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That's one take. The other is they had no choice considering how several high-profile Apple aficionados have stated they will never buy another Apple notebook with the butterfly keyboard, and recommend others follow suit.
That makes no sense. It still has the butterfly keyboard, so how does it address that issue? And there’s always a choice— they always had the choice of redesigning it.
 
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Unreliable compared to what? My original post in this thread was related to the total lack of comparisons to be made. What constituted "reliability" in Apple's prior scissor keyboards? What about reliability in PC laptops? What are the standards? I've already pointed out that scissor keyboards replicate all the same issues that people complain about with butterfly keyboards...sticky keys, keys that stop working, problems with dust/crumbs, total keyboard failure etc. Since that's true, how do you rate "reliability" other than with numbers/percentages? Where are the numbers? Nobody provides them. Not Apple. Not PC laptop manufacturers.
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The reports are that it's a new design that improves on prior scissor mechanisms, not a return to the 2015 and earlier designs. And I can already guess what tech sites and tech influencers are going to do: rush to be the first ones to say that the new scissor design has problems.
Sure, nobody will provide numbers, and scissor mechanisms used on older MacBook is not immune from stuck keys, repeated keys and such. But, if Apple is so confident to their butterfly keyboard, they would’ve not introduce a repair program for butterfly keyboard. I, like some other members, interpret this as a admission of lack of confidence. Also, if initial butterfly design is so superior in every way, Apple would’ve not revise it four times, but use 2015 MacBook keyboard design and keep swinging their PR hammer around entire user base, claiming “you are doing it wrong”, Just like iPhone 4 “antenna gate”. We don’t always need solid numbers and objectively assessable facts to figure out something is going wrong.
You make it sound like a bad infomercial where the actor spills a can of soup all over themselves trying to use a can opener. It is only fumbling if you want it to be. It really isn't that big of a deal. I do it all the time and you can buy a small pair of USB-c to USB3 adapters for $6. Keep a bunch in your bag and you should never forget them.

This is such a non issue.
Issue that is not a big deal to you may be big deals to others. I am sure you see that. Just because people can buy dongles to adapt to the port transition does not mean Apple should abandon all old ports and aim for 10 years ahead, especially when those expensive machines are touted as “Pro”.

I have tons of USB-A devices around, and thanks to two USB-A ports (despite being USB-2 port) on my MacBook Air, I can cram it into my small desk with another PC, helping me to get the job done. It’s very good for you to be able to fully utilise USB-C, but for mass, they are not ready.
 
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Unreliable compared to what?

From the post you just replied to:

"...compelling evidence that the butterfly keyboards are more problematic than previous keyboards."

This discussion clearly pertains to the reliability of the current butterfly keyboard as compared to previous Apple laptop keyboards.

Where are the numbers? Nobody provides them. Not Apple. Not PC laptop manufacturers.

Even without specific numbers we are still able to draw an accurate assessment of the situation simply by observing the myriad pieces of evidence available to us.

And I can already guess what tech sites and tech influencers are going to do: rush to be the first ones to say that the new scissor design has problems.

There's no reason to expect that the Apple community, influencers, and reviewers will not evaluate the reliability of the next keyboard fairly. Neither is there any reason to think that the current sentiment is unfair or undeserved. Even Apple appear to agree with the prevailing opinion on the butterfly keyboard's reliability.
 
This is the best MBP news I've heard in ages. I'm still going to wait 6 months to buy after it's released.

It's strange to release a new MBP so close to a refresh unless this is going to be a new tier of laptop. Maybe a MacBook Pro Pro?
 
I'm a bit of a lurker and I don't frequent here or post here (so I may not see replies, sorry!) But thought I'd share my story given that people have been mentioning eating around the butterfly keyboards and what not.

I've got a 2018 Macbook Pro, and coming from a 12 inch MB, I knew the keyboard was gonna be ****ed so I got one of those clear keyboard covers off Amazon. Not exactly this one but it's like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MOSISO-Premium-Keyboard-Adhesive-Protector/dp/B074K3FNJF/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2FCL3GRKUZ8XX&keywords=macbook+keyboard+cover&qid=1564184763&s=gateway&sprefix=macbook+keyboard,aps,141&sr=8-3

I've had this keyboard cover on the whole time. And it doesn't help, so please stop with the "lay off the Doritos" argument.

