Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

ifixit.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 927 posts

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#461

Post by fouc »

tracer4201 wrote: post #342

I honestly don't understand all these quality sacrifices just to make things thinner. It makes the product actually feel somewhat cheap and brittle. The same thing confuses me with smartphones. Everyone keeps making these bacteria and finger print magnets thinner... the minute you drop it, it's shattered or unuseable... and so then you're buying a case to protect it from scratches and shatter... so what's the point o…

Brittle is kind of an ironic thing to say when the majority of pc laptops have long been brittle.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#462

Post by stef25 »

reitanqild wrote: post #447
stef25 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, my Macbook (not my primary machine) cost me 400€ second hand and I spent another 100€ upgrading to 8GB Ram and an SSD drive. It's a ten year old machine which runs like a dream. I challenge anyone to find a better computing solution for 500€. You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook, nor would have access to the Apple ecosystem. A lot of progra…

> You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook, nor would have access to the Apple ecosystem. I used a 2009 MacBook pro for close to 3 years. The following are my opinions, they are not valid for everyone but for some of us they are very valid: Keyboard had ctrl in a different spot than every other keyboard I ever spent significant time with. (Disclaimer…

Home, page up and page down is just CMD + left, up or down arrow isn't it?

Selecting a word: double click / tap on it.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#463

Post by doktrin »

jarym wrote: post #418

Stupid Apple - I blame Schiller. They won’t support 32Gb ram because it might decrease battery life and requires them to reengineer the logic board but they’re totally cool with a fragile ass keyboard GLUED to a battery! Really there’s no way to call this anything other than insanity. I remember the media used to talk about the ‘halo effect’ - well I’m someone who has Almost every MBP between 2002-2012 and every iPho…

I couldn't agree more. The new MBPs are basically lemons. Mine absolutely is, and is unusable and sent out for repairs after only 1 year (defects include but are definitely not limited to this ultra brittle keyboard). I will definitely not buy another one of these awful machines.

What ever was the point of making this thing razer thin? What bizarre, mythical user did they have in mind that just couldn't stand a few cm of extra 'bulk'? None of this makes any sense, except it being a case of design driven engineering run amok.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#464

Post by m_st »

jarym wrote: post #418

Stupid Apple - I blame Schiller. They won’t support 32Gb ram because it might decrease battery life and requires them to reengineer the logic board but they’re totally cool with a fragile ass keyboard GLUED to a battery! Really there’s no way to call this anything other than insanity. I remember the media used to talk about the ‘halo effect’ - well I’m someone who has Almost every MBP between 2002-2012 and every iPho…

Apple (MBP15 late 2013, iMac 27 late 2009) user at home, Dell XPS 15 9550 (2015) user at work here.

While I totally agree with you about the new MBP, please just know that the XPS 15 isn't without it's problems too! It must just be that Windows users are more used to lower quality hardware/software that such things are accepted...

I really like my XPS 15 as it is fast and as compact as a MBP, but:

- Microsoft Surface Bluetooth mouse and keyboard don't work anymore after an idle period of maybe 10 minutes. Have to disable/enable Bluetooth to get it working again. I reverted to RF dongle keyboard and use the Surface Mouse with the included USB cable.

- I had a huge number of BSOD early on. It's still not perfect, but almost fine now.

- The web cam is at the worst possible position. It films your fingers and breast, rather than head!

- The microphone is even worse, no one will hear you talking.

- Headphone with microphone works fine. But after unplugging I don't have any sound anymore. Sleep/wake fixes it...

- I obviously do miss some of the Mac apps like OmniFocus, Pixelmator, xScope and others while working in Windows.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#465

Post by kayoone »

girvo wrote: post #444
jarym wrote: post #418

Stupid Apple - I blame Schiller. They won’t support 32Gb ram because it might decrease battery life and requires them to reengineer the logic board but they’re totally cool with a fragile ass keyboard GLUED to a battery! Really there’s no way to call this anything other than insanity. I remember the media used to talk about the ‘halo effect’ - well I’m someone who has Almost every MBP between 2002-2012 and every iPho…

I thought the RAM thing would decrease battery life, because it requires a different intel chipset — as shown by the contemporary laptops from other manufacturers with the same CPUs and chipset topping out at 16GB as well? I could be misremembering, and it frustrates me either way, but I was certain that Intel also held some blame for this?

I think the reason is LPDDR3 which only goes up to 16GB with Intels chipsets, they would need to use Desktop class ram to go above which uses a lot more power.

