Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook • Hacker News Board

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#361

Post by dsego » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #128

rev12 wrote: post #121

It seems like there are two camps of people: Those who are very pleased to hear they will be backpedaling on their updated keyboard designs. Those who "don't understand" because they actually like the new keyboards (and the TouchBar even). No matter where you stand, the new keyboards are highly controversial and divisive, and that's not good. The old keyboards didn't put people into opposing sides, they just were the…

> The old keyboards didn't put people into opposing sides, they just were there. Have you ever spoken to a thinkpad advocate re: chiclet keyboards? The previous mac keyboards were absolutely controversial. It took years for the previous keyboard to be 'just a keyboard', which I do acknowledge happened. > I look forward to a return to a non controversial, highly usable and widely accepted as "fine", keyboard. Honestly…

Well, IMO it depends on what you get used to. After typing for one day on my mechanical keyboard, even the Thinkpad feels like typing on cardboard. Conversely, using the mechanical keyboard, after spending a few days on my laptop, feels like an old typewriter. I can say that I enjoyed my 2016 Macbook keyboard after getting used to it and I was even faster than on the old macbook. Also, another example, the 2014 model had shorter travel and crisper feeling than the 2011 model. I guess, after a while you get used to something and it feels ok. Until it breaks that is.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#362

Post by welly » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #349

welly wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get USB-C monitors, external hard drives, most modern phones connect via USB-C. What else do you need? Bluetooth fills in the gaps for things like external keyboards and mice and most modern printers can be connected to via wifi. I appreciate my needs/requirements are not everyones but USB-C isn't exactly elusive these days.

> most modern phones connect via USB-C The iPhone doesn't.

I bet a future iPhone will. And you'll note the "most" in my comment.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#363

Post by gmueckl » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

ivankolev wrote: post #140

afandian wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lenovo Yoga Book is a hinged tablet. Bottom half is a glass surface with both capacitive touch and Wacom digitiser. It comes with a Wacom pen, which has a swappable ballpoint pen nib so you can draw on paper and have it digitised. There's a backlit silkscreen-type stencil that shines through a (permanent) keyboard layout. And touchpad. So, it's touch-screen typing on a fixed keyboard layout. And you can swap betw…

The bit about the swappable pen tip picked my interest, cool feature! As an avid believer that pen input is the most flexible way to express your thought process, I find it a bit of a lost art though, people born in the new millennium just wont spend the time to learn to write cursive. I went through most of the Note generation from Samsung and the SPen is getting really close to the look and feel of writing on paper…

About 15 years ago during my studies I dreamt of a tablet device with pen input and hand writing recognition for advanced maths. I was writing a lot during my physics lectures but almost no plain text. I would still like to have such a device, but also with a CAS integrated with the handwriting recognition. This would take the pain out of typing stuff into a CAS using obscure syntax.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#364

Post by bmurphy1976 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

lajawfe wrote: post #232

I can't stop but speculate if departure of Ive had anything to do with this. I guess there was a lot of push-back internally about this, but because of Ive, they had to endure 4 generations of butterfly switches. Touchbar also is just a resource hog for nothing extraordinarily useful. I haven't seen people use it too often. I bet they did user studies and found out that the Touchbar wasn't the new interaction method…

This app was released recently:

https://pock.dev/

It puts the dock in your touchbar. It's the first time in the 9 months I've had this laptop where I've actually gone "ok, this is useful" and I am actually using it. I now have the dock auto hide and I mostly use the touch bar to open apps.

That said, I'd still prefer they ditched the touchbar in favor of function keys. I'd be happy if they shrunk the ridiculous size of the touchpad a bit, and put a row of function keys in between the touchpad and keyboard as well.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#365

Post by jacobolus » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

joelhaasnoot wrote: post #343

Dunedan wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The power brick had a 2m detachable line-voltage cable, and fixed 2m low voltage cable. 2 + 2 = 4. I can sit 4m from the wall and charge using only the power adapter that came with the computer. Still the same with the USB-C power adapters, except that the detachable extension cord isn't included with new devices anymore. You can either use one from an old Mac, buy one from Apple (with the usual Apple-tax ( https:/…

There's also the usual Apple Upgrade tax, the old charger was 85-90 euros and came with 4m of cable. The new one comes without a cable, is 99 euros and needs a 30 euro USB-C PD cable.

The new one is also much more useful, because it charges any arbitrary USB device: smartphones, tablets, visitors’ PC laptops, miscellaneous small gadgets, ...

Also, if the USB-C cord frays or breaks, it is replaceable.

I’m a bit sad about the loss of the magnetic connector, but overall I much prefer the new chargers.

