added "reports are"

I really wish this was the top comment. I feel like HN is turning a little too much into an echo chamber dunk fest sometimes.

Cut us some slack, we're all spending _all_ our time on shit keyboards.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#49

Post by madeofpalk »

blinkingled wrote: post #34
madeofpalk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Taking a screenshot. Opening the right file Former is PrtScn key on my keyboard. Microsoft ships Snipping Tools and lately Snip n Sketch for screenshots - never had any issues with either. Latter - not sure what you mean - opening the right file as in setting default program to open a file? That's easy enough and it's the best experience on Windows.

Press print screen and it does... I'm not sure what?

I /remembered "Snipping Tool", so I searched for "Snip" and launched that, and it shows a menu that says like "Snipping Tool is deprecated, use Snip n Sketch" so you click that and a new app opens (but old one stays open as well) and you take your screenshot and then its open in a window that you have to go and save.

I know I'm biased because its what I'm used to for 10 years, but on Mac I just have the (insane) cmd + shift + 4 shortcut engrained that'll snip a part of my screen and save to my Desktop. It's just so much quicker than Windows.

re opening file: I miss Quicklook to make sure I have the right file selected. Also miss being able to drag a file into an open dialogue box to select it to open.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#50

Post by samcheng »

zmmmmm wrote: post #35

The worst thing is, the 2015 MBP keyboard was nearly perfect. The vast majority of the time I don't even use an external keyboard even when I am working at a desk and am plugged into monitor. It's one thing to fail at designing something because it is hard and you haven't figured it out yet. It's quite another to regress to incompetence on something you already perfected.

The 2015 MBP is great! I have a spare one stockpiled.

I wish they would keep it basically as-is, replace one of the (generally unused) thunderbolt ports with a USB-C port, add their secure enclave T2 security chip, and update the CPU/chipset. Maybe even add FaceID...

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