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Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

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

#521

Post by coldtea »

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…

>I honestly don't understand all these quality sacrifices just to make things thinner. It makes the product actually feel somewhat cheap and brittle.

It's easy: every time people had the chance to buy thinner or thicker products, they flocked to the thinner ones.

The complaints are random outliers around the internet, but the actual Apple's sales numbers (record years after record years and reduced sales for thicker older designs) speak for themselves.

Not just some "vacuous" "non-technie" users either (as the stereotype says).

Can you guess who said the following words about his MacBook Air for example?

Quote:

"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. Yes, there are vendors that have tried to emulate it, but usually pretty badly. I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light.

Btw, even when it comes to Apple, it’s really just the Air that I think is special. The other apple laptops may be good-looking, but they are still the same old clunky hardware, just in a pretty dress.

I’m personally just hoping that I’m ahead of the curve in my strict requirement for “small and silent”. It’s not just laptops, btw – Intel sometimes gives me pre-release hardware, and the people inside Intel I work with have learnt that being whisper-quiet is one of my primary requirements for desktops too. I am sometimes surprised at what leaf-blowers some people seem to put up with under their desks.

I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat. And when I travel, I want to travel light. A notebook that weighs more than a kilo is simply not a good thing (yeah, I’m using the smaller 11″ macbook air, and I think weight could still be improved on, but at least it’s very close to the magical 1kg limit)."""

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

#522

Post by noir_lord »

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…

Every phone I've bought for the last 5 years goes in a leather fold over case with a silicon chassis holding the phone in place, I'm clumsy.

As a result they never get scratched or broken.

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

#523

Post by rbanffy »

sh4z wrote: post #485
sharpshadow wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Personally I like to just get the Windows version and load Linux with GRUB as a second boot option. The few times I need to do something on Windows (photo editing, some games) I just reboot.

I end up doing almost the same except that I ditch the Windows install. The hardware selection is much better and, unless you intentionally sabotage yourself, they work every bit as well as laptops that come with factory-supported Linux installs.

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

#524

Post by coldtea »

furyg3 wrote: post #376
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…

Especially in cases when it doesn't need to be thinner. I just tried out a Apple Magic Keyboard, which is a razor blade for some reason, and had wrist pain within a few hours of using it. Everybody's different, but this keyboard is trash. It is designed solely to look pretty in marketing photos. I'm not a keyboard snob. I don't need Cherry MX Blue's to be happy. I thought the Apple Wireless Keyboard (with the AA batt…

>Especially in cases when it doesn't need to be thinner. I just tried out a Apple Magic Keyboard, which is a razor blade for some reason, and had wrist pain within a few hours of using it. Everybody's different, but this keyboard is trash. It is designed solely to look pretty in marketing photos.

If you're talking about the keyboard on the new MacBook Pros, yes, it's trash.

If you're talking about the standalone keyboard actually called "Magic Keyboard", then I disagree, it's perfectly done, and a pleasure to type on.

And I own several mechanical keyboards (and have started as back as to be using Sun's own keyboards on Spark workstations).

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

#525

Post by sancha_ »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #494
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 mostly agree with you. But really, who needs +16GB RAM on their laptop?! I think the need for more RAM is correlated with the need for more CPU clock, more powerful graphic card, and a better Motherboard, all of which result in a huge decrease in battery life (which is supposed to be a laptop's main strength over heavy, power-consuming PC).

I was about to buy a new MBP this year but held back because I already have 16GB of RAM and want more, actually need more. I often have the problem that my current MBP runs out of memory and when this happends it costs me like 30 to 60 minutes to get back to the point where I was when it ran out of it. So yeah, there are some of us that need more RAM.

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

#526

Post by acdha »

mamon wrote: post #491
eecc wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a simple solution for the lack of DDR4LP: end the "thinner and lighter" insanity and provide normal DDR4 with a decent battery capacity by making the laptop 2mm thicker and 0.5 pound heavier.

I’d cut Apple some slack on the RAM front because Intel was supposed to ship DDR4LP a couple years ago, after years of being fairly good about hitting targets.

The larger point about recognizing that we’ve plateaued on size & weight benefits is important, though. As long as we need keyboards there’s not much point in taking on all of the other compromises.

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

#527

Post by coldtea »

paulriddle wrote: post #390
furyg3 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in cases when it doesn't need to be thinner. I just tried out a Apple Magic Keyboard, which is a razor blade for some reason, and had wrist pain within a few hours of using it. Everybody's different, but this keyboard is trash. It is designed solely to look pretty in marketing photos. I'm not a keyboard snob. I don't need Cherry MX Blue's to be happy. I thought the Apple Wireless Keyboard (with the AA batt…

I am currently using this horrible keyboard. Hate this thing. Before I've been using a mechanical keyboard, but coworkers complained that it was too loud. I like loud keybords. The sound is so pleasant and satisfying I want it to be even more intense. I want to feel vibration every time I hit the key. And when I hit enter I want there to be a minor earthquake. This apple trash keyboard doesn't have Shift+Insert. The…

>This apple trash keyboard doesn't have Shift+Insert. The alt is next to ctrl and it's place is taken by cmd. I had to change my bindings for i3.

Not how you didn't described anything being actually "crap" -- just different to what you were used to.

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

#528

Post by rbanffy »

ngcazz wrote: post #509
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…

The Apple I want figures out how you put 32GB RAM in a thin laptop while preserving battery life!

They could, in theory, have a "power saving" mode that tries to consolidate as much as it can into as few memory modules as possible (I'm currently using about 39% of memory, the rest being free and cache), virtual addresses would remain untouched and only physical addresses would change after a move and then it'd be possible to power down the memory modules that are not being used (PCIe-attached storage is slower than memory, but fast and power saving don't go together that well)

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

#529

Post by pkkm »

yonkshi wrote: post #264
dleslie wrote: post #252

I like machines that are built to take a beating. My penultimate laptop was an HP Mini 101; I only replaced it on a whim, and still use it from time to time. The keys have been worn to be smooth, concave and most are missing the printed text. When I last opened it up to add an SSD a suprising amount of sand came pouring out; having been taken to many beaches, tossed in bags, and generally used outdoors it had accumul…

How’s the Linux battery management for laptops? This and driver compatibility are usually my biggest concern. I remember 2/3 windows laptops I used were having trouble sleeping/waking up when lids were shut

I'm using a Lenovo T440s and haven't noticed a significant difference in battery life between Debian and Windows.
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