I've currently had the machine repaired twice and the e, r, and t keys are already ****ed (this message took a lot of editing). I'm sorry but I've never had keyboard problems this bad on a Macbook before, and I don't see why Apple need to be so vehemently defended by some users of this website, saying it isn't some big issue. Why not acknowledge that there are complaints, so it becomes more known, and we as consumers all get better and more reliable products? This "support" that Apple receive from people is just weird - they just wanna sell you **** lol.
 
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I'm a bit of a lurker and I don't frequent here or post here (so I may not see replies, sorry!) But thought I'd share my story given that people have been mentioning eating around the butterfly keyboards and what not.

I've got a 2018 Macbook Pro, and coming from a 12 inch MB, I knew the keyboard was gonna be ****ed so I got one of those clear keyboard covers off Amazon. Not exactly this one but it's like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MOSISO-Premium-Keyboard-Adhesive-Protector/dp/B074K3FNJF/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2FCL3GRKUZ8XX&keywords=macbook+keyboard+cover&qid=1564184763&s=gateway&sprefix=macbook+keyboard,aps,141&sr=8-3

I've had this keyboard cover on the whole time. And it doesn't help, so please stop with the "lay off the Doritos" argument.

I've currently had the machine repaired twice and the e, r, and t keys are already ****ed (this message took a lot of editing). I'm sorry but I've never had keyboard problems this bad on a Macbook before, and I don't see why Apple need to be so vehemently defended by some users of this website, saying it isn't some big issue. Why not acknowledge that there are complaints, so it becomes more known, and we as consumers all get better and more reliable products? This "support" that Apple receive from people is just weird - they just wanna sell you **** lol.
I have no doubt that the butterfly keyboard fails at a higher rate than the previous scissor keyboard. But there are 25+ million of these keyboards in use. Some users have problems, and some don’t. Some who have had issues are convinced that 100% of keyboards are problematic, but that’s simply not the case.

Whether it’s a materials, manufacture, design, assembly, usage or heat issue—it may be all of those and more, there are no doubt multiple failure modes—the keyboard is not as robust as previous models. There are issues with particles but in general it’s not a “cookie crumb” problem. The keyboard is not worthy of Apple, and I’m sure all involved are not happy with the reliability.

re: defense of the butterfly keyboard, I think some of the pushback by pro-Apple users on these forums comes in response to having the usual Apple-hate posters doing their usual dog-piling, as they do with any issue. For them, the butterfly keyboard has just become another talking point to support their innumerable APPLE SUX!! diatribes with which they so enjoy trolling these forums. They’ve never had a butterfly keyboard, maybe never even used one, but they’ll post and complain ad nauseum about how horrible it is.

But there are those who actually like the new keyboard, and haven’t had the bad experience that others have had. Of course, they’d likely have a different opinion if they’d had the issues some users have had, with multiple failures and all the attendant hassle that needing to have the computer serviced entails.

Apple says (at least as of the third generation) that the “vast majority” have a positive experience, while acknowledging that a small number of users—for some definition of small—do experience problems. If the class action lawsuit goes anywhere, I suppose we’ll see actual data wrt failure rates.

PS Some think heat is a factor; you might want to try going without the keyboard protector.
 
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...TB3 has 4x the bandwidth that USB3.1 has right now so it is a lot more future proof than you think it is...

...The 2015 MBP HDMI port for example will not support a 5k display...
Well duh, and when TB4 comes out then you will be pining for that instead, and wondering how your "future proofed" connectors got out of date so fast... just like the 4 year old 2015 version of the HDMI port. Haven't you heard of Moore's Law? Everything goes out of date very fast!

Those of us who want ports don't have any problem with including USB-C and TB3, but we also don't want to keep all the ports that our current peripherals use. So yes please to bring back the ports, and yes, there is no reason why the MBP can't fit in a few USB-C ports as well as the current ports.
 
Companies like Apple do not create warranty programs for minor issues that do not have a higher chance of occuring. These programs are specifically setup when there is a known manufacturers defect in which the manufacturer knows they will have to offer additional on going repair and support above that of normal.

Despite that, they continuously emphasize that this problem "only affects a small, such a tiny blip we can't even see it, number of users". That contradiction is the tell that it's a big problem.

Apple is doing everything short of a recall to avoid a class action lawsuit (which will probably inevitably come).
 
Despite that, they continuously emphasize that this problem "only affects a small, such a tiny blip we can't even see it, number of users". That contradiction is the tell that it's a big problem.

