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Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

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Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#61

Post by TN1ck »

Rudi9719 wrote: post #58

I don't understand the failure of the butterfly keyboard? I haven't had any issues with my 2017 macBook and it seems to keep kruft from getting under my keys (A problem I had with the older macbook keyboards) I also live on my macbook so it's constantly in use, and much to my displeasure, around food.

You seem to be a rare case. I'm also a heavy user and got keys stuck a lot and actually broke two keys (I did nothing out of ordinary). I certainly like the feel of the butterfly switches, but they really are incredible frail.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#62

Post by Cthulhu_ »

paxys wrote: post #14

> “So, just curious, why did you buy another one?” she asked, referring to the 2018 MacBook Air I’d gotten six months after selling the Pro. I was hoping she talked more about this part, but brushing it aside by bringing up "Apple ecosystem" is pretty unsatisfactory. It does tell you, though, that Apple has its target demographic by the balls, and broken keyboards are certainly not chasing them away. Macbooks will ge…

> Macbooks will get fixed the day tech journalists start writing articles about how they tried a Windows laptop and liked it.

This happened after the touch bar MBP was released; a lot of people made the switch then. Did that count for nothing in the end?

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#64

Post by Nextgrid »

paxys wrote: post #14

> “So, just curious, why did you buy another one?” she asked, referring to the 2018 MacBook Air I’d gotten six months after selling the Pro. I was hoping she talked more about this part, but brushing it aside by bringing up "Apple ecosystem" is pretty unsatisfactory. It does tell you, though, that Apple has its target demographic by the balls, and broken keyboards are certainly not chasing them away. Macbooks will ge…

> they tried a Windows laptop and liked it

This requires Windows to become likeable.

I (and plenty of other people) will like Windows once it:

* has a consistent UI instead of 3 control panels with icons and UI paradigms ranging from Windows 95 to Windows 10.

* ships with quality applications that don't try to eat the entire screen to display 2 lines of text (pretty much all "modern" built-in apps are a disaster in that regard)

* has an App Store with decent, curated apps. Now I'm not sure if stores are the future on desktops, but Apple at least seems to be able to keep the crap at bay and actually have some decent productivity apps in it. Windows Store? Oh yeah, knockoff Flash Players and similar scams, and near zero apps you'd actually want to pay for.

* doesn't come with ads nor invasive telemetry that sometimes re-enables itself after updates (don't mention the Enterprise edition which you can only get in volume, so no solution for freelancers & small businesses)

* doesn't force a stupid phone-style lockscreen on non-touchscreen machines (I'm sure you can disable it with a Group Policy or registry tweak - my point being, I shouldn't have to spend hours doing that - macOS comes with reasonably sane defaults in comparison)

* has a start-menu search that actually works and doesn't surface irrelevant crap from their failed attempt at a search engine.

* has a calculator that doesn't take 10 seconds to load and then asks me to "rate" it (seriously? can't believe I'm saying this)

* proper QA - since Windows 10 the quality has gone down the drain and it feels more like a half-assed Linux distribution except that it has ads and you still pay for it

MacBooks definitely have their flaws, but overall it's still worth it and I write off their price to the cost of doing business (even if I had to buy a new MacBook every few months it would still be worth it for me). Microsoft (and their OEMs) can have my business once they put out a decent OS that actually feels polished and works for me, not against me. They managed to do it with Windows 7, not reason they couldn't do it again.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#65

Post by wildlogic »

Rudi9719 wrote: post #58

I don't understand the failure of the butterfly keyboard? I haven't had any issues with my 2017 macBook and it seems to keep kruft from getting under my keys (A problem I had with the older macbook keyboards) I also live on my macbook so it's constantly in use, and much to my displeasure, around food.

I was happy with the feel of the 2017, however after a few months a couple keys got stuck to the point of it being unusable. I took it in for repair at the Apple Store, and after repair, touching the ID sensor would cause the machine to freeze. Soon after, more keys started getting stuck and I just put the thing in a drawer and pulled the 2015 back out, which is what I'm typing on to this day. I've been using Apple computers exclusively since the lciii in the early 90s, but my next laptop will not be a Macbook.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#66

Post by steev »

Rudi9719 wrote: post #58

I don't understand the failure of the butterfly keyboard? I haven't had any issues with my 2017 macBook and it seems to keep kruft from getting under my keys (A problem I had with the older macbook keyboards) I also live on my macbook so it's constantly in use, and much to my displeasure, around food.

