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MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

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Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#291

Post by gnicholas »

asdff wrote: post #259
spraak wrote: post #77

I agree that the keyboard is terrible, but I think it's weird how many people just suffer through it and don't do anything about it. I put an external keyboard on top of the built in one (with a custom made plastic plate to block the keys of the built in from getting pressed). I am stuck with the laptop but I'm not going to be stuck with a bad keyboard.

Any cupertino locals hereplease start making appearances in coffee shops with a big fat ugly external keyboard duct taped on top of their macbook.

A friend once told me where Tim Cook goes for coffee in the AM. I'm tempted to set up shop inside with a big honking keyboard balanced on top of my MBP.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#292

Post by gilesgate »

jiveturkey wrote: post #23
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'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.

Not really surprising. Old MBA 2013 has an awesome keyboard for coding (and is overall a great terminal device), and the Apple Wireless is identical to some MBA/MBP keyboards. The effective distance between the keys and the overall general width of the keyboard are pretty much en par with "proper" desktop keyboards, with excellent responsiveness and key travel. The MBP 2018 is another deal altogether, obviously. Sad, sad story.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#293

Post by dmitriid »

kalleboo wrote: post #248
orpheline wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I use a MBP for work, and hate that Finder intermixes directories and files. I much prefer having directories sorted separately: it makes it easier to drill down through a hierarchy of all the directories are grouped together...

I browse my file system a lot with the keyboard by typing the first few letters in a file name, and if directories are sorted on the top, that means getting to a file starting with the letter "F" is way more difficult when there are also directories named with "F". It also makes things messy when you have related files and folder. E.g. how Firefox saves a website as a "page name.html" and a directory with the assets…

> At least in the Finder on the Mac you can turn your preferred behavior on

Per directory. There’s still no way to set the desired view and sorting for the entire system.

And DMGs will open with no toolbar and sidebar.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#294

Post by gilesgate »

andrepd wrote: post #11
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.

Honestly the clit mouse probably works better than both trackpads.

Might you mean the "nipple"?

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#295

Post by gilesgate »

gnicholas wrote: post #285
snockerton wrote: post #6

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...

Can't believe I haven't thought of this! I've been using an Apple BT keyboard with my MBP but never thought to stack it right on top of the butterfly keyboard. I can confirm that it fits the 13" MPB, just like your 15"!

Haven't tried that, but it really sounds it would be terrible to the wrists after prolonged use (in which case "prolonged" would mean longer than 10-15 minutes).

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#296

Post by tlobes »

I'm stuck with a $4000 brick I cannot use without frustration. Given that I'm still paying it off, this really hurts motivation.

Another issue that seems to be overlooked is the overly big force touchpad that, in combination with the awful keyboard, will not correctly reject my palms while I type, causing the cursor to move elsewhere, oftentimes causing unintended button clicks, premature email sends, page transitions, etc.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#297

Post by gnicholas »

gnicholas wrote: post #285
snockerton wrote: post #6

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...

Can't believe I haven't thought of this! I've been using an Apple BT keyboard with my MBP but never thought to stack it right on top of the butterfly keyboard. I can confirm that it fits the 13" MPB, just like your 15"!

Update: my Apple BT keyboard (which is many years old -- it takes 3 AA batteries, not 2) slightly covers the top of the trackpad on my 13" MBP. This means that the palm rejection algorithm does not work as well. I may be able to get it to work for me by just adjusting how I hold my hands when typing, but it's not a clear home-run with my smaller laptop and possibly larger keyboard. I would seriously consider getting a smaller BT keyboard to make this work, though.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#299

Post by duskwuff »

m463 wrote: post #236
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.

no. I think the original first gen macbook pro keyboard was really good. - The keys were shaped to match the curve of your finger - the stroke distance was very nice - escape key I think it started going downhill with the flat keys. Your fingers could not feel the key edges, would therefore not center, and you would mistype.

The current-gen keys are shaped. Subtly, but it's there.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#300

Post by waterhouse »

kalleboo wrote: post #210
tolmasky wrote: post #37

The worst part is that I can tell this keyboard is actually having a detrimental effect on my typing abilities. Since being on these keyboards for years now, I've noticed that my typing speed has slowed, as I spend a significant amount of cognitive energy preparing to fix mistakes. The faster you type, the more annoying it is to go farther back to fix something. I'm not sure how to quantify the focus it steals from t…

> having to wait 3 days for a repair He's lucky he has an Apple Store to go to. I had to turn in my 2017 MBP to a "Authorized Service Provider" who in turn had to send it in to Apple. I was without my machine for 10 days (luckily I still had my old, working 2012 MBPr I could just imagine my machine onto and keep working)

> just imagine my machine onto and keep working

I assume you installed an image of your 2017 machine onto the 2012 machine... but the idea of imagining onto a machine is a nice one.

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