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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

#631

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…

Believe me, I wish I COULD run linux on my main laptop for work. Unfortunately, I write a webapp that is run 50% by mobile Safari users. When a bug happens, I need to be able to plug into Safari's dev tools. Other than that, I often need decent Adobe products to work with images. As much as Gimp and Inkscape have improved over the past 10 - 20 years, they still are obtuse at best. For simply writing code, Vim looks the same pretty much everywhere.

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

#632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At same boat as you, and just have migrated all my activities to Windows on 64 Gb Core i7 8 gen CPU desktop. It's a real booster for my day to day work. I love and miss the aesthetics of macOS and Magic Mouse swipes. However let's face it, Apple alone cannot stand the pace. It just cannot compete with hordes of companies from all over the world who do their part of job really really good. Gigabyte, ASUS, Samsung, Int…

We all lose in the long run. Those companies all existed in 2005, but Apple was streets ahead of them for the average person. Apple pushed the industry forward. Remember what the typical phone was like before the iphone? Or the typical mp3 player before the ipod? Sure, the ipod may have had less space than a Nomad and no wifi, but it was what people actually wanted. The question is, is apple really going backwards, o…

> Is USB-C really a step back from magsafe?

For magsafe, yes. But overall, I like the move to USB-C. I plug 1/2 as many things into my computer each time I sit at the desk as I used to. Once these docks come down a bit more in price I'll plug a single wire into my computer at the desk.

> Is removing the function keys really a step back?

Not sure. Right now I'm indifferent.

> How about removing 3.5mm jacks from a phone?

Definitely a tempest in a teapot.

As an aside, the few people I know with 2017 MBPs all like the keyboard. None of us have had issues so I'm sure that makes a difference. Personally, I like the key travel and how quickly I can type on the new keyboard.

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

#633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bugs? I haven't had a hardware problem in linux since 2005. I do have a problem reading visio files though. I have a solution, I tell them to f-off and send me a pdf if they want my views.

>What bugs? I haven't had a hardware problem in linux since 2005. Come on, we all love open source here, but let's be honest: this statement is false.

I assume GP was referring to his/her own experience, not everybody's.

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

#634

Let it be known that I for one like the new clicky keyboard. It is better than the squishy ones from yesteryear. I'm hoping they're progressing toward some kind of haptic keyboard that is entirely sealed so the MBP can be waterproofed.

I agree I actually prefer the new keyboards and I've not seen any issues yet. Although my opinion may change if I do.

As long as you carry a little can of compressed air in your bag, just in case a crumb gets into the works, you're golden.

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

#635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dell XPS 13 has been a solid work machine for me. Portable, powerful, comes with USB Type A and C ports, Thunderbolt 3 and comes with one of the best keyboards in laptops.

do you run Windows or Linux on it ?

Ubuntu 18.04 :)

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

#636
post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it won’t be using low power memory modules. That’s the trade off.

Maybe, if their MacBook Pros were just a little bit thicker (say, the thickness of the 2013-2015 models), they'd be able to fit a big enough battery for the extra power draw to not matter too much?

"Considering that a 76 watt-hour battery is used in the 15 inch machines, they could have made the battery 30% bigger to hit the ceiling imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration, and they still wouldn’t have had the same battery life as they do now by using LPDDR memory." [1]

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

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

#637

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…

I bought a new laptop recently. I was very close to paying well over £1k on an XPS 13 with an 8th gen quad core i5, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. At some point, I came to my senses and bought a used Thinkpad X230 for just £80. I spent £100 on upgrading the RAM and SSD to match those of the XPS I mentioned (I got a rather lucky deal on the SSD). I'm currently planning on spending approximately another £100 on upgradin…

I think the XPS 13 series is reasonable priced for what you get and I thing you would not have regretted it if you would have went with that option.

Your changes sound like too much work for a lot of people but its great that you found something fitting your needs at a significantly smaller price point.

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

#638
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>even though the law mandates a 2 year warranty period. The law mandates no such thing and this is an extremely common misunderstanding of how EU consumer production works. EU consumer protection law gives you protection against manufacturing defects for up to 6 years after purchase(it's 2 years only on specific items - in general, it's 6 years). The absolutely key word here is manufacturing defects - if you have a…

Are you sure Apple covers those two years? Over here it's the seller that adds the second year.

Isn't Apple often the seller as well as the manufacturer? In any case, I've never had to interact with a manufacturer, it was always taken care of by the seller (within the first 2 years).

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

#639
post #468
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…

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

#640

I am a huge fan of Apple's products and never understood the fuss when the new Pro Keyboard attracted bad press, reading it on my old, robust pre-2015 era Macbook. Until now. I got the new one at my job three months back. And, here I am, still struggling with and super annoyed with the missed keystrokes (the buttons are so thin/don't press properly), the almost non-existent 'Enter' keys (seriously, who messes with th…

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