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The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

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Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#131

Post by Operyl »

meritt wrote: post #107
danieltillett wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is really interesting is the up and down voting patterns as we swing around the working world. Asia/Australia is quite different to Europe which is very different to the USA. You can have a comment voted way up in one region and then massively slammed down as the sun moves into another.

That would be extremely interesting to see. I really wish votelogs were public. The invisible hand is precisely why active measures [1] are so effective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

I, on the other hand, really hope they don’t become public. That’s just going to allow for retaliatory voting.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#132

Post by Operyl »

berti wrote: post #87
achompas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs. Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.

Do they pack them into the final boxes/packaging somewhere close to the end destination? Because those boxes haven't changed in size AFAIK. My 2017 MBP came in a 70 mm tall box, same as my 2012 one.

Even so, the difference in weight is still definitely a cost saving measure.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#133

Post by mft_ »

coldtea wrote: post #120
dzhiurgis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try unplugging XLR

Then again, we don't use USB-C to connect on stage microphones to their cables in live shows... Of any problem with USB-C it unplugging has never been an issue...

Not unplugging, but on my 2017 MBP it sometimes take a jiggle or even unplug/reinsert to get things to connect properly: monitor, dongle, etc.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#134

Post by sjwright »

tedivm wrote: post #32
lancewiggs wrote: post #6

They fixed the keyboard, increased the max memory to 32GB and stuck to their guns on the touch bar - and that all seems reasonable to me. (I’m far more annoyed by Microsoft removing ESC as the dbox cancel key for errors in Excel than the disappearance of the ESC key)

Remapping the "caps lock" key to ESC has worked out really well for me.

And to be fair to Apple, they make this remapping super-easy to do. No hacks, weirdness or third party tools are required.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#135

Post by cmplxconjugate »

coldtea wrote: post #121
achompas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs. Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? Sure. Here's a certain Linus Torvalds: "I’m 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. (...) I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin a…

I absolutely adore the Air. I do a lot of remote HPC coding and typically just connect to the cluster via SSH. I have a monstrous desktop at home for when I'm back.

To me the Air is magical because it has a balance of my exact needs: portability, toughness and, battery life. I would give anything for an updated model.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#136

Post by okanesen »

akvadrako wrote: post #130
nicolas_t wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a way to pay a lot less. Ask apple to replace the battery, it costs $219 and because they have to replace the topcase when replacing the battery, you will get a new keyboard. I was in the same situation and Apple also quoted me $500 until I asked to replace the battery.

He's talking about an older model.

Doesn't make his point invalid though. My battery on my older rMBP was almost dying and I went to the Apple Store to let them replace the battery and they also completely changed the top including the keyboard, because the battery is attached to it.

So if you need to get your keyboard replaced, just ask for a new battery instead.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#137

Post by doitLP »

npunt wrote: post #27
phil248 wrote: post #13

I'm sorry, but are people actually more concerned with the sound of the keyboard than the arrow keys? It took me a week to get used to the sound. Six months in and I still can't reliably hit the arrow keys. It's as if they're designed to be as difficult as possible.

Put a bit of tape on the bottom half of the left and right keys if you need some tactile guidance and have old muscle memory. I do this on all my keyboards (my daily driver is a Microsoft sculpt) and it helps immensely with finding the correct key. Arrow keys in particular are just distant enough from default position to need that extra bit of tactile feedback.

You can also try these tactile dots. They are the absolute best. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NEUIQFO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_...

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#138

Post by 13of40 »

Operyl wrote: post #131
meritt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be extremely interesting to see. I really wish votelogs were public. The invisible hand is precisely why active measures [1] are so effective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

I, on the other hand, really hope they don’t become public. That’s just going to allow for retaliatory voting.

Public but anonymized, with timestamps might make for some interesting data.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#139

Post by ryanwaggoner »

danieltillett wrote: post #106
meritt wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wow, downvotes? Care to explain...? You were being critical of Apple. That's literally it. You'll notice it comes in waves. Rapid downvotes at first followed by slow and methodical upvotes. That's why you're top now, but it sure as hell took a while, didn't it? The visceral supporters, the shills, and the bots act first. Later, the reasoned adults come in and sometimes adjust things. Read the comments on Microsoft…

What is really interesting is the up and down voting patterns as we swing around the working world. Asia/Australia is quite different to Europe which is very different to the USA. You can have a comment voted way up in one region and then massively slammed down as the sun moves into another.

I really experienced this with my anti-GDPR comments. In the afternoon EST they’d be positive and then take a nosedive in the evening / overnight, I assume as Europeans woke up and took umbrage :)

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#140

Post by marksi »

blackguardx wrote: post #78
thadk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The area around the hinge on the 2011-2015 Era Macbook was plastic. It seems like they wanted to do away with that, a major mechanical break point, which meant removing travel distance from the keys so the screen could close more directly. (My 2011 MBP screen hinge was a bit wobbly a few years in.) You could look at the USB-C dongles in a similar way: older USB ports could fail eventually on that era MBP. The newer U…

You are correct. USB A ports are usually only rated to 1500 insertion cycles because that is what the standard specifies. Micro USB and USB C ports are specced at 10,000 insertion cycles.

I am stunned to hear micro USB is rated for that many insertions. The implementation must not live up to the standard. In my experience, anecdotal, I know, microUSB is the most unreliable of all the USB form factors I've experienced. Bad connectors on cables, and ports that regularly fail internally (not levered off the board.) I have considered replacing ports with miniusb, or a tethered B port because micro has been such an utter failure on so many of my devices.
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