Apple is doing everything short of a recall to avoid a class action lawsuit (which will probably inevitably come).
More than one class action lawsuits have been filed months/years ago.
 
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ahh, there you were being so admirably logical, and then you fall into the emotional quagmire ("i don't like the TB so surely no one else does either and it should be eliminated")

You had me at I "prefer arguments that work forward and backward". And then our beautiful relationship fell apart. :)

oops, I missed how we're supposed to have a relationship. I guess it's best that it's over.

Let me explain something. Once upon a time, there was a row of keys across the top of the keyboard, and those keys all had a specific function. They were "special" keys. My favorite of them was the ESC key, which I use often in AutoCad.

But then one day, Apple decided that the people don't want this row of keys despite their cries for mercy. And when the special keys were taken away, these people were exceedingly sad. Some of these people consoled themselves by blindly tapping the flat glass surface where the ESC key used to be, while others were forced to sacrifice one of the other keys on their keyboard, reprogramming it to be the new ESC key. There was great sorrow and consternation, because the people did not know what they had done to deserve this fate!

If Apple preserved the physical ESC key, but took away the function keys, it'd be fine with me. But to me, and to many others, the ESC key is actually important.
 
For me, the interesting question is:

Will this computer have the Touch Bar?

I’m willing to be that it won’t and that we’ll see the keyboard configuration as the Air.

Yes, the recent updates saw the Touch Bar being included on the 13 inch entry level unit, however this is surely just to use up the excess stock of this component - and for Apple to start widening the price bands for the Air and the Pro (ie so there is a clear consumer and pro pricing split).
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You had me until the rainbow logo.

I hate rainbows as a design (not real rainbows; they're beautiful).

And before anyone calls me a bigot or homophobe, it has nothing to do with its appropriation by the LGBTQ community.

I have a feeling that the XR2 might be the first device with the Apple rainbow logo in the ‘modern era’.

I think going forward the rainbow logo will equal = ‘consumer/entry level’.

I don’t think that the XS successors will feature the rainbow logos, for example.
 
I bet these baby’s are gonna be EXPENSIVE!

Look at a 1tb iPad... get ready for a hefty increase across the board.
 
Thank goodness. I love my MBP, but it seems that I'm always "blowing out the keys." The smallest thing seems to get wedged. It isn't like I'm eating over it either, usually typing on my desk. Maybe I need to wear a hairnet...

You need to be wearing a full Hazmat suit and make sure you only use the keyboard in a Laminar Flow Cabinet except for the three times a day when you hold your laptop upside down and blast it with compressed air.
 
From the post you just replied to:

"...compelling evidence that the butterfly keyboards are more problematic than previous keyboards."

What compelling evidence? Anecdotes about faulty keys or problems with dust/crumbs or failure of the keyboard aren't anything new. Those types of problems existed with scissor mechanism laptops as well. People are claiming the failure rate is higher, but that doesn't qualify as compelling since that claim isn't backed up by statistical comparisons between Apple's own mechanism history or the PC laptop industry. For example, even if you knew for sure that the butterfly failure rate was higher, how do you know that failure rate isn't within industry standards? The perfect example of that type of scenario would be the introduction of Plus sized phones by Apple. Those cases did have a lower three point bend rating than Apple's smaller sized phones, but that lower rating was still well within industry standards.

My skepticism about these things is based specifically on a history of internet claims about "design flaws" that turned out to be wrong. The internet claims about the iPhone 4 antenna were wrong. The internet claims about the iPhone 6 Plus case were wrong. The internet claims about the iPhone batteries were wrong.
 
Can you provide data to support your claims here?

Here's one set of data for the iPhone 6 case. Was the three point bend rating as good as the iPhone 5? No. Was it below what Consumer Reports considered to be "tough" for a consumer phone? No.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm

Some data on lithium ion batteries.

This site notes many of the disadvantages of lithium ion, including this quote "In addition to this, they need to have the current maintained within safe limits. Accordingly one lithium ion battery disadvantage is that they require protection circuitry incorporated to ensure they are kept within their safe operating limits." Protection circuitry? That sounds very much like the auto shut-off of the phone when voltage demands by the system are too high for the battery, i.e., the exact scenario that Apple created the software for smoothing out power spikes to keep the phone operational.

https://www.electronics-notes.com/a...-ion-lithium-ion-advantages-disadvantages.php
 
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Here's one set of data for the iPhone 6 case. Was the three point bend rating as good as the iPhone 5? No. Was it below what Consumer Reports considered to be "tough" for a consumer phone? No.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm

Some data on lithium ion batteries.

