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

I for one miss the bell when the paper reached the end and we had to hit the return lever. No printers, just roll the paper right inside! True WYSWG!
I also miss having to get out of the car in the snow to hand crank it to get it going. Why do things have to change?
Remember when a wheel was just a carved round stone instead of rubber and stuff?
The good ol’ days!
 
So Apple is telling us to pester Microsoft for a 15" Surface Laptop 3 with Thunderbolt ports?
 
sunapple said:
There are many cool possibilities yet people are so fixated on complaining they don't see it.
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The possibilities are varied, and very likely could lead to some satisfying and intriguing ways to interface with applications, especially in the creative space. But the complaints shouldn't be set aside simply because the promise of what's to come might add additional, and even welcomed functionality. What many users are complaining about is the very essence of what a keyboard should be good at -- the typing experience. If the progress of this technology includes adding bells and whistles, without improving that experience, than it doesn't matter. It's like adding a better engine, or better tires to the car -- if it still doesn't drive well, what's the point?
 
rols said:
Do apple engineers actually type on laptops ever? It's hard to believe they do as the keyboards get progressively worse with no travel or tactile feedback to speak of. Add the godawful touch bar and the arrow keys designed to ensure you always hit the wrong one twice and I now find it a better experience typing on my iPad cover-keyboard than on the macbook pro.
If they remove all the feel and turn it into a lump of glass, they will have succeeded in making the worst keyboard, for actual people who use keyboards, possible.
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The Mac designs over the last 5 years have really taken quality hits. The easiest thing to do is blame it on the loss of SJ, but more to the point, what staffing changes have occurred over that period of time to cause these decisions on Mac design, especially with the laptops? If you were to go back ten years, who was responsible for Mac design at that time? Who is responsible now? Someone or some collection of people must drive the decisions to remove most ports and take excessive risks in the name of thinness. An occasional flaw can be written off as a fluke; consistently flawed design begins to look systemic. If it isn't corrected, the Mac - especially the laptops - will fail as a profitable product. It will have gained a reputation as a flimsy, poorly designed product. I would argue that this has already happened with the Mac Pro. The radical change from the "cheese grater" to the "trashcan" design was a bad decision, and no effort has been made to correct that. Consequently, Mac Pro users have moved to other high end tower designs in large numbers.
 
I know I’m a minority on what I think on my 2010 13 in MacBook pro I like the keyboard but hate the trackpad. My 2015 Lenovo ideapad y700 gaming laptop like both the keyboard and trackpad I’ve played around with the other newest MacBook pros keyboard is meh to me I do like the bigger trackpad but still like to have a button press for left and right and such
 
Silverjerk said:
The possibilities are varied, and very likely could lead to some satisfying and intriguing ways to interface with applications, especially in the creative space. But the complaints shouldn't be set aside simply because the promise of what's to come might add additional, and even welcomed functionality. What many users are complaining about is the very essence of what a keyboard should be good at -- the typing experience. If the progress of this technology includes adding bells and whistles, without improving that experience, than it doesn't matter. It's like adding a better engine, or better tires to the car -- if it still doesn't drive well, what's the point?
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There are too many people in today's consumer society that believe that innovation for innovation sake is all that's needed. if it's new it's automatically better than what proceeded it.

There's no thought behind whether or not that "NEW" helps perform it's tasks better. Only that it's NEW therefore is "the future" or "better".

The Apple keyboards have been the prime definition of new for the sake of new and a decreasing user experience due to it.

Are Apple's newest keyboards innovatiive with their short throw and scissor mechanism? Sure. But just because it was newer didn't mean ti was better than what came before it.


As you very well said . Keyboards are a fairly specific device to accomplish a specific task. keyed input. Changing that device that reduces the efficacy of that, just for the sake of changing, with a new product that is overall lesser in quality and functionality is the wrong way to go.
 
I can't believe how stupid this whole situation is. They have created a problem, that was practically non-existent on pre-2015 MBP, 2.5 years later the problem is still here, solution seems to be nowhere near, because you know Apple – pretending they didn't make a mistake, because admitting own mistakes is absolutely the worst way to do marketing/sarcasm.

Just release updated 2015 MBP and everybody is happy.
 
Dave245 said:
That would be awesome, I would buy that! I wonder what they will do for the MacBook Pro line up this year and into 2020? It will be interesting. Maybe just a spec bump for this year, last year was a nice update, they put quad core in the 13” MBP, Hex core in the 15” gave True Tone on the display and the Touch Bar, 32GB Ram option and the T2 chip.
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Yea, I would love a device like that. With the MacBook Pro line, not really sure. I think they are way overpriced and I am iOS only so I have no use for macOS.
 
I've been using the traditional computer keyboards since at least 1981. Every newer type of keyboard design I've tried has been a major fail to me because of the lack of tactile feel. The worst type of keyboard is the crap they use tablets and smartphones as they have no tactile feel at all. Not that it matters anymore as I seriously doubt I will be able to afford any future Apple computers as they are pricing me out of their garden, and they are focusing on making them look pretty with less functionality than the competition. Perhaps Apple should figure out how to build a traditional keyboard that functions properly instead of trying to re-invent the GD wheel!
 
