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After denial that it would happen to me, I'm starting to get the keyboard problem
- Thread starter xxray
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I call BS on that. I believe that the problem is a LOT more frequent than Apple, and people invested in Apple's stock performance are letting on. Based on what i've seen personally.
Fact is we don't have any reliable data from non-biased sources, but anecdotally there are plenty of people, myself included who can list a majority of users we know who have had issues with the new keyboard. One of my friends went through *4* Retina macbooks inside of 2 months for example before getting a non-butterfly machine. Does that count as 4 failures or "1" user failure?
Our IT guy manages a thousand of these and he said that he hasn't run into a keyboard problem and I believe him. The model years are 2015 - 2019. I have not personally heard other employees with the problem and we likely have MacBook Pros in five figures. I chat with our building IT guy and he sends some people to me with Mac problems because I'm known to people in the building as a Mac person and I have a lot of spare parts in my office. But I'm on the corporate mac email list as well and I see the problems that people post and I haven't seen one keyboard complaint.
I'd say that the problem is widespread enough to be hurting Apple's reputation but I don't think that it's anywhere near a majority. I would guess that it affects less than 5%. That said, I would not touch a MBP from 2016-2019 myself. I bought a used 2015 in January and I'm very happy with it. It was cheap with a big dent and a big gouge but it works just fine. I do not care to spend the time and effort dealing with repairs on a new and expensive machine. Apple's reputation has been damaged and I'll wait for the accumulated problems to be resolved.
"they have had no keyboard issues with our company-issued MacBook Pros and we've been using them since 2015."
The 2015 MacBook Pros have the OLD scissors type keyboard, and are not susceptible to the problems that began with the butterfly design that originated on the 2016-design models.
The 2015 MacBook Pros have the OLD scissors type keyboard, and are not susceptible to the problems that began with the butterfly design that originated on the 2016-design models.
We have been buying them for new employees so we have 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 models.
I keep seeing validation for my decision to hold off. I’m looking for long term hardware. Hopefully, Apple changes designs next revisions and keeps or continues to improve their pricing across storage levels.
Early on I may have had some confirmation bias. Now, the issue is raised so frequently it’s unavoidable. My original post stands.
the design is flawed, and any changes to the existing design is only band-aids to the problem. This is why I opted to move away from Macs, I was treating my MBP like a 6th century ming vase, instead of using it as it should.
Its a bummer you're incurring the problem, and I totally understand the hope you put into the updated design, I did the same thing with the 2018 model, but I opted to sell it once more and more reports were flowing in on keyboard failures.
It's also the reason i haven't upgraded, and I have migrated my non-ipad-friendly workload to a desktop PC for the most part. Because Apple do not make a price competitive platform on the desktop either.
When the Macbook Pro finally dies, it will likely be replaced with a 12.9" iPad Pro (assuming iOS 13.x is good enough) and my usage of macOS will be mostly replaced. Unless Apple make a portable Macbook that doesn't suck (either in terms of reliability or price) in the mean-time.
Irony: buying an iPad Pro to get a keyboard that isn't garbage in a portable Apple device.
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Look there's a few ways you can mitigate this but it will eventually happen... I have replaced my 2017" 13" twice now! Even thou I use the Magic Keyboard at work.
But since I write tons of emails when I'm at a client or simply just working it ends up killing my Arrow Down and S/D.
They gotta change the keyboards or we are all going to be playing he whole repair thing every 6 months.
Heck I have a friend who got the 15" 2019 and already had to go in for repairs (he's a writer so spends like 10 hours a day writing)
But since I write tons of emails when I'm at a client or simply just working it ends up killing my Arrow Down and S/D.
They gotta change the keyboards or we are all going to be playing he whole repair thing every 6 months.
Heck I have a friend who got the 15" 2019 and already had to go in for repairs (he's a writer so spends like 10 hours a day writing)
Until your iPad Pro gets touch disease and its screen keyboard stops responding. At least this seems to be happening much less in iPadOS 13. It's almost like Apple didn't want iPad owners to be left out of the keyboard lottery LOL.
For the MBP keyboard, I have a 2017 model and so far (knocks on wood) I've only had the right Option key give me trouble, and mashing on it for a minute or so brought it back to life. Of course, that's when I started putting together a clean room for my laptop (j/k).
So far so good.
I have however had to replace my smart keyboard cover with a logitech keyboard case (but at least i CAN replace that keyboard cheaply, with third party options. sure i could carry a bluetooth keyboard with me with a macbook but if you're going down that path why not just go to a mac mini...).
Why?
Because where it connects to the ipad, the smart keyboard was exposing some metal traces and actually rubbing/damaging the bezel of my ipad.
Pity, i liked the feel of it, but the logitech case has a loop for the pencil so...
My iPad pro does have the white dot on the screen that is starting to annoy me but I'm holding out for the new 12.9.
they will replace it simply upon asking. if you go to the genius bar they might ask you to demonstrate.
Last time I got it replaced I had to send a video to the senior advisor to show that it was duplicating. Which was no problem for me. Better than that one time I sent it (for a top case replacement) in and they "couldn't replicate my issue" even though they could have if they just pressed the affected key for a couple minutes.