51–60 of 186 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s the question raised here: Apple has said that they’ve made the keyboard “quieter”. The jury’s out on whether that was codewords for fixing the issue.
I don’t dispute that. My point is they half-assed the fix
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's literally the point of the article - the design was changed in a significant way to incorporate a fix to reduce dust, which is spelled out in the patent.
I fail to see how what they did is change “in a significant way”. It seems more of a bandaid to me. It almost signals an unwillingness to fundamentally change the keyboard design for the better
EDIT: Below is wrong, but keeping it for posterity:
Note that the desktop Magic Keyboards that employ the butterfly mechanism do not seem to have the same key sticking issues as those on MacBooks, so it's likely they felt the fundamental design of the mechanism was fine but that it did need an additional silicone barrier for the lower-travel MacBook variant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don’t fix the keyboard. They only “reset” it which means you’ll have to bring it in again once it accumulates enough issues to make it worthwhile. My first key failed within one month. Eventually seven keys came off with ny fingers as I typed. “Non-issue” is comical word choice.
Uhhh this is not a symptom of apple's keyboard issue.
I’m confused. Are we supposed to be bandwagon mad that Apple took steps to fix their busted keyboard?
No, we're supposed to be mad because they still refuse to acknowledge that it was a real problem to begin with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fail to see how what they did is change “in a significant way”. It seems more of a bandaid to me. It almost signals an unwillingness to fundamentally change the keyboard design for the better
Well one person's band-aid is another's significant fix, and only the data will tell. EDIT: Below is wrong, but keeping it for posterity: Note that the desktop Magic Keyboards that employ the butterfly mechanism do not seem to have the same key sticking issues as those on MacBooks, so it's likely they felt the fundamental design of the mechanism was fine but that it did need an additional silicone barrier for the low…
The fact that the membrane is still vented (labeled 321 in the diagram) suggests that this will only delay, and not fix the dust ingress problem. Indeed, it could make things worse by creating a tiny pump[1] that draws particles in on each keystroke. I don't know why they didn't vent from the bottom instead, but that's how completely sealed (i.e. waterproof) keypads are vented. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaph…
> [0058] For example, FIG. 3D depicts a third alternative example of the key assembly of FIG. 3A. In this example, the membrane 213 or gasket defines a vent 320, aperture, or other hole in one of the sides 318A. When the key cap 103 is moved towards a depressed position, the membrane 213 compresses gas inside the internal area 319, forcing the gas through the vent 320. This allows the embossed area of the membrane 213 to act as a bellows mechanism, forcing gas in a direction 321. This may force contaminants away from the internal area 319 and/or out of the aperture 210. This may also reduce compression of the membrane 213, reduc- ing how much the membrane 213 affects the force curve response.
The specific point about sizing is this next section:
> In various implementations, the vent 320 may be configured with sufficiently small dimensions that gas can be forced through the vent 320 without easily allowing liquids, dust, and/or other particles to enter the internal area 319 from the aperture 210.
Also here's the Patently Apple analysis [0], which points out that this patent covers three different designs (the vented one being the third). I'm not sure the third design we're discussing is the one implemented in the 2018 models though.
[0] http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/03/a-new-ap...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
On other keyboards, I’ve used a drop of CA glue (superglue) to add tactile feedback. Much like some keyboards have a bump on two of the home row keys
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, we're supposed to be mad because they still refuse to acknowledge that it was a real problem to begin with.
They did announced a repair program, is that not acknowledging the issue?
I ask how long because my late 2013 MBP (granted, maxed out top of the line 15 inch) is still running like a complete champ and with how slow cpu/ram is increasing in power these days (mine has 4 cores/16GB ram and now 5 years later, you can only get 6 cores and 32GB of ram) I would expect a top of the line laptop to last a decade before recycling.
Laptop keyboards are not something you can easily/cheaply replace because if they fail, it totally screws over the "laptop" feature since now you need to pay to replace the entire keyboard or get an external one.
So no, laptop keyboards should have even higher standards for reliability these days and I haven't seen any commitment for these new ones.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arrow keys and Keys getting stuck are biggest problems with the MBP. First time I used the keyboard, I had trouble inputting password and had to start using an extension instead. Now I have trouble inputting the long char master password. And still can’t hit arrow keys reliably after six months with this thing.
Hopefully Touch ID fixes the issue with having to enter a long password?