This site notes many of the disadvantages of lithium ion, including this quote "In addition to this, they need to have the current maintained within safe limits. Accordingly one lithium ion battery disadvantage is that they require protection circuitry incorporated to ensure they are kept within their safe operating limits." Protection circuitry? That sounds very much like the auto shut-off of the phone when voltage demands by the system are too high for the battery, i.e., the exact scenario that Apple created the software for smoothing out power spikes to keep the phone operational.

https://www.electronics-notes.com/a...-ion-lithium-ion-advantages-disadvantages.php

You seem to selectively pick sources that back up your pre conceived point of view.

You say the internet was wrong about iPhone 6 Plus bending because Consumer Reports says so, you also say the internet was wrong about the iPhone 4 antenna issue but Consumer Reports didn't agree..

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ecommend-apple-iphone-4-idUSTRE66B0OD20100712


On 'batterygate' you either don't really understand or are just deliberately trying to obfuscate the issue. It has already being explained to you in this thread but once more for avoidance of any doubt...

Nobody has ever questioned the limitations of Lithium ion battery technology.

Apple attempted to slap a software patch on what is essentially a hardware issue, Apple were not particularly clear that they were doing this something Tim Cook has basically accepted and apologised for since.

People were visiting genius bars and were not being told that a battery replacement would significantly improve the performance of their phone. How many people bought a new phone because of this is something we will probably never know but Cook later cited the battery replacement programme as being partly responsible for weakening iPhone demand.

So no people weren't wrong for criticising Apple for their handling of the battery issue.
 
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You say the internet was wrong about iPhone 6 Plus bending because Consumer Reports says so, you also say the internet was wrong about the iPhone 4 antenna issue but Consumer Reports didn't agree..

No, I specifically said "here's one set of data for the iPhone 6 case". I didn't present Consumer Reports as the only data that existed or the only data that was important. As CR pointed out in that article, Apple had already provided a look at their torture-testing for the iPhone 6 case, which included a three point bend for 55 pounds, which was essentially the industry standard. And consider that those two sources of data (CR + Apple) for the iPhone 6 case flex standard is FAR MORE data for determining relative reliability than anything that's been provided for the butterfly keyboard vs. scissor keyboards.

As for iPhone 4, it doesn't actually matter if CR could find a way to attenuate the signal since attenuation was a known issue with any type of cell phone antenna. Apple never claimed the iPhone 4 couldn't be attenuated and other phone manufacturers at the time included instructions with their phones that cautioned users to avoid covering the antenna area with their hands because...yes...it could drop the signal strength. In other words, attenuating a cell phone antenna was not exclusive to Apple. It was a known issue throughout the industry, similar to the known issues with lithium ion batteries in smartphones.

"Apple attempted to slap a software patch on what is essentially a hardware issue, Apple were not particularly clear that they were doing this something Tim Cook has basically accepted and apologised for since.

People were visiting genius bars and were not being told that a battery replacement would significantly improve the performance of their phone. How many people bought a new phone because of this is something we will probably never know but Cook later cited the battery replacement programme as being partly responsible for weakening iPhone demand."

The "hardware issue" is not unique to Apple. The "hardware issue" is that lithium ion batteries require circuitry that shuts the phone off completely if the voltage demand is too high for the battery to supply. That's a standard safety issue with lithium ion technology and every phone on the market has that shut-off built in. Whereas other phone manufacturers simply ignored customers who complained about the auto shut-off since it was a standard limitation of the battery tech, Apple decided to provide a software solution that would reduce the possibility of the phone simply shutting off when voltage demands were too high for the battery. That isn't anything devious. It's customer service.

As for the battery replacement, the Genius bars were instructed to tell people the truth: that replacing a battery that isn't EOD isn't necessary. And it's not. As I've said before, 2 out of the 3 scenarios where voltage demands could be too high for the battery (cold conditions OR low battery charge) have nothing to do with the age of the battery. And if your battery isn't at the industry standard for EOD, then replacing it won't make it any more reliable for supplying voltage than a brand new battery. The truth is that unless your battery was really EOD, running out and replacing it with a new battery didn't have any significant impact on whether or not the battery could supply voltage per industry standards.
 
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