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MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

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Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#461

Post by mkl »

commandersaki wrote: post #426
mkl wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean "OSX" instead of "Linux" here? If not, I don't understand.

Since the release of OSX 10.3, Linux has lagged when it comes to accessibility for vision impaired users (back then it didn't even have anything to offer).

Linux's accessibility didn't get worse due to a particular OSX release though, so the way you phrased it was quite confusing. I'm not sure you're right, either. Debian seems to have had TTS and Braille device support (including during installation) since before OSX 10.3 was released.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#462

Post by bildung »

vmurthy wrote: post #431
aglionby wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wait 3 days for a repair My 2015 MBP is affected by the battery recall and they want 2-3 weeks to send it off to a repair centre to have the battery replaced. No chance to have it done in-store owing to safety concerns (which I'm not sure I entirely buy given that it's an overheating issue, but it's hard to tell without the full details). And no budging on the timeframe or possibility of a loaner. One of the more f…

> My 2015 MBP is affected by the battery recall and they want 2-3 weeks to send it off If you really have to understand the pain, the laptops are banned in Indian flights (domestic and international)[1]. Imagine a company issued laptop not being usable at an important customer exhibition and a lag of 2-3 weeks :-( https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/specific-model...

And only a few years ago, before the thinnness wars, this would have been a complete non-issue: One would just fly without the battery attached, as those were easily removable.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#463

Post by pizzapill »

bsder wrote: post #421
puranjay wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm off the Apple train. I honestly don't trust them to make reliable hardware anymore. They've had three years to fix this mess but they have shown zero initiative or intention to do it. Apple has consistently shown that it cares more about form over function. No one needs their laptops to be any thinner than they already are. And no one needs the useless, expensive touchbar.

Ayup. Finally broke down and bought a Lenovo X1 Carbon 7th Gen running Windows 10 and Debian dual booted. I have a useful keyboard, Bluetooth that doesn't randomly die, graphics drivers that don't suck and a MATTE SCREEN . I didn't even realize that you could get a laptop with one anymore--I practically cried tears of joy when I opened it up and didn't see a reflection in the screen. I'm slowly transitioning off of m…

> MATTE SCREEN

Some of the old thinkpads had a display where you could turn off the backlight outside and use the sunlight.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#464

Post by viraptor »

coldtea wrote: post #374
puranjay wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm off the Apple train. I honestly don't trust them to make reliable hardware anymore. They've had three years to fix this mess but they have shown zero initiative or intention to do it. Apple has consistently shown that it cares more about form over function. No one needs their laptops to be any thinner than they already are. And no one needs the useless, expensive touchbar.

> Apple has consistently shown that it cares more about form over function. No one needs their laptops to be any thinner than they already are Well, this depends. Here's how a user put it: "I have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air - even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things.…

It really depends on the user. I carried a zbook15 with charger which was around 6-7kg then. The laptop itself was crap, but I didn't care about the weight/thickness at all. And it could actually pull a number of heavy virtual machines without issues, which Chromebook just wouldn't be able to.

But people will have different expectations / idea of comfort.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#465

Post by jdnenej »

V-2 wrote: post #414
kofejnik wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads in start menu? Apps installed without my consent? No, thank you

If by "ads in start menu" you mean the lame app suggestions, it's trivial to disable the thing.

This gets said about 5000 feature on windows. A good OS doesn't require you to spend an hour turning off 400 toggles only to have them turn back on in an update

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#466

Post by cujo »

8draco8 wrote: post #458

OK, so my theory on that is that it was all Jony Ive fault. Back in the days when Jobs was still around he was a natural counter balance to Ive. He wanted everything to be not only 'beautiful' but most notably just working. Ive was great source of new design ideas for him and he was usually throwing away bad ones (from technical point of view) and leaving the god ones (of course there was some mistakes but over all i…

I want to believe this, and as there is no evidence one way or the other, it sounds good enough that it makes me hopeful for future products.

My question is, what did Ive do that was truly great? I honestly don't know and his name is mostly brought up with respect to designs that didn't pan out. What did he do that everyone seems to respect him as an uber-designer?

I do think, for a while at least, apple's design was eye catching and cool. But for a long long time now it's been stagnant and copycatted all over the industry. So much so, that it doesn't really stand out any more. That's all fine, but it makes me wonder what Ive has been doing for the last 5-10 years, because not much has changed.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#467

Post by parasubvert »

addicted wrote: post #447
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…

I contrast this with the experience my dad has while traveling in NYC with his pro laptop in about 2011. The Apple Store needed 3 days to repair, and he was leaving the city before then. They simply recommended a 3rd party repairer who could do it within the day, which is what happened, and consequently giving my dad what he needed, boosting the Apple eco system, and providing better feelings towards Apple. In the pa…

Apple's support website still lists all authorized third party repair outlets, of which there are many in most cities.

I've been recommended them before, it's not unimaginable, and no, they generally don't send it to Apple (source: a good friend who works at London Drugs, which has a fairly good Apple-authorized computer shop inside of its various locations in Canada). If the laptop itself isn't serviceable (e.g. rare things like diagnosed catastrophic mainboard failure) they will just replace it from repair stock if it's under warranty. The top case / keyboard IS serviceable by most third party outlets to my understanding.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#468

Post by panpanna »

Litmus2336 wrote: post #56
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.

I wish I could get issued a Linux Thinkpad, but still no support from the IT org :(

BYOD it!

My company laptop is just used for Skype meetings. The real work happens on my ThinkPad.

Although now that enough people have copied my approach it has now been grudgingly approved by IT.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#469

Post by vegardx »

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, even though it is done in-store is truly infuriating

Oh - but it gets worse. I had my keyboard replaced a year ago, and it took over a week. In Norway they don't stock US International keyboards, which I can accept, but they can't (or won't, hard to tell) order a replacement unit before taking it into service. So it has to stay with them while they wait a 3-5 days just to get the spare parts. Great!

I was about to walk out of the store when they told me they needed my password to run "keyboard diagnostics" and that they were unsure wether or not KEYS FALLING OFF was covered by warranty.

Re: MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy

#470

Post by parasubvert »

caymanjim wrote: post #114

Why would anyone buy a 2018 MacBook? This problem has been in the news for over a year. While they plan to fix it, they haven't yet. I had a late 2016 model with a defective keyboard out of the box. Finally had it repaired mid-2018 (which took over a month), and the new one died within days. It'll be many years before I consider even accepting another free MacBook from work, much less buy one. I don't know if Apple r…

I have a 2017 Macbook Pro and love it, and have never had the keyboard issues. This is the thing: there are millions of happy Macbook Pro customers that don't hang out on hacker news.

I then spilled wine on my keyboard, they replaced the top case and it, still no problems.

Yes, they should fix the keyboard. But I don't think they've screwed up as badly as people think.

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