Apple Exploring New Glass Panel MacBook Keyboards That Could End Sticky Key Problems

[happyslayer]

As (apparently, one of the few on this site) a person who really likes the new keyboard design, this looks kind of cool. I really do like the new butterfly keyboards--I've now owned all the different generations in four different laptops (2015 MacBook, 2016 13" MacBook Pro, 2017 12" MacBook and, currently, a 15" MacBook Pro) and I think they have improved with each generation. Can't wait to see if this next gen design comes to fruition. If they add force touch similar to the trackpad, I think it could work well.

 

[sunapple]

You're not seeing the forest for the trees. I'm not talking about moving backwards; I'm talking about iterating on the current design until it's perfect. Let's use another example. VR is a new way of interfacing with display technology; imagine Apple decided to sell laptops with VR displays rather than traditional ones; I'd guess most users would be up in arms over the shift to a drastically new technology that simply doesn't work for them. This is your example of "moving forward" in a different sense -- we don't need VR, the display works, and we simply improve upon that technology. The same goes for the keyboard. While a much more hyperbolic comparison, this is exactly how I perceive the switch to the 2016 design. It is a drastic departure from a keyboard that was near perfect and just needed some love and attention.

You seem to be stuck in the "always innovate" camp, and that's a dangerous place to be. As I said many times, not everything needs to change. There are things that "just work" and those things can remain the same. Work on improving the REST of the device, I'm all for that. But there is a time when you can leave well-enough alone.

You’re assuming the 2012 design could have been improved to perfection but I think there was a limit for either one of the three points (travel, stability and reliability). The idea of a keyboard as input is your guitar string, the scissor mechanism isn’t.

They already moved to Butterfly so going back to 2012 (which of course cannot be fitted in the current MBPs without adjusting almost every piece of the chassis) would indeed mean moving backwards. You said so yourself:

When you've created a barrier that exists at the very first point of contact with your device, you've created a problem that you can only address by going BACK to the iteration that worked.

If the 2012 mechanism design ‘just worked’ then why did those keyboards fail when the right amount of dirt or liquid came in (just at a lower rate then the current ones). Same for the keyboards that came before.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Is it just me or does the butterfly mechanism feel better to type on? Going back to the pre 2015 keyboard just feels squishy and unstable to me.

 

[DocPenguin]

I'm sure your assurance is all that they have been waiting for!

/s

 

[PeterJP]

(...) describes a keyboard that replaces movable keys with a glass sheet that includes raised sections to designate the tactile location of individual keys.

When a raised key section is pressed, the keyboard detects the input pressure for that key and processes as a typical key press. The concept differs from the featureless plain of a virtual onscreen keyboard because the raised sections allow the user to feel where their fingers should rest in relation to the individual keys.

This sounds very much like a membrane keyboard, the horror that some of us had to live with in the 1980s. Here's one example: the ZX-81 from Sinclair:

Yes, it's very, very flat. Yes, Apple would make it in glass instead of in this horrible rubbery non-tactile mess. But the idea is more or less the same. I would be surprised if it made for a good typing experience.

 

[dilbert99]

I would be worried about glass buttons hitting a glass screen when closed and scratching it
Plastic buttons don't scratch glass screens.

 

[torana355]

The problem with this is ergonomics, there is a reason keyboards have travel, if you type on a solid piece of glass all day even if the haptic feedback perfectly simulates a real key depression you are going to end up with rsi/atheritis. Think of keyboard travel as suspension for your fingers, simulating it is pure stupidity. Just kill the laptop already Apple, we all know it's your endgame. Put us out of our misery lol

 

[Steve121178]

What about the fact that the new keyboards are terrible to type on for longer periods of time? Apple went from the best keyboard design in the industry to the worst in a single year.

Apple keyboards have never been on par with the vastly superior ThinkPad keyboards. Ever.

 

[smirking]

Apple keyboards have never been on par with the vastly superior ThinkPad keyboards. Ever.

I really don't get why people are still crowing about the Thinkpad keyboards. They were awesome in the classic IBM Thinkpads. Because of all the rave comments about Lenovo Thinkpad keyboards, I sought one out to try and was sorely disappointed. They're nothing like the Classic IBM editions.

What am I missing? What's so great about the Lenovo keyboard? I see and feel no difference between the Lenovos and any other wobbly scissor switch laptop keyboards.
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Is it just me or does the butterfly mechanism feel better to type on? Going back to the pre 2015 keyboard just feels squishy and unstable to me.

I'm a convert. I hated them at first, but once I got used to typing on them, I started to like it more than any other laptop keyboard I've tried (except for the classic IBM Thinkpads).

