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MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

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Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#91
post #63

Am I the only one who thinks that no travel + tactile feedback actually sound like two highly desirable properties for a keyboard? Whenever I use someone else's butterfly keyboard I'm impressed and a bit jealous, but as I've never used one for long, I can't say whether it's really an improvement.

No travel sounds like you just want a giant touch bar with the layout of the keyboard.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#92

So what does this class action mean in real terms? I have an impacted MacBook and it will run out of the repair date in a few months. Is that going to get extended? If not, am I going to get the massive loss in resale? I am assuming it means the lawyers will make bank and I'll get a check for a hundred or so.

Has any class action member ever received a check more than a couple of dollars if not less? The lawyers are the only ones that ever get money.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#93
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I don't like key travel. I guess I am in the minority of people, because my RSI symptoms are actually lessened by lowering my key travel and trigger force. How I differ though is that I really would prefer a more quiet key than the Butterfly style. It's hard to type quietly on the toilet or in a meeting.

Just trying to help, since I’ve been there! Your RSI symptoms might be correlated with but not caused by key travel / force. I’ve found that the dominant cause of RSI is wrist pose (position + orientation), which is mostly influenced by keyboard height (relative to your body), and also to a lesser extent by key pose. Using a split, rising-away keyboard at a position where elbows are bent 90ish degrees and the wrists…

I totally agree with your points. I should have mentioned earlier that I reached my conclusions about key travel and force from comparing the Apple Magic Keyboard 2 with the Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate in similar angles in front of a Contour Rollermouse Pro 3.

The cherry mx brown switches in the Das Keyboard cause more pain than the proprietary scissor switches in the Magic Keyboard 2. Fatigue sets in quicker. I tried moving myself and the Contour Rollermouse up relative to the Das Keyboard keeping good ergonomics, but it still seems to have the same effect for me.

I am still shopping for a split keyboard, I definitely want to try it but I see it as a hail mary for reducing pain given that they typically use cherry switches.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#94
Not sure if just me, but the Butterfly keyboard is the best keyboard I've ever used on a notebook. The thinness didn't matter to me, typing feel felt so much more stable and solid. I don't believe it was created due to a pursuit of thinness.

That said, I didn't have failures other than a couple of minor occurrences, twice I had to clean out my 2016 (with blown air), and never had any issues on my 2018.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#95
post #18

I actually blame Johnny Ive for this clusterf*ck. Ive famously pursued a crusade for thinness. It's said that design is the art of compromise. Well, Ive took a no compromises approach to thinness and it showed. Look no further than the 12" Macbook. One port (also needed for power), lower power CPU and (I believe?) the start of the dreaded butterfly keyboard. IIRC the butterfly keyboard's raison d'etre was to shave ha…

I don't believe the Air got rid of the Touch Bar -- it never had it. It was only on the Pro. What's so "Pro" about replacing the useful function keys (including the escape key) with a bar that does nothing but pick emojis is beyond me. I strongly dislike the Touch Bar. I'm typing this on a 2019 MacBook Pro whose Touch Bar died yesterday, leaving me with no escape key, no volume buttons, no keyboard brightness buttons…

Never occurred to me that they could die, lol. That really sucks.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had the choice between a macbook pro and a dell xps. Saw the dell xps had HDMI, USB-C _and_ USB-A and was sold. Its nice to be able to bring my laptop in to a meeting room and just be able to plug in the hdmi cable without needing an adapter. Its also really nice to be able to use all my usb c accessories but without having to go usb C only. And its not noticeably thicker than the macbook either. I can und…

My XPS 9550 had two batteries swell and the 2nd time it broke my upper case and trackpad. I replaced the case, trackpad, and keyboard, but Dell won't sell me a battery and their batteries have DRM so you can't use a 3rd party unit. My top of the line, i7, 32gb ram, 2gb gpu, 1tb nvme drive laptop is now no better than a paperweight. When plugged into shore power you can't get max CPU or GPU power and it's an annoying…

> Dell won't sell me a battery and their batteries have DRM so you can't use a 3rd party unit.

Are you sure you can't use a third party battery? Plenty of hits on Amazon for Chinese branded ones.

I replaced a XPS 9570 battery with a Chinese one a few months ago, seems fine to me.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#97
post #18

I actually blame Johnny Ive for this clusterf*ck. Ive famously pursued a crusade for thinness. It's said that design is the art of compromise. Well, Ive took a no compromises approach to thinness and it showed. Look no further than the 12" Macbook. One port (also needed for power), lower power CPU and (I believe?) the start of the dreaded butterfly keyboard. IIRC the butterfly keyboard's raison d'etre was to shave ha…

FWIW, I enjoy the touch bar. I have a few custom keys, one which runs a script that finds my airpods, connects, turns on eq (boom), starts spotify, sets volume my normal level, hits play. I do hate it when the touchbar crashes and requires a reboot, but I've gotten so much milage out of my script keys that I'd rather keep it.

I like this general idea and indeed do similar things, but I’d personally much rather use regular keyboard shortcuts powered by something like Alfred than rely on the Touch Bar

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#98

Not sure if just me, but the Butterfly keyboard is the best keyboard I've ever used on a notebook. The thinness didn't matter to me, typing feel felt so much more stable and solid. I don't believe it was created due to a pursuit of thinness. That said, I didn't have failures other than a couple of minor occurrences, twice I had to clean out my 2016 (with blown air), and never had any issues on my 2018.

Same here! I’m on a 2019 MBP, and absolutely _love_ the butterfly keyboard. I have also had no issues with it. Then again, I find those that do love smashing their fingers down on the keys whereas I lightly tap which I really really like. I am really not looking forward to using a non-butterfly keyboard when I eventually have to upgrade :(

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had the choice between a macbook pro and a dell xps. Saw the dell xps had HDMI, USB-C _and_ USB-A and was sold. Its nice to be able to bring my laptop in to a meeting room and just be able to plug in the hdmi cable without needing an adapter. Its also really nice to be able to use all my usb c accessories but without having to go usb C only. And its not noticeably thicker than the macbook either. I can und…

My XPS 9550 had two batteries swell and the 2nd time it broke my upper case and trackpad. I replaced the case, trackpad, and keyboard, but Dell won't sell me a battery and their batteries have DRM so you can't use a 3rd party unit. My top of the line, i7, 32gb ram, 2gb gpu, 1tb nvme drive laptop is now no better than a paperweight. When plugged into shore power you can't get max CPU or GPU power and it's an annoying…

I had the same problem with a 9550. Luckily I was able to remind them of Samsung enough that they were willing to fix it for free.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#100
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use to have the same thought process as you: instantly sold on devices with native hdmi, usb a & usb c. By that metric xps beats macbook. Recently I tried to convert to a windows laptop from my 16 inch mbp. Upon switching I was constantly annoyed by the fan noise & using my pinkie to press the 'control' key opposed to macbook thumb on 'command' key. The point is, I realized native port selection was not a metric to…

I found the fan noise to be horrific on the 13in i5 macbook I was using. The thing was overheating constantly and since I use linux and windows at home, having the cmd key different only while working was a huge annoyance for me. On my dell xps 15 I almost never hear the fans at all and there is usually only a quick burst of fan noise when running a webpack compile or something compared to non stop 80% fans on the mb…

Use Karabiner Elements on macOS to switch the command key to what you want. And actually, I'm pretty sure it's possible in the built-in macOS settings, but I've always used that app for complex programmatic mappings.
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