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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

#781

Post by drusepth »

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.

Same boat here as well. Three of my keys continuously either don't register or register multiple times. Took it in to an Apple store and they fixed one (for a short amount of time) and quoted $800 in repairs (and 5-7 day turnaround) for the other two (to "replace the laptop frame"). Replacing a keyboard (or even just keys) should not be this hard.

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

#782

Post by braindongle »

What to buy instead? My 2015 MBP has been a wonderful machine to work on, and there's no way I'm getting one of these little gray turds. So, I'll be using Ubuntu for my daily driver, which is fine. But that last generation MBP is so nice, what other hardware compares?

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

#783

Post by ajross »

foldr wrote: post #773
ajross wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Exactly! It's the only environment where I can rely on all text entry working with emacs keybindings, though to be fair I have to poke a setting to get that. Oh wait, you were being sarcastic. Well, at least you were wrong and learned something I guess. (No seriously, you're wrong here. Linux desktops solved the uniform keybinding problem in a cross-desktop way like a decade ago. You just don't like it because t…

All text entry works with emacs keybindings on OS X without having to poke at a setting. Or rather, one setting per toolkit: https://superuser.com/questions/171925/enable-emacs-like-key... >You just don't like it because they're different, not because they're inconsistent. I didn't say anything about not liking Linux keybindings. It's a minor issue for me personally.

Sorry, I took your sarcasm to imply that linux desktop keybindings were inconsistent. If that's not what you mean (I mean, reading it again, I'm really pretty sure that's what you meant), then I apologize.

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

#784

Post by sah2ed »

sanderjd wrote: post #740
ender89 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like Steve Jobs was such an uncompromising asshole that he would rather throw a substandard product in the garbage than put out something he considered lesser. He didn't have vision, nothing he "made" was revolutionary at all, and he didn't make anything after the NeXT. Steve Jobs was amazing at two things: getting in on the ground floor (the iphone came out so quickly after the first all touch screen smart…

What was the original? My memory of the time was seeing a bunch of cool Microsoft Surface demos, thinking "someone is gonna make a killing putting this on a phone", and the iPhone coming out a few months later. I'll go so far as to say that I think it was the first touch screen phone that was actually manufactured and sold. But I'll be very curious to be proven wrong!

> What was the original?

Here's a wikipedia link for the curious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada

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

#785

Post by sanderjd »

fhood wrote: post #749
symfoniq wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same boat. Against my better judgement, I bought a 2017 MacBook Pro about 6 months ago to make it easier to work with a client. I sold it this week at a big loss. Between the terrible keyboard, the useless Touch Bar, and the dongle hell, and general hardware flakiness, this was the worst laptop I've ever owned, Apple or otherwise (and I've owned almost every Apple laptop generation since the PowerBook G3). Good ridda…

Literally praying that they fix this crap in the next update. My mbp is getting on in years, and if they don't do something I'm going to move to linux for my next machine.

Maybe this is a market opportunity for somebody to build a laptop with high end components (monitor, keyboard, touchpad) running a super-duper-well-integrated linux.

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

#786

Post by donarb »

bpicolo wrote: post #681
ngcazz wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple I want figures out how you put 32GB RAM in a thin laptop while preserving battery life!

Probably would help if they freed up space and battery life by not having a totally unnecessary second screen taking up the top row of the keyboard.

And replace it with what, function keys? Keys which are thicker than the screen that replaced them and has far more functionality in a smaller footprint?

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

#787

Post by deminature »

sharpshadow wrote: post #470
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…

There is a XPS Developer Edition with Linux instead of Microsoft. I'm personally stuck with Win 7. Will never update to Win 10 and OSX does not seem to be a good choice nowadays. That means Linux will make the run the next years, hopefully.

OSX is still a fine choice. I've been using OSX since 2003 and only noticed substantial improvements over time like Spotlight, Airdrop, Facetime, Quicklook, not regressions. I'm really sick of constant doomsaying about OSX and Apple in general.

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

#788

Post by shaniber »

I really like the keyboard DESIGN. Initially, I despised the keystroke depth, because my hands hurt after typing on it. But once I stopped typing so hard, I found my speed increased, and I didn't have any pain.

That being said... I still despise the keyboard for how fragile it is. The slightest mote getting under the keys is enough to throw it off, and I've had so many problems with keys that stop working on the machines around the office. And don't get me started on the dang touchbar.

All in all, it's not worth the problems. I'm lucky being in IT, as I can put off "upgrading" my main machine for a while.

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

#789

Post by fauigerzigerk »

gnufied wrote: post #766
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

What I was specifically referring to there is that Ubuntu's NetworkManager (in combination with Open VPN) had (or still has?) a DNS leak right out of the box for years.

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

#790

Post by foldr »

ajross wrote: post #783
foldr wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All text entry works with emacs keybindings on OS X without having to poke at a setting. Or rather, one setting per toolkit: https://superuser.com/questions/171925/enable-emacs-like-key... >You just don't like it because they're different, not because they're inconsistent. I didn't say anything about not liking Linux keybindings. It's a minor issue for me personally.

Sorry, I took your sarcasm to imply that linux desktop keybindings were inconsistent. If that's not what you mean (I mean, reading it again, I'm really pretty sure that's what you meant), then I apologize.

They are inconsistent between applications/toolkits. I was saying that this is not a big issue for me personally.
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