Elijen said:
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.
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In my opinion the best keyboard design was the concave silver keys on the 2006-2008 Macbook Pro and 2003-2005 PowerBook G4. They were smooth as butter, super easy to find the home row and any key without looking, and I believe no thicker than the newer unibody Macbook Pro keyboard.
 
pika2000 said:
That's the sad part. Even at what most think Apple's low point, the other OEMs don't even try. I mean I shared my amazement in another thread, how many PC laptops are still sporting slow spinning platter and 768p screens, even those in the $1k range. You would think the previous Macbook Air has eradicated these crappy spec, but there's a reason Apple could sell the previous Macbook Air for so long without much updates. The rest of the PC market are just not doing anything to completely outdo Apple in anything other than their most top end flagship model.
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That's the thing - you really can get "flagship" high end PC's which compete and at times surpass Apple's Macs. The main drawback, from my perspective, is that most people use them with Windows as an OS. I've been using Macs and/or high end PCs for the last ten years, use only Linux on my PCs - no Windows since 2008. Flagship PCs have improved remarkably during that time, while Macs have stagnated or declined. I won't buy anymore Apple laptops, given pricing and current quality control problems. My last Mac purchase was the iMac I'm using right now, purchased over a year ago. It may be my last. I do miss OSX/MacOS and some of the software unique to Macs, but not enough to pay high dollar for flawed designs.
 
Just when I thought Apple keyboards couldn’t suck anymore.

Thinner, thinner until battery life is unbearable. Hope Tim gets used to missing earnings.
 
jjudson said:
Wait 'til you have to have a cracked one replaced. Get out your wallet...
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That doesn't sound like a realistic thing to worry about... I've never had a cracked screen on a laptop before, and I've never heard of anyone having a cracked screen on a laptop. Clamshell design makes this a non-issue... spilled liquids on keyboards/laptops is much more common, and I expect it won't be as bad with this design.
 
jjudson said:
Data hated the new keyboards on the Enterprise, too...

...but they were Windows driven.

latest


Coming soon to an Apple laptop near you.
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That's hilarious! It really does reflect the Windows/DOS experience back then. Star Trek, The Next Generation aired between 1987 - 1994; Windows 3.11 began shipping in 1993. Data is struggling with the common "blue screen of death" crashes common to early versions of Windows. Those BSOD issues continued to plague Windows, though less often, all the way through Windows XP (desktops) and Windows NT based OS's (servers). I remember having Data reactions back in the server/machine room where I spent a lot of time in the 90s and early 2000s. The only servers we had back then to rarely ever experience BSOD's were the DEC Alphas, which ran Windows NT/2000 on the Alpha RISC chip platform - a great hardware design which failed due to DEC's poor business marketing (Alphas could also run Unix and VMS).
 
Well, I've had my keyboard replaced twice now on my first gen touchbar MBP... So I'd welcome any solution - as others have said, my 2015 keyboard was miles better than this one...
 
Elijen said:
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.
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Well, looking on the positive side, at least an disadvantage of the zero-travel typing experience is balanced by having what should be a totally dust/liquid-proof keyboard. The current butterfly keyboard offers the worst of both worlds in that respect: very low travel and hyper-sensitivity to dust.

Apple are good at haptics - the magic trackpad 2 is uncanny in the way it feels like it has a physical click, especially the 'force touch' effect. I don't doubt that they could make a one-piece keyboard that was no worse than the current one.

Still, yeah, I'd prefer the old 'scissor' design back (and not the low-travel scissor action from the Magic Keyboard 2, either, which still feels like typing on a rock).
 
Please, Apple. Just stop. No one wants this. The difference between my 17" MBP & 2017 MBP is night and day. I appreciate all the other advancements but their new keyboard is a joke. The older keyboard is so springy & responsive and like others have said I'd rather have a few more millimeters of thickness to have that back.
 
The way this new macbook is constructed is why I have not purchased a new one. I keep seeing horror stories. I'll avoid a 2k$ potential failure and just wait for the redesign.
 
I know this is just one of many patents they file and it doesn’t mean we’ll actually see it in a computer, but given the problems with the butterfly design and given that they will never “revert” to an older design, it is possible this is the future.

First they reduced key travel, now they’re considering a keyboard that simulates key travel? How about, I don’t know, actual key travel?
 
HacKage said:
Apple really are making it easier and easier to consider moving across to one of the high end Windows machines, something like the Thinkpad X1 Carbon with it's well known great keyboard if function means more to you than how it looks in Starbucks
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Except they haven't. Unbox Therapy had a video out last week about keyboard issues in a 2018 MacBook Air. The butterfly keyboard is a failure in 2016, 2017 and now in 2018 models.

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Yeah, as with the problems with the display failures caused by opening and shutting recent Mac laptops, the keyboards are failing in unacceptable areas with faulty character production. If you type largely by touch, you could easily be disastrously hindered in production with bogus character errors. This isn't just about how the keyboard "feels" - it's about its failing to accurately produce acceptable output. Keyboards must accurately produce text; laptops must be opened and closed without undue wear and tear to the display, and if such failures occur, it shouldn't cost customers hundreds of dollars to repair.
 
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.
 
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