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The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

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Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#81

Post by NeedMoreTea »

madeofpalk wrote: post #8

This is in-line with the the 'under promise and over deliver" mantra I was taught at Apple Retail. Don't make any promises you can't keep, and silently start to fix issues like this. Apple having a hardware fix for their keyboard disasters in this revision is also inline with their repair program they just issued.

> Don't make any promises you can't keep

What, like delivering a keyboard that actually works reliably?

It seems very much the opposite of under-promise, over-deliver in that they promised it and the touch bar would be better. The most that can be said is both are proving hugely subjective and controversial.

Now, had they managed to get Thinkpad feel in 2mm travel...

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#82

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

dingo_bat wrote: post #7

Reading the comment under TFA it seems macbook keyboards have no water resistance? Seems a bit weird for such an expensive device.

Oh god. Forget about keyboards. I once watched a droplet of water so small that it had to have been affected more by subtle air currents than by gravity hit the edge of the trackpad on a pre-force-touch model and then vanish inside the gap, say around 2011, at which point the trackpad promptly stopped working properly for several days (phantom touches, cursor jumping, dead zones). Be careful out there with the expensive toys, eh?

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#83

Post by tbrock »

paxys wrote: post #9
phlyingpenguin wrote: post #5

I’m confused. Are we supposed to be bandwagon mad that Apple took steps to fix their busted keyboard?

No, we're supposed to be mad because they still refuse to acknowledge that it was a real problem to begin with.

Who cares? I don’t want to argue on the internet but either take your laptop to get the keyboard replaced for free or... don’t.

I don’t get the rage about all this. Life is too short to care about a MacBook keyboard problem this passionately. It works pretty well and feels great to type on: the end.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#84

Post by achompas »

corey_moncure wrote: post #69

Was the old keyboard engineering so bad? I feel like Apple has been fixing what wasn't broken since about 2010, regarding the MBP at least. Literally all they needed to do was retina screen, upgrade the internals, and add a few USB-C ports. Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of…

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP?

My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs.

Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#85

Post by FPGAhacker »

phil248 wrote: post #13

I'm sorry, but are people actually more concerned with the sound of the keyboard than the arrow keys? It took me a week to get used to the sound. Six months in and I still can't reliably hit the arrow keys. It's as if they're designed to be as difficult as possible.

My wife's keyboard drives me nuts. Mine is silent. Her keyboard is like stampeding cattle.

I haven't used arrow keys on my Mac that I can recall.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#86

Post by jeswin »

phil248 wrote: post #13

I'm sorry, but are people actually more concerned with the sound of the keyboard than the arrow keys? It took me a week to get used to the sound. Six months in and I still can't reliably hit the arrow keys. It's as if they're designed to be as difficult as possible.

YMMV, but many people get used to the arrow keys when they spend enough time on it. Personally I dislike it.

But the keyboard is just horrible, compared to any ThinkPad X/T. There's no reason a $900B company can't make a great keyboard, except a culture of letting designers get away with sacrificing function for thinness and form.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#87

Post by berti »

achompas wrote: post #84
corey_moncure wrote: post #69

Was the old keyboard engineering so bad? I feel like Apple has been fixing what wasn't broken since about 2010, regarding the MBP at least. Literally all they needed to do was retina screen, upgrade the internals, and add a few USB-C ports. Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of…

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs. Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.

Do they pack them into the final boxes/packaging somewhere close to the end destination? Because those boxes haven't changed in size AFAIK. My 2017 MBP came in a 70 mm tall box, same as my 2012 one.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#88

Post by jillesvangurp »

phil248 wrote: post #13

I'm sorry, but are people actually more concerned with the sound of the keyboard than the arrow keys? It took me a week to get used to the sound. Six months in and I still can't reliably hit the arrow keys. It's as if they're designed to be as difficult as possible.

I'm used to it now but they are quite loud when you sit in a quiet space. I've noticed a few stares my way when hammering away on the keyboard.

Totally with you on the arrow keys. I absolutely hate those and I still hit the down arrow around 50% of the times I aim for the up arrow.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#89

Post by Johnny555 »

bsimpson wrote: post #41
saagarjha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooh, yes, I hate the new arrow keys. The inverted-T arrangement was great for positioning your fingers without looking down, since you could use the empty space to orient yourself.

I haven't used the new keyboard. Can't you still detect the arrow keys by feeling for the split between up/down?

I haven't used the brand new Macbook that was just announced, but I have a 2 month old Macbook with the butterfly keyboard, and the arrow keys are fine... you can clearly feel the gap between the up/down arrows and you can either hit them separately or put your finger in the middle and rock back and forth.

The touch bar fake Escape key is more of an issue for me.

Re: The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

#90

Post by matthewowen »

achompas wrote: post #84
corey_moncure wrote: post #69

Was the old keyboard engineering so bad? I feel like Apple has been fixing what wasn't broken since about 2010, regarding the MBP at least. Literally all they needed to do was retina screen, upgrade the internals, and add a few USB-C ports. Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of…

> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs. Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.

I would guess that they are dense enough that their volumetric cost is weight constrained rather than volume constrained, so this may be less of a factor than you think.
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