Butterfly Keyboard is better than new MacBook Pro

[ZeuSGoKiL]

Do we actually know about the repairability of the new keyboard? One of the problems with the butterfly is that it is attached to the case in such a way that the only way to replace it is to replace a huge percentage of the Mac. If this has an easier/cheaper repair, it'll be less of a problem if it develops issues.

Need to keep checking Ifixit and see how complicated the new Magic Keyboard was done inside out.
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Wonders if 2020 models will change back to Scissors mechanism keyboard .

 

[Donnation]

Butterfly keyboard is trash.

 

[waquzy]

Butterfly keyboard is trash.

It’s one of the worst things Apple has ever produced imo

 

[Hazmat401]

Need to keep checking Ifixit and see how complicated the new Magic Keyboard was done inside out.
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Wonders if 2020 models will change back to Scissors mechanism keyboard .

I assume it will depend on the failure rate of the 2019 BF KB revision

 

[maflynn]

the 2019 MacBook Pro they fixed all the issues as. one has never gone wrong,

Nope, just search here, there are people dealing with keyboard failures.

and the flatness is so much nicer the magic keyboard

Many people actually like curved keys, not flat ones. My Thinkpad's keyboard regarded as one of the best keyboards for a laptop uses curved and I have to agree.

im sure it will type well but the latest butterfly keyboard has been great and I think it looks more modern the key travel is fine, the new one looks more like the old MacBooks with thicker keys

Apple increased the travel of the keys from .5mm to 1mm. Many people hated the short travel

Overall, you seem to be upset that the look of the keyboard is different and less modern, I'm glad apple shifted gears and didn't want to sacrifice function over form as they had done with the butterfly keyboard.

 

[pcd213]

Is the OP Jony Ive’s MacRumors account?

 

[CarbonCycles]

Glad you like the butterfly mechanism...did you really feel the need to share? If so, want a cookie?

 

[Donnation]

OP, to each his own but even Apple knew that their butterfly keyboard was garbage.

 

[Krevnik]

i truly think the 2019 revision fixed it. Doesn’t make it more comfortable to type on though!

And this is the biggest issue with the butterfly keyboards, IMO. They were fine for small bits of work, but got uncomfortable when doing coding for a couple hours or so.

 

[pshufd]

If you really like the butterfly, I'm sure that there will be a ton of them on Craigslist in the next month.

 

[psingh01]

I wouldn’t have had a problem with the butterfly keyboard if it didn’t fail on me. All the things that I disliked about it are a distant second to the fact that keys were getting stuck. What good is a keyboard that doesn’t type? Then Apple said it would take 2 weeks to fix. Two weeks unable to do my job..no thanks. After 6 months their turnaround time improved to me having to lose only 2 days of work.

If they improved it for 2019 then great. But I wasn’t going to gamble my money on it. I’ll wait a while to see how the 16” holds up.

 

[Mainsail]

Nope, just search here, there are people dealing with keyboard failures.

Please provide these examples of 2019 Keyboards failures. My research has failed to produce many, but you are a staff member so in a better position than I to evaluate. I saw one MR post about a sticky "6" key three months ago, but the thread had no additional 2019 KB instances. While the thread was a few pages long, it was really just an echo chamber of failures from older keyboards.

There have been a few examples on Reddit. But, seriously, the butterfly KB has so much visibility now that everyone piles on any issue. Nevertheless, you don't see that many issues associated with the 2019 KB. Certainly, much fewer than the older versions after the first 4 + months. Unlike the OP, I would not say that the 2019 KB is 100% free of failures. Every KB is going to have some failures. I just don't see any evidence that the new version is problematic from a reliability standpoint.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

no problem with typing on 2019 MacBook butterfly, I like the thin design and the key travel and click is fine, it just looks like an old MacBook with the new keyboard

So I kind of agree. The 3rd gen butterfly was finally pretty good. IMO all the problem come from 3 places, reliability, noise, and travel 'tension curve'. For noise, well even the 3rd gen is still pretty freak'n noisy. Better, but still noisy. Reliability, well it remains to be seen.

But for the tension curve, the problem with the gen 1/2 butterfly is there wasnt enough resistence at the beginnign of hitting the key, and so your fingers push past too quickly and then you fingers THUMP into a wall, or rather, laptop chasis. You would have to learn to type with lighter throws so your fingers dont feel like your bashing through and into a steel plate with every key throw. But if you type ligher like that it can affect speed too. So the 3rd gen puts more resistence up top to decelerate your finger/throws better and more naturally so by the time you get to the bottom of the key throw, yoru not bashing into the metal plate/body of the laptop as much.

So, I feel kind of bad in that the bad rep of gen1/2 butterfly keyboards may have caused us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So while I personally like the gen 3 a lot more, I can also see how it's not "quite there" yet with the broader public. I would think a gen 4 could fix that key tension curve a bit more with the level of resistence to bottom out follow through to feel better for most.

