According to Kuo's chart, they are just 'forcing' customers for the 13 and 15" MBP to wait until 2020.And leaving the butterfly keyboards on all the others, thereby forcing everyone to buy the $3k Mac! Good thinking Tim.
According to Kuo's chart, they are just 'forcing' customers for the 13 and 15" MBP to wait until 2020.And leaving the butterfly keyboards on all the others, thereby forcing everyone to buy the $3k Mac! Good thinking Tim.
What is frustrating to me with Apple laptop "innovation", is that there used to be a certain patter of how things evolved. Or at least that is how I recall. Function > Form, and shifting what users needed to do.
I know people don't like to hear complaints about dongles, MagSafe removal, no USB-A, but these are legit concerns over basically no transition system that eases out "the old" and brings in the new where you feel that $2000+ in a laptop will not cost you another $200 just to get it to work as you expect it.
I'm hoping that this 16" with the keyboard changes is at least a way for Apple to move forward and realize that they need to listen to customer feedback vs. always jump into the deep end out of "courage".
Where's the proof that scissor-mechanism keyboards are "more durable" or "not as prone to failure from heat, dust and other small particulates"? Is MacRumors going to provide some numbers from the industry there? For example, how often do Lenovo scissor keyboards fail? Or Dell? Or HP? Why not provide some numbers if this issue is going to presented in black-and-white terms? I'll give the answer: there aren't any numbers and there isn't any proof. MacRumors literally has no idea as to what failure rates for scissor-mechanism keyboards are for Apple or for PC laptop makers.
As Apple and official suppliers for these products do not fully report numbers we can only go by statements of anecdotal evidence and subsequent behaviour of the company that is supporting these changes.
While maybe not 100% related to the mechanism itself, since 2016 MacBook's that started using this form of mechanism, Apple has had to announce and support 4 years of keyboard repairs under warranty for this specific issue.
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.
The fact that Apple have themselve commented on it means that the issue is more significant than previous models which did NOT require Apple's comment, nor enhanced and extended warranty coverage.
Claiming that despite this, it's not a problem and only hard line facts can sway you only shows that your own personal incredulity at the issue is getting in your way of understanding the issue.
Neither HP, Dell nor Lenovo currently have extended warranty coverage given for free due to manufacturing issues or defects. What also makes the Apple situation so much "louder" and more eggregious to many Apple users is the fact that unlike the other manufacturers, Apple's newest keyboard cannot be replaced easily and requires the complete changing of the top of the chassis. So while defects may occur in other manufacturers, and other's keyboards do fail from time to time. Those fixes are a 15 minute keyboard swap that costs < $150 fater warranty. Apple's requires sending the computer away for a massive part swap and out of warranty costs $600+.
If Apple's own admission, and their constant redesigning of the keyboard, plus the warranty program and the anecdotal stories don't convince you that there's a possible problem, than your mind was likely made up already.
Companies like Apple do not create warranty programs for minor issues that do not have a higher chance of occuring.
On the contrary, Apple has a history of providing very generous customer service for issues that do not turn out to be major design problems at all. Remember the free bumpers for the iPhone 4? There was nothing wrong with the antenna design relative to the rest of the industry (attenuation was not an unusual issue), but Apple was perfectly willing to provide free stuff regardless. It was worth it to them to avoid the bad tech press, despite the fact that Apple knew it was unsubstantiated. And the more recent battery "controversy"? Apple basically ate a huge amount of $$ that it didn't have to. There was nothing wrong with the iPhone's battery performance or design at all, just a huge internet controversy based entirely on ignorance of how lithium ion batteries actually work in small devices like smartphones. Again, Apple knew there was nothing significantly wrong and still bent over backwards for customers despite that fact.
Now you have the butterfly keyboard design. It actually debuted in the MacBook, but the supposed "problems" with the design somehow magically skipped that hardware and didn't appear in the tech press until the more expensive MacBook Pro started using it. Now you have people treating changes to the mechanism materials and design as if it's "proof" that something was really wrong with it, despite the fact that they have no real numbers to back that up. For example, how does MacRumors know that a switch back to the scissor-mechanism is actually related to "failure rates"? What if it's just an advance in scissor-design that solves the key stability problems that Apple was addressing with the butterfly mechanism?
I suppose you will also try to blame Mr Ive for the Arab Israeli crises as well, while your at it why don’t you rope him into the current Crimea crisis as well. It’s got to be his fault hasn’t it. If only he was American, who would you kick then?
The mock-up is missing a notch. Gonna need one for that webcam/faceID hardware that people seem to want.
You don't guarantee things that you know will fail. If they're putting the new keyboards under the warranty, it's because they're not afraid they'll have to burn a lot of money servicing keyboards.
I don't want rounded corners on my Mac screen. Noooooo thank you. (nor do I want a touchbar, or munted arrow keys and I think not having a forward facing camera would be a mistake).