People have to understand that it's a different type of keyboard that requires an adjustment period to adapt to it. I'd expect nearly everyone to hate it the first time they try it, but most will adjust and it'll be fine.

Some people are going to have a harder time adjusting than others though and if you can't get used to the lighter touch you need to develop to type on these, it will indeed be the worst typing experience ever.

 

[Suttree]

Interesting, I wonder how many people in the general world like the Touch Bar, by that i mean the large number of the population who buy these devices but don’t visit it post on these forums. It’s diffuclt to tell if something is a success or failure, if you base it on the people who post and visit this site then everything for the past few years has been a failure, but in reality I think that’s further from the truth, but we simply can’t base it off that because the number of people on this forum will be far less than the general population of people who buy these devices.

It’s good to hear something positive about the Touch Bar from someone else (other than my friend who loves it for video editing).

I think it's a cool piece of tech. I use it all the time. But I also heavily use 3D Touch and Force Touch, which gets mocked but I find them indispensable by now because it eases my workflow considerably. I'm working 60 to 80 hours a week and these "gimmicky" technologies keep me focused on content. They've reduce the number of times I've broken a flow because I'm looking for some command in some submenu.

 

[iPadified]

Amazing, a 13 page thread about something that is both individual and subjective. The keyboard (or pointing device) is like a pair of shoes - impossible to say which one is the most comfortable one as this is highly individual. Furthermore, almost all shoes requires a lengthy and sometimes painful adaption.

Another reflection, people at Macrumours often refer to facts without backing them up with any high quality evidence. Let's not lower ourself to politician level of expressing opinions and personal experience as facts that can be generalised to the whole population.

 

[mdbradigan]

I work in a company with more than 20k employee. At this point almost 80% of us use the Macs with the new keyboard, and I still have to hear someone complaining that they are not comfortable to type on, or that they break. I wonder how much this is a real problem that actually afflicts more than 0.02% of the user base and how much is resistance to the new + group thinking, because all the whining seems to happen exclusively in online forums.

Seriously? I work at a small company, <150 employees. About 25% of us using MBP. All of us have expressed a dislike of the new keyboards, 5 of us have had keyboard failures. (We are programers - heavy users)

 

[smirking]

But I also heavily use 3D Touch and Force Touch, which gets mocked but I find them indispensable by now because it eases my workflow considerably.

What do you use 3D touch to do? I was rather intrigued by it, but found it really confusing to use and subsequently stopped even trying to use it. I changed careers and input devices and ergonomics is something that connects my old career to my new one so I'm always intrigued in novel UIs. Unfortunately, as interesting as I find new approaches in UI, I haven't personally found them to be useful for me (yet) and I want to know what I might be missing.
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All of us have expressed a dislike of the new keyboards

I'm a programmer as well and fan of mechanical keyboards. I split my time between a feather light mechanical 35g electrocapacitive keyboard and the 60g MBP keyboard. It's an odd combo, but it works for me.

I'm not surprised that heavy keyboarders of your department abhor it because I detested this keyboard at first too. Once I realized that I was having less hand pain typing on the butterfly switches than other laptop keyboards, it started to grow on me. It's now my favorite laptop keyboard. I still have some grumbles about it though.

I've realized that you have to tweak the way you type on them to really use them well. If you're able to adapt, you might actually come to like them as I have, but not everyone is going to be able to tweak their muscle memory to thrive on it.

 

[whooleytoo]

So basically, the full keyboard is one big button?

Oh God. The memes have come true. Apple has just gone Full Apple!

 

[baryon]

Apple: We need more ways to make a computer more fragile and more expensive, all while making it worse in every other way!

 

[Suttree]

What do you use 3D touch to do? I was rather intrigued by it, but found it really confusing to use and subsequently stopped even trying to use it. I changed careers and input devices and ergonomics is something that connects my old career to my new one so I'm always intrigued in novel UIs. Unfortunately, as interesting as I find new approaches in UI, I haven't personally found them to be useful for me (yet) and I want to know what I might be missing.

Primary, I use it a lot in Phone, Mail, Messages, Reminders, Safari, Maps. I use a lot of Quick Actions right on the icon without ever launching the app. Also it serves as a secondary-click, really. Like in the phone app, I can invoke a contextual menu to place different types of calls, which I might be the last person on Earth who does. It’s really convenient to have when performing a shortcut or preview a link or open list of tabs and move on to the next thing.

I use it a lot when composing text and email messages and notes to move the insertion point, select whole words,or even paragraphs.

 

[ionutc]

This is somewhat offtopic, but people are always talking about the new keyboards so here it goes. I think the stuck or sticky keys and the multiple registering are two very different problems that might have the same culprit - dust. I've had both sticky and multiple registering keys and they seem to be ok for now with no keyboard replacement.