You are very lucky. I had three students in my office hours recently and of the four of us, all with butterfly keyboard MacBook Pros (some with the updated keyboards), three of us have had keyboard issues such as the spacebar double registering presses or other keys not registering a press at all.

Within my family, everyone that has a newer MacBook Pro has had keyboard issues.

I bought a used Lenovo X1 off ebay for $300 and that has become my daily driver, despite getting the keyboard repaired on my MBP. It doesn't get close to the same battery life as my MBP, and waking from sleep is a little iffy sometimes, but in terms of reliability and usability it far exceeds my experience with the MBP.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#67

Post by Nextgrid »

dalbasal wrote: post #48
paxys wrote: post #14

> “So, just curious, why did you buy another one?” she asked, referring to the 2018 MacBook Air I’d gotten six months after selling the Pro. I was hoping she talked more about this part, but brushing it aside by bringing up "Apple ecosystem" is pretty unsatisfactory. It does tell you, though, that Apple has its target demographic by the balls, and broken keyboards are certainly not chasing them away. Macbooks will ge…

There just isn't much choice in the market. It's been windows or apple for a long time. Windows and the laptops that come with it has gotten a lot better since the (imo) vista low point that got a lot of current mac users started (or back). But, there are still aren't many choices. I was hoping android (or even iOS) would lead to some interesting new laptop choices but if you're in the market for a pc, it's still a p…

Vista wasn't a low point. It had its flaws and was (apparently - I didn't notice but was running top of the line hardware so can't really tell) a resource hog but it was still a pleasure to use compared to Windows 10.

Windows 10 is a low point.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#68

Post by ascii_only »

Rudi9719 wrote: post #58

I don't understand the failure of the butterfly keyboard? I haven't had any issues with my 2017 macBook and it seems to keep kruft from getting under my keys (A problem I had with the older macbook keyboards) I also live on my macbook so it's constantly in use, and much to my displeasure, around food.

Nearly half of the third-gen Apple butterfly keyboards at Basecamp have failed. There are few other personal reports with similar percentages.

Second problem is that it will cost a lot of money to fix your keyboard out of warranty.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#69

Post by barrystaes »

culturestate wrote: post #45
marmaduke wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do IT orders in a research institute, a MBP user wants a big memory machine to do server side data analysis, and wants to order the iMac pro 128 GB ram. He’s shocked to learn that for the same price he can get a Dell Epyc server with 512 GB ram. Guess what he still wants? The iMac, for the “ecosystem”.

The other commenter makes good points re: the cognitive cost of switching platforms, but let me give you another point of view: the Apple ecosystem is, actually, shockingly good. My Apple Watch unlocks all of my Macs. When I join a new WiFi network on my iPhone, those credentials are immediately available to my iPad. When my iPhone rings, it pauses video playing on my Apple TV until I ignore the call. To send a link…

> When my iPhone rings, it pauses video playing on my Apple TV until I ignore the call. To send a link from my iPad to a friend on WhatsApp, I can copy the link on my iPad and paste it into WhatsApp on my iPhone - automatically.

I get what you appreciate, but its not for everyone. I like my tools smart but still 100% predictive by me. Like one device erasing the clipboard of another device.

Re: Its butterfly keyboard design has failed, but Apple has yet to admit its mistake

#70

Post by zenexer »

Rudi9719 wrote: post #58

I don't understand the failure of the butterfly keyboard? I haven't had any issues with my 2017 macBook and it seems to keep kruft from getting under my keys (A problem I had with the older macbook keyboards) I also live on my macbook so it's constantly in use, and much to my displeasure, around food.

I was just like you until a couple weeks ago. No grime in the keyboard, heavy use, took it with me everywhere, used it every day since 2016. (That being said, it was/is in pristine condition--no scratches, dents, or drops.)

But one day it just happened. Nothing to provoke it--hadn't been eating over it, hadn't been treating it any rougher than usual. E key started bouncing (repeating). Rarely at first, but it got worse over the course of a week. Canned air didn't fix it--had to ship it out.

I can't really say it was a bad experience, though. They handled everything without issue. I walked into the store--no appointment--and they took a look at it immediately. I didn't pay anything despite being out of warranty and without AppleCare. Had it back in my hands a few days later.

Personally, I love the feel of Apple's butterfly keys. I like the short travel distance and the satisfying "click" they make. I've had plenty of similar issues with scissor switch keyboards; it's just that they're easier to repair. Pop off the key, give it a good blow, and it's as good as new, though you might end up inhaling some ancient crumbs in the process. Allegedly, that usually doesn't work with butterfly keys, for whatever reason, and they're hard to remove without breaking.

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