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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

#591

Post by tjoff »

vaelin wrote: post #580
tjoff wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not just some "vacuous" "non-technie" users either (as the stereotype says)." Actually, Linus comes off to me as particularly non-techie. He obviously cares about it enough to get the work done but couldn't care about it more than that. Not even the OS (outside of the kernel) is of any interest to him (dissing debian because he thinks the installer is too cumbersome etc.). Compare the MacBook Air with the lenovo x-s…

How absurdly elitist do you need to be to describe the creator of Linux as "particularly non-techie"

If you read my post you'd know my reasoning for it. Care to comment on that?

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

#592

Post by namibj »

lmm wrote: post #549
Cyphase wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, and I've restarted the display server plenty of times on my computers instead of restarting them, especially on my main desktop where I have lots more stuff running independent of the display (daemons, etc). But, I feel like particularly on a laptop, if you're restarting the display server, it's not much different than just restarting the whole machine. Certainly that's the case for the large majority of…

Would it be possible to start a second display server like we used to, one on ctrl-alt-F8 and one on ctrl-alt-F7? So when you want to do some gaming you start up your gaming workspace and switch to it, and when you want to turn off the nvidia graphics you destroy the gaming workspace, but your document workspace that was using the intel graphics is still there? That feels like it could be somewhat usable.

Should be. Windows is actually not crashing the desktop when the driver balks, so you can AFAIK run a Windows VM on a Linux and switch the PCIe GPU (yes, i915 counts from Haswell on) via KVM/QUEMU/IO-MMU between host and VM, with the latter not caring much, but the former crashing Xorg.

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

#593

Post by eltoozero »

Upgradeable, modular machines is the real takeaway, not a drawn out discussion about keyboards.

The old MacBook keyboard felt fine and is most certainly adequately robust being of conventional construction.

Though I’d argue the iBook/PowerBook keyboard could be considered better purely from a modularity standpoint.

ThinkPad keyboard FTW, natch.

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

#594

Post by namibj »

Cyphase wrote: post #297
namibj wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No _need_ to reboot. Restarting the Xorg/Wayland server, maybe. You might be able to fool it into thinking you just hot-plugged the GPU, at least as far as the screen layout is concerned. Remember: the only reason you need to reboot linux is to get a new kernel, or because the kernel FUBAR'd and corrupted data.

I hear you, and I've restarted the display server plenty of times on my computers instead of restarting them, especially on my main desktop where I have lots more stuff running independent of the display (daemons, etc). But, I feel like particularly on a laptop, if you're restarting the display server, it's not much different than just restarting the whole machine. Certainly that's the case for the large majority of…

I prefer to keep things up/running, i.e. demon-based software, file transfers, mounts (including LUKS password unlocking), music players, etc. Even SSH sessions.

I am still looking for a way to restart Xorg without having to restart the software on it, but so far I have not found a solution.

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

#595

Post by joncrane »

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…

>Keyboard lacked home, end, page up and page down keys.

Thank you! At my desk at work I plug in an old HP keyboard and map those keys so that they do roughly the equivalent.

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

#596

Post by Mindwipe »

tabs_masterrace wrote: post #583
coldtea wrote: post #524

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

Is he's talking about this thing? https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/611149H28WL... Because I absolutely love it, been coding on it for years.

No, he's talking about it's replacement.

That keyboard was good. It's replacement is worse, but only moderately worse, so it's got less attention than the train wreck that is the Macbook and Macbook Pro keyboards.

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

#597

Post by m_st »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #542
m_st wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Microsoft Surface Bluetooth mouse and keyboard don't work anymore after an idle period of maybe 10 minutes Go into device manager and disable their power saving settings. I had disconnection issues once or twice a week with my MS Designer Mouse and this fixed it.

Or dear! I tried about everything possible but didn't think it could be related to such a generic setting!

Found this article that shows where it is: https://www.howtogeek.com/189856/ask-htg-how-can-i-keep-my-b...

I searched the web, updated Dell drivers, found some Reddit thread where they explained cryptic settings in the device manager... All of that didn't help. I gave up when I found yet another blog post where a guy even replaces the internal bluetooth kit of his XPS 15!

In the hope that this fixes it once and for all: Thank you so much!

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

#598

Post by globuous »

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 really like this quote from the article:

"This is design anorexia: making a product slimmer and slimmer at the cost of usefulness, functionality, serviceability, and the environment." (emph. mine)

Spot on. My sister's best friend is currently hospitalized for anorexia so this resonates particularly well with me. Luckily for my friend, she seems to be doing much better from what I've heard. I hope I can same the thing about Apple soon.

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

#599

Post by m_st »

roadnottaken wrote: post #589
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…

For what it's worth, the keyboard and trackpad both keep breaking on my XPS 15 :/

My trackpad broke too, because the battery was inflating and pushed it out of the case...

Got a free replacement though.

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

#600

Post by ethagknight »

tedmiston wrote: post #270
ethagknight wrote: post #12

I picked up my repaired late-2016 15” mbp this morning from warranty repair (replacement). The keyboard feels 100% better. Apple replaced my top case, logic board, and display system for free, out of warranty. I was very concerned about this computer’s longevity, I’ve even ordered a Razer mx cherry keyboard to use when at my desk to take some workload off apple’s questionable design decision, but the replacement keyb…

I'm not completely clear from the phrasing — Was the entire warranty repair free or only the things listed in the third sentence (free extras after paying for the repair)?

All for free, $0 charge to me for service visit. The “top case replacement” is the keyboard fix.
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