[1] https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#466

Post by ekianjo »

neuronic wrote: post #356
tracer4201 wrote: post #342

I honestly don't understand all these quality sacrifices just to make things thinner. It makes the product actually feel somewhat cheap and brittle. The same thing confuses me with smartphones. Everyone keeps making these bacteria and finger print magnets thinner... the minute you drop it, it's shattered or unuseable... and so then you're buying a case to protect it from scratches and shatter... so what's the point o…

Not sure how this can fly over peoples heads, but the point is marketing. There is virtually zero disadvantage in making the phones 2mm thicker and add to their robustness and battery life this way. Virtually zero... except _marketing_ and hence sales.

its not like the change of thickness is a single variable from one gen of a phone to the next. Id wager there are other variables that make people purchase new phones rather than 1mm shaved off.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#467

Post by BinaryIdiot »

stefanfisk wrote: post #312
geomark wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing about anecdotes, one person's experience is completely opposite of anothers. I got a laptop with Windows 10 on it and immediately experienced the "100% disk utilization problem", which makes it basically unusable. I Googled around and found hundreds of posts about the problem and many dozens of suggested fixes of which zero worked (for me). So it's sitting on a shelf until I get around to installing…

it's also very dependent on what you want to use your computer for. as a frontend dev I want a mix of Adobe CS and a bunch of primarily posix compatible tools, and then Windows is seriously suboptimal. but even beyond that the sheer number of popups and shit I need to close when starting from a clean install on Windows makes me want to punch the computer, and naturally that is a very subjective experience. and stuff…

> as a frontend dev I want a mix of Adobe CS and a bunch of primarily posix compatible tools, and then Windows is seriously suboptimal.

Not sure why it's suboptimal, WSL is amazing. I am primary a frontend dev as well and do most of my building / start-up / testing of my work inside of a terminal. It's great and Adobe works great as well with the added bonus of the better Windows dropdowns (Mac OS dropdowns drive me nuts but for Windows you can give one focus and scroll through all the options with the keyboard).

> but even beyond that the sheer number of popups and shit I need to close when starting from a clean install on Windows makes me want to punch the computer, and naturally that is a very subjective experience.

When I first started up I had like 2 notifications to use Edge and something else and that was it. When I enrolled in the Windows beta I received a few more for requests for feedback, which it warned me about ahead of time. Not sure why you had so many pop-ups and I've had basically none.

It's always so weird to me how my experience with Windows machines differs from those who prefer Macs. I own and use both and they both seem pretty great to me. The only big thing is I make sure to only buy Windows hardware from Microsoft to get their "genuine experience" because HP and everyone else likes to ruin it with their bullshit.

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#468

Post by eecc »

jarym wrote: post #418

Stupid Apple - I blame Schiller. They won’t support 32Gb ram because it might decrease battery life and requires them to reengineer the logic board but they’re totally cool with a fragile ass keyboard GLUED to a battery! Really there’s no way to call this anything other than insanity. I remember the media used to talk about the ‘halo effect’ - well I’m someone who has Almost every MBP between 2002-2012 and every iPho…

Technically no, not exactly. It’s intel’s fault. Their damn architectures won’t support DDR4LP - that’s the low power variant - because they’ve become complacent. Also the lack of PCIe lanes forced Apples’s hand on USBc only design, although it’s such a daft choice they should’ve just gone with 2 TB ports and keep the other “legacy” available. But no, they had to brag about dual 4K external monitors to it had to be 4 USBc ports and nothing else.

I’m seriously worried that the platform I’ve been so comfortable with the past 10 years will fall in disrepair because of some ill-advised management that chose to chase some other innovation...

It’s another problem I don’t need

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#469

Post by samdoidge »

exergy wrote: post #441
hrktb wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same thing confuses me with smartphones. I like how John Siracusa explains the concept of "naked robotic core" To paraphrase, the phone is the computing unit, and the user customizes it to fit it's usage. People that never dropped a phone in their life can use it as is. People who work in construction can put hardcore shells that survive multiple floor drops. Those who like furry cases can go wild and those who…

First of all, I disagree that people _want_ to put furry cases on their phones. Too many people have walked around for too long with giant cracks on their screens that they've realised it's better to slap on a case, even with the ugliness that goes with it. Having some minion drawing on the back of the case is just a minor positive. More importantly though, I cannot stand how glib Apple is with their devices. Surely…

This is not just aesthetics, this is design, which Apple is built on

Re: Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

#470

Post by sharpshadow »

m_st wrote: post #464
jarym wrote: post #418

Stupid Apple - I blame Schiller. They won’t support 32Gb ram because it might decrease battery life and requires them to reengineer the logic board but they’re totally cool with a fragile ass keyboard GLUED to a battery! Really there’s no way to call this anything other than insanity. I remember the media used to talk about the ‘halo effect’ - well I’m someone who has Almost every MBP between 2002-2012 and every iPho…

Apple (MBP15 late 2013, iMac 27 late 2009) user at home, Dell XPS 15 9550 (2015) user at work here. While I totally agree with you about the new MBP, please just know that the XPS 15 isn't without it's problems too! It must just be that Windows users are more used to lower quality hardware/software that such things are accepted... I really like my XPS 15 as it is fast and as compact as a MBP, but: - Microsoft Surface…

There is a XPS Developer Edition with Linux instead of Microsoft. I'm personally stuck with Win 7. Will never update to Win 10 and OSX does not seem to be a good choice nowadays. That means Linux will make the run the next years, hopefully.
Post reply on HN