The sticky/stuck keys obviously has to do with the butterfly mechanism and dust/debris that get inside. On the other hand, the multiple registering is under the membrane. I popped my b key out and I could replicate the multiple registering by pressing directly on the membrane, so nothing to do with the butterfly mech. Also the canned air didn't help because it's almost imposible to get under the membrane. My theory is that dust somehow gets under the membrane and you have the multiple registering. If the piece of dust or whatever moves to the side, the key registers as normal. Note that the keys never felt weird to the press, just the multiple registering. So if you have this problem, hold your laptop upside down and rotate it while pressing multiple times on the key that has this issue so whatever is in there to just move. Once the problem went away, it didn't come back in my case.

I was very close to taking it to the store for a replacement, but i wanted to see if it goes away - it has, at least for now. If the dust is the problem, yeah, you will have this issue at some point. Somehow my 2016 15” MBP's keyboard feels ok, I never had a feeling that the keys would fail or something.

 

[Silverjerk]

You’re assuming the 2012 design could have been improved to perfection but I think there was a limit for either one of the three points (travel, stability and reliability). The idea of a keyboard as input is your guitar string, the scissor mechanism isn’t.

They already moved to Butterfly so going back to 2012 (which of course cannot be fitted in the current MBPs without adjusting almost every piece of the chassis) would indeed mean moving backwards. You said so yourself:

No. You're conflating my two points. I said I wanted to go BACK to the original design, and then move FORWARD from there. In other words, to iterate on it and make it better. Moving backwards would imply going back to that design and not improving upon it (i.e., stagnancy). Also, there is no limit to improving on travel, stability, and reliability. We have mechanical keyboards that are popular in the PC market that are low profile and have resolved many of these issues. There are also several laptops in the PC space (like the new Razer Blades, a machine I actually own and have experience with) that already improved on Apple's chiclet keys. You're implying there is no possibility to perfect the design more in service to your point, rather than making an argument as to why it can't be done.

If the 2012 mechanism design ‘just worked’ then why did those keyboards fail when the right amount of dirt or liquid came in (just at a lower rate then the current ones). Same for the keyboards that came before.

Again, these things can be improved upon. I stated MANY times it wasn't perfect, but it was certainly better than what we have now.

 

[zen]

Apple's butterfly keys are a DESIGN DECISION, nothing more. Lenovo make laptops that are thinner and lighter and feature full-action keyboards.

A glass keyboard would be diabolical.

 

[cocoua]

2107 Macbook pro owners new to apple are thinking apple products are very bad builded. This is one of the worst publicity for apple.

They neww to fix this ASAP

 

[zen]

Apple keyboards have never been on par with the vastly superior ThinkPad keyboards. Ever.

Keyboards that Lenovo still produce. Apple users have NO idea what they are missing out on.

 

[jeyf]

Apple's butterfly keys are a DESIGN DECISION, nothing more. Lenovo make laptops that are thinner and lighter and feature full-action keyboards. A glass keyboard would be diabolical.

i bet the Lenovo portable with "full-action" keys costs less too!

by the way i own a late 2016 MBP having the junk keyboard:
i actually like the MBP's touch bar. Sorry. I would be able to get used to any keyboard, even a glass one, if it behaved consistent. There are benefits of having a solid state keyboard. it would be so Jetson; 1962 steam punk modern.

 

[zen]

i bet the Lenovo portable with "full-action" keys costs less too!

by the way i own a late 2016 MBP having the junk keyboard:
i actually like the MBP's touch bar. Sorry. I would be able to get used to any keyboard, even a glass one, if it behaved consistent. There are benefits of having a solid state keyboard. it would be so Jetson; 1962 steam punk modern.

Funnily enough Lenovo do make a Yoga model which has a glass keyboard, which also doubles as another full-sized display. But typing on glass is not great.

 

[jeyf]

... Lenovo do make a Yoga model which has a glass keyboard, which also doubles as another full-sized display...

thats it by gods; a totally user definable keyboard!
or
iPad with a file manager

 

[shaunp]

It's always interesting to see what professional IT people use for their personal computers, especially laptops. Prior to my retirement back in 2007, where in my previous ten years I worked in a Windows server support group, the last few years nearly all the folks on our team used MacBook Pros for their personal laptops. At every staff meeting, folks would have their MBP's out while discussing Windows OS issues and generating reports and the like. My guess, given the last few years, is that those folks would now be sporting high end PCs for personal use.

I know quite a few that moved from Windows to Mac in around 2010 because MBP's were simply the best laptops and the whole Apple ecosystem really worked. Almost all of the contractors I know now have switched back to PC, mainly Thinkpad or Dell XPS and it's not because of the software.