As Apple and official suppliers for these products do not fully report numbers we can only go by statements of anecdotal evidence and subsequent behaviour of the company that is supporting these changes.
While maybe not 100% related to the mechanism itself, since 2016 MacBook's that started using this form of mechanism, Apple has had to announce and support 4 years of keyboard repairs under warranty for this specific issue.
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.
The fact that Apple have themselve commented on it means that the issue is more significant than previous models which did NOT require Apple's comment, nor enhanced and extended warranty coverage.
Claiming that despite this, it's not a problem and only hard line facts can sway you only shows that your own personal incredulity at the issue is getting in your way of understanding the issue.
Neither HP, Dell nor Lenovo currently have extended warranty coverage given for free due to manufacturing issues or defects. What also makes the Apple situation so much "louder" and more eggregious to many Apple users is the fact that unlike the other manufacturers, Apple's newest keyboard cannot be replaced easily and requires the complete changing of the top of the chassis. So while defects may occur in other manufacturers, and other's keyboards do fail from time to time. Those fixes are a 15 minute keyboard swap that costs < $150 fater warranty. Apple's requires sending the computer away for a massive part swap and out of warranty costs $600+.
If Apple's own admission, and their constant redesigning of the keyboard, plus the warranty program and the anecdotal stories don't convince you that there's a possible problem, than your mind was likely made up already.
There isn't a single bit of truth in this post and shows a gross ignorance of the issues.
The battery issue was not related to how Lithium batteries "degrade" overtime. Yes, they do, but the issue here wasn't that they degraded and weren't holding enough lengevity of life. They were unable to meet the peak draw under a spike of performance load. Apple's solution to throttle the CPU was very VERY real and while it is a good work around for a design flaw, the fact Apple snuck it in without telling people and it took over a year where even Genius's at stores weren't told how to test for this. While at the same time, Tim Cook was on record saying they do not throttle phones.
They’re bad because they’re bad. My 2016 MBP keyboard failed for the b-key. No amount of compressed air solved. Failed within a month of owning it.So the keyboard is bad because there is a program addressing them? And no, they were not redesigning the keyboard, they added a membrane and used some other materials on a plastic thing and a metal spring. Because the whole mechanism (aside from the so called plastic butterfly) is a metal dome that makes contact with the board. The fact that so many technicians inside or outside of Apple can't figure it out could be just the manufacturing tolerances being exceeded.
And then the drama! a lot of people can't update because the keyboards are bad. They didn't use them, but they must be bad because there's a repair program, right? What about the screens on the previous models, the battery on the 2015 MBP or GPU on 2011 models?
BTW the keyboard swap on older models included the top case and the battery (done by Apple).
I rather prefer arguments that work both forward and backward...but in this case the argument was: make it thinner at any cost, because the people demand it. And when it utterly failed, we get: make it a little thicker, because nobody is going to notice.
If we won't notice it being 1 mm thicker, why would we have noticed or cared about it being 1mm thinner in the first place?
... but should I continue to wait for the touchbar to go away?
So the keyboard is bad because there is a program addressing them? And no, they were not redesigning the keyboard, they added a membrane and used some other materials on a plastic thing and a metal spring. Because the whole mechanism (aside from the so called plastic butterfly) is a metal dome that makes contact with the board. The fact that so many technicians inside or outside of Apple can't figure it out could be just the manufacturing tolerances being exceeded.
And then the drama! a lot of people can't update because the keyboards are bad. They didn't use them, but they must be bad because there's a repair program, right? What about the screens on the previous models, the battery on the 2015 MBP or GPU on 2011 models?
BTW the keyboard swap on older models included the top case and the battery (done by Apple).
They’re bad because they’re bad. My 2016 MBP keyboard failed for the b-key. No amount of compressed air solved. Failed within a month of owning it.
Then my wife’s 2018 12” MB keyboard failed for the space bar. No amount of compressed air solved.
Then my MBP failed again, this time the 4 key.
I also own(ed) 2 17” MBPs, 2 MacBook airs, and 3 15” MBPs of various vintages before 2016. None of them ever had any problem with their keyboards. And I own 4 magic keyboards, all of which work fine after many years.
These keyboards suck.
So the keyboard is bad because there is a program addressing them? And no, they were not redesigning the keyboard, they added a membrane and used some other materials on a plastic thing and a metal spring. Because the whole mechanism (aside from the so called plastic butterfly) is a metal dome that makes contact with the board. The fact that so many technicians inside or outside of Apple can't figure it out could be just the manufacturing tolerances being exceeded.
And then the drama! a lot of people can't update because the keyboards are bad. They didn't use them, but they must be bad because there's a repair program, right? What about the screens on the previous models, the battery on the 2015 MBP or GPU on 2011 models?
BTW the keyboard swap on older models included the top case and the battery (done by Apple).