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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

#71

Post by johnchristopher »

marmaduke wrote: post #31
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…

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”.

I assumed that by "eco-system" those people think of default icons and wallpapers ?

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

#72

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

That’s going to happen.

It’s hard to weigh the Mac ecosystem heavily when it’s obvious that it is a dead man walking platform. How Apple handles the iTunes transition will be the turning point.

Knock on Windows, but it is a living platform that Microsoft is investing in. We all laughed at Windows 8 and Surface, but if you’re still laughing now, it’s because you haven’t looked.

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

#73

Post by AndrewDavis »

fredsir wrote: post #50
thought_alarm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arrow keys are one of the most essential parts of a keyboard for people who write a lot of code or otherwise do a lot of copyediting. This type of user needs to be able to lock on to the arrow keys repeatedly and unconsciously without fail throughout the work day. Apple's keyboard designers understood this and got it right for over 15 years. But that changed in 2016. As of 2016, Apple's new keyboards provide zero…

> The arrow keys are one of the most essential parts of a keyboard for people who write a lot of code Ahem... I think you meant "hjkl". Just joking ;)

How's that escape key going? :p

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

#74

Post by rasz »

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…

>I am stupid for buying another one of these computers

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

#75

Post by threeseed »

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…

Let me add a few more:

1) SMS/iMessages synced across all devices and able to send from any of the devices e.g. Mac or non-4G iPad.

2) 2FA codes received on your iPhone are automatically populated in Safari text fields on your Mac.

3) Safari window opened on an iPhone will appear as an icon on the Mac so you can easily pick up where you left off. Works for a number of other apps as well. And in every direction.

4) AirDrop is really great for quick, adhoc file transfers.

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

#76

Post by sonnyblarney »

I think the butterfly keys are great, when I got used to them going back to anything else felt like a step back.

Reliability issues are a problem, but that's all within reason I think. If they repair for free.

The issue with Mac is they are too expensive and a lot of the regular, non-iPhone stuff is languishing.

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

#77

Post by culturestate »

barrystaes wrote: post #69
culturestate wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I get what you appreciate, but its not for everyone

I know you didn't mean it this way, but for illustrative purposes this is precisely the kind of reasoning people use to downplay the value of an ecosystem, whether it's Apple or Google or (eventually, I assume) Samsung.

"I don't want this, therefore it's not a valuable thing."

Of course no product will be (or should be) the be-all, end-all solution for everyone in the world. The fact that it isn't shouldn't be a mark against it or against the people who choose it, though.

Come to think of it, this is applicable to a huge number of products and strategies in our industry.

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

#78

Post by coldtea »

15+ years as an Apple user, this is my biggest pet peeve.

The other two being:

- the touch strip, which I find mostly annoying. I'd prefer physical buttons with the ability to show different labels (a la Optimus keyboard).

- whichever idiot thought putting the power plug at the bottom of the Magic Mouse was a good idea.

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

#79

Post by threeseed »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #41
kalleboo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the sharpness of it and don't mind short travel. I hate when I have to send my laptop in to Apple for 10 days to repair it because a speck of dust entered it. So now I use a "keyboard condom" on it to keep dust out (despite Apple's explicit support article saying NOT to use one) and it's turned into the worst keyboard since the ZX80

The apple repair store near me (not an apple store per-se) has those condoms on the customer facing keyboards. Wow, they're awful!

I have the Ghostcover and it's amazing.

Doesn't cover the TouchBar and helps to soften the noise.

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

#80

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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.

It's more like, I'd rather pay another sum (assuming I have it), than have to suffer the experience of Windows or desktop Linux (and I've used all three for decades -- in fact professionally, it's all Linux work).

But of course, I'd rather didn't have to pay for a broken keyboard fix, or suffer the broken keyboard. But the experience on the other side is so much worse to me, that it still trumps that (possibly because I can afford it, although just barely -- I've resorted to using external keyboards with my 2017 MBPr).

The "ecosystem" (e.g. I'll lose my paid apps, or such, is a non-factor for me).

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