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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

#761

Post by tivert »

philjohn wrote: post #754
apexe wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the same boat. Received one at work and can not stand the keyboard. I requested an older model, but they are no longer providing them. It might seem dramatic, but I spend my days typing and I need my keyboard to not get in my way. I have resorted to bringing a USB keyboard into work with me.

To be fair, when you're actually in work, do you not find a less cramped keyboard, proper magic mouse (or magic trackpad) and dual monitors make you more productive? I know they do me.

> To be fair, when you're actually in work, do you not find a less cramped keyboard, proper magic mouse (or magic trackpad) and dual monitors make you more productive? I know they do me.

I like Apple's trackpads, but the functions that they enable are merely nice-to-have features. If you spend your day typing, any noticeable drop in keyboard reliability is going to outweigh any other input-device productivity gain. Keyboard reliability is a critical showstopper feature.

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

#762

Post by jacobsenscott »

justwalt wrote: post #263
jacobsenscott wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My school's primary languages were C and C++, and a smattering of java because it was just getting popular. Certainly the low level understanding that comes from writing a lot of code in those languages is helpful. But the imperative/procedural mindset that it drills into you leads to some really terrible application code, and it takes a lot of exposure to higher level languages to break out of that mindset. It took…

What kinds of mistakes would someone who fits this description make?

Deeply nested if/else logic, very long functions. Imperative logic that could be better written by higher level constructs like function composition, complicating code with micro-performance hacks, etc. In general inflexible code.

Of course not all of this is because I leaned C first. A lot of it was simply due to being a new programmer. But this kind of code is more prevalent in general in the C world. Just browse some opensource C projects.

I believe a lot of this stems from the "systems programming" mindset that goes along with learning C and C++. The requirements are very precise and well known, and don't change often. There is often a fairly precise "right answer" for how to do something where the "right answer" is some combination of performance metrics. Compilers are like that, file systems are like that, tcp/ip stacks are like that, etc. The programming boundaries tend to be very bright.

The "systems programming" mindset is a liability when writing business apps where a sales person can blow up every assumption and design decision and boundry in one day. The "right answer" is not clear, and not easily measured. The "right answer" has more to do with writing code that is flexible and easy to change. That is hard to measure and a totally different way of thinking.

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

#763

Post by hedora »

apexe wrote: post #651
roystonvassey wrote: post #586

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…

I am in the same boat. Received one at work and can not stand the keyboard. I requested an older model, but they are no longer providing them. It might seem dramatic, but I spend my days typing and I need my keyboard to not get in my way. I have resorted to bringing a USB keyboard into work with me.

I’ve seen new MBP users bring usb keyboards to meetings.

The year of the Linux laptop may soon be upon us. ;-)

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

#764

Post by analognoise »

794CD01 wrote: post #698
bhnmmhmd wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Game Theory perspective, "not using Linux" is actually the game's equilibrium. Because if you have to choose between a proprietary OS (Windows, macOS) and an FOSS (GNU/Linux, BSD, ...), you'd have to choose the former in order to increase your own utility. If people said they're gonna start using Linux from now on, that wouldn't work, since at least some are willing to "unilaterally deviate" from that decision a…

The offer is there. It's freedom, and most people don't want it.

A 'free' computer that doesn't actually run any of the tools you need is worthless.

Makes a good doorstop, I guess.

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

#765

Post by spiderfarmer »

I for one am holding off upgrading to see what Apple comes up with for their next Macbook. There are things that I want to upgrade to with the current model, like a brighter screen (for working outside), 802.11ac and a fresh battery, but that's about it. I don't want to risk spending thousands of euros only to gain frustration day in day out.

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

#766

Post by gnufied »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #357
Symbiote wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Running Linux, of course. I wish more people would. That's the best way to get any issues fixed, whether by filing bug reports, writing up a workaround on a wiki or Stackoverflow to help others, or fixing the bug. It's important for us to own our own tools, and keep the right to do with them as we wish. We expect this for our servers, but ignore it for laptops and desktops. If developers continue like this, then us…

And why do you think that a lot of people who are painfully aware of all the issues you mention still refuse to use Linux on a laptop while happily using it on servers? There is a riduculous repetitiveness about this debate. For me and many others, Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy. Many specific issues can be fixed if you put in the effort, but on almost every dist-upgrade something…

> Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy.

Wait -- insecure? How? You mean full disk encryption? I am typing this from thinkpad with full disk encryption and SELinux enabled Fedora. Sure there are problems with Linux on laptop but even if you don't have SELinux enabled - security has never been an issue (or no worse than Windows and OSX).

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

#767

Post by tjoff »

coldtea wrote: post #695
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…

> 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. Non tinkerer is not the same as non-techie. In fact I'd call tinkerers the par-excellence non-techies. They don't do anything technologically productive (much less write their own kernel), they just play with tech toys.

Maybe my definition is off but I feel interest is a requirement for techie. A tinkerer often satisfies that but it is not a requirement no.

Productiveness is orthogonal in my eyes.

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

#768

Post by hedora »

philjohn wrote: post #754
apexe wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the same boat. Received one at work and can not stand the keyboard. I requested an older model, but they are no longer providing them. It might seem dramatic, but I spend my days typing and I need my keyboard to not get in my way. I have resorted to bringing a USB keyboard into work with me.

To be fair, when you're actually in work, do you not find a less cramped keyboard, proper magic mouse (or magic trackpad) and dual monitors make you more productive? I know they do me.

Yes. I have all that built into my old MBP, so I put a giant monitor above the laptop screen, and use the laptop keyboard + trackpad.

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

#769

Post by rbanffy »

eptcyka wrote: post #730
rbanffy wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

OSX is already proactively compressing memory in the background, if it deems a process worthy of compression.

Isn't it compressing caches only?

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

#770

Post by csomar »

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 reason I'm sticking to the Macbook is that despite these issues they are still way ahead of any competition. I'm running a mid-2014 retina. It is still way better than anything Dell, Lenovo, Asus, etc.. can get me. 4 years later and the battery still get me a solid 5-6 hours despite strong usage.

But here is the following: Apple is really improving. It is just not meeting the expectations of its demanding users (and rightly so since we are paying a premium for Apple hardware).

I remember getting sick of macOS Sierra and decided to rollback to Mavericks. Holly crap, I then just realized how much more polished Sierra is with all its issues. The external screen resolutions were screwed, can no longer answer calls through my mac, notes no longer sync and a dozen other things that I just "assumed".

These advances are probably building technical debt. But also they are what attaching people to the Apple ecosystem.

I get my airpods connected to my iPhone easily and without issues. Then I quickly switch the input to my Mac. Then back to my iPhone. Good luck getting that to work correctly on Windows software and other hardware.

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