I still wish someone would get around to putting 2–3 USB-C ports in a power strip which were capable of charging laptops though.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#366

Post by Crontab » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #279

aleem wrote: post #188

Apple has squandered a lot of its goodwill. It reminds me of my relationship with Microsoft products. As long as they were shipping, they were making money in the short term because people were coerced to buy in. For 5 damn years the Air didn't get a Retina display. Right now, I can't buy 2.8Ghz Macbook Pro unless I get the TouchBar. I can't buy an Air unless I settle for much lower specs. The dongles and USB-C are a…

How do people see removing Magsafe as a downgrade? My wife's Air has a Magsafe and the damn thing just keeps falling off. My new Air's charger has none of those problems. And if the cable gets torn, I can just plug in another. Even better, I can charge my other devices from the same cable. Right now, I'm charging my OnePlus phone with the same cable. This was definitely one case where Apple actually practiced some pr…

I disagree. I love the Magsafe adapter on my mid-2013 Macbook Air.

> And if the cable gets torn, I can just plug in another.

Personally, I am less concerned with the cable than I am for the power socket on the laptop, which if damaged could require replacing the whole motherboard.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#367

Post by Reason077 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

joelhaasnoot wrote: post #343

Dunedan wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The power brick had a 2m detachable line-voltage cable, and fixed 2m low voltage cable. 2 + 2 = 4. I can sit 4m from the wall and charge using only the power adapter that came with the computer. Still the same with the USB-C power adapters, except that the detachable extension cord isn't included with new devices anymore. You can either use one from an old Mac, buy one from Apple (with the usual Apple-tax ( https:/…

There's also the usual Apple Upgrade tax, the old charger was 85-90 euros and came with 4m of cable. The new one comes without a cable, is 99 euros and needs a 30 euro USB-C PD cable.

The old MagSafe stuff you could only (legitimately) buy from Apple. The USB-C stuff you can buy from anyone, and there are some decent quality cables and power supplies available that don't require you to pay the Apple tax.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#368

Post by bitL » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #305

aleem wrote: post #188

Apple has squandered a lot of its goodwill. It reminds me of my relationship with Microsoft products. As long as they were shipping, they were making money in the short term because people were coerced to buy in. For 5 damn years the Air didn't get a Retina display. Right now, I can't buy 2.8Ghz Macbook Pro unless I get the TouchBar. I can't buy an Air unless I settle for much lower specs. The dongles and USB-C are a…

I just last week bought a pristine, maxed-out 2015 MacBook Pro. Yet I think you're wrong about most of this. * I hate magsafe. I've owned a dozen of these and almost all of them have come apart just behind the magsafe connector. Expensive, proprietary, and fragile. I would much much rather have USB-C than shell out $90 every two years. * USB-C is great. A bunch of different ports means carrying a bunch of different c…

> shell out $90 every two years

More like $15 if you don't mind 3rd party adapters...

> I would probably enjoy having dedicated Step In/Step Over/Step Out buttons when debugging

This is the main drawback of current MacBooks, difficult to debug with them.

> A reasonably spec'd MBP is now pushing $3k

Yeah, on the other hand 13" now has a quadcore i7 that is faster than 4790k. 16GB RAM limit is too low (32GB chips are available) and SSDs are way overpriced. Latest butterfly keyboard is much better than the previous variants; touchbar is the only thing that really kills it for serious developers.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#369

Post by lloeki » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #304

shawkinaw wrote: post #303

Am I the only person who likes the butterfly keyboard? I like the feel of the low travel and the clickiness, whenever I use an old style MacBook the keys feel mushy. I have had reliability problems though. Mostly I’ve had keys that don’t respond, but have always been able to fix those with compressed air. But once I had a sticky key that popped every other time I pressed it, that required a free Apple repair.

> Am I the only person who likes the butterfly keyboard? Yes

>> Am I the only person who likes the butterfly keyboard?

> Yes

No. I like it. To me it feels precise enough for a laptop keyboard, and better than the good but mushy previous version, with which I could have tactile feedback but no key event from time to time.

The only issue I have with it is the Damocles sword of reliability (crossing fingers here, it's been perfectly fine for now) and the up/down arrow keys but I'm a liberal user of vim as an editor and generally emacs shortcuts so it doesn't bother me too much.

Re: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

#370

Post by parasubvert » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

labcomputer wrote: post #262

parasubvert wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the Magsafe adapter cords would fray, corrode, and blacken pretty easily, becoming a fire hazard. Every Macbook I owned, I would need at least one replacement over a 3 year period. The amount of time taken to re-plugin it in vs. times it saved my laptop from flying, really it was an overrated feature. USB-C comes out easily enough. Don't get me wrong, I liked Magsafe. But I don't understand the passion for it…

> I found the Magsafe adapter cords would fray, corrode, and blacken pretty easily, becoming a fire hazard. Why do you attribute fraying and/or blackening of the cable to the connector at the end?

I'm not comparing platonic ideals of connectors, I'm talking about the actual physical product that shipped. Magsafe was a proprietary connector attached to a fixed, non-removable cable. That cable had noted flaws.

Whereas USB-C is a standard connector on a removable cable.