That said, I also like the magic keyboard feel a lot, so I'm ok with both. But I think apple allowed a torch/pitchfork mob to grow with gen1/2 and at this point it's more sentiment bad PR than fact killing the butterfly.

 

[Glockworkorange]

And this is the biggest issue with the butterfly keyboards, IMO. They were fine for small bits of work, but got uncomfortable when doing coding for a couple hours or so.

Yeah, can't fix that! It's either comfortable to type on, or it's not.

I've had every iteration of the butterfly since the first MacBook.

The best version, or at least the most comfortable version to me, was the 2016 version with the original "new" MacBook Pro.

I guess 2017 was the same as well.

2018 was changed and, to me, was worse feeling.

Same with the 2019 I am typing on.

 

[fokmik]

Anyone got the 16" ? i wonder if Apple took away that rubber surrendering the display, like surface laptop 3 did...i hope not since on SL3 you get all of the keys imprinted on the display, even when you take it with your hand with the lid closed
Since the keys are even more pop up from the chassis by 0.2mm without that rubber i am sure that the keys will touch easily the display.

 

[maflynn]

Please provide these examples of 2019 Keyboards failures.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/cpq0ky

2019 Keyboard Problems
Third time keyboard fails

 

[Lobwedgephil]

Do we actually know about the repairability of the new keyboard? One of the problems with the butterfly is that it is attached to the case in such a way that the only way to replace it is to replace a huge percentage of the Mac. If this has an easier/cheaper repair, it'll be less of a problem if it develops issues.

One of the reviews mentioned that you can replace the specific keys on the new one, so if you have issues they only have to replace that key, not the entire thing like on the previous MacBook Pro. Hopefully their aren't issues though. So seems like any repair would be pretty easy if needed.

 

[maflynn]

Since the keys are even more pop up from the chassis by 0.2mm without that rubber i am sure that the keys will touch easily the display.

Hasn't there been complaints about the 2016 -> 2019 models having marks on the screen due to the keys? Hopefully, the new keyboard doesn't have this issue

 

[nStyle]

I like my keyboards to work, but other than that I'm not too bothered about the specifics of it. I think if anything though, keys with less travel are less taxing and require less movement to type the same thing, so I don't see how it could be more fatiguing. The older keyboards do feel mushy and "loose" now compared to the butterfly.

I'm not sure one is really better than the other but there are pros and cons to both IMO.

 

[Mainsail]

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/cpq0ky

View attachment 877297

2019 Keyboard Problems
Third time keyboard fails

Thanks for the prompt reply. There are definitely some examples of failures. What is your opinion as a MR staff member?

• Do you think Apple has made progress improving the reliability of the Butterfly KB compared to the number of complaints associated with the earlier versions?
• Do you see enough complaints about 2019 KB failures to give strong evidence of an usually high failure rate for the 2019 version?

Your thoughts? Thanks again.

 

[Krevnik]

But for the tension curve, the problem with the gen 1/2 butterfly is there wasnt enough resistence at the beginnign of hitting the key, and so your fingers push past too quickly and then you fingers THUMP into a wall, or rather, laptop chasis. You would have to learn to type with lighter throws so your fingers dont feel like your bashing through and into a steel plate with every key throw. But if you type ligher like that it can affect speed too. So the 3rd gen puts more resistence up top to decelerate your finger/throws better and more naturally so by the time you get to the bottom of the key throw, yoru not bashing into the metal plate/body of the laptop as much.

While the changes are welcome, I type on a mechanical keyboard normally. When the total throw is 0.5mm, it still feels a lot like typing on glass in comparison to the mechanical keyboard. Even if one uses light switches on the mechanical like I do.

When your keyboard design is too foreign to what else is on the market, it can become an outlier if people aren’t in a position where they can (or want to) adapt specifically to just your keyboard alone and use it exclusively.

I had a keyboard I liked, but it moved the backspace key to where the pipe/backslash key usually is. Because it was impossible for me to use other keyboards once I adapted without tons of mistakes (like Mac laptop keyboards), I had to ditch it. I have a similar reaction to the butterfly keyboard. You can adapt to it, but it is just too foreign to what else is out there to really be good in an environment where I use multiple different keyboards.

 

[poorcody]

Just to be clear, there were two issues with the butterfly keyboard: travel/feel, and reliability.

The keys themselves were polarizing from the beginning. I seem to remember an article early on saying this was true even inside Apple. To be productive with it, you had to "relearn" to type in a way you didn't for most variants of other keyboards. I personally had a long learning curve (weeks of full-time typing). Couple that with the fact everybody has different tastes in keyboards, it probably was just too different to become fully accepted.

Regarding reliability, clearly the keyboards were failing at much higher rate than previous generations. To what extent was highly debatable, given there was no direct numbers released. I wonder if the related lawsuits will shine a light on that, otherwise we may never know. Some people think they all fail eventually. But even a failure rate of "just" 10%, given that millions of them were sold each year, would have created the reputation they developed.

I'm typing this on an original 2016 15" MBP (pre-order!), which I've used daily for over three years now. I found once I adopted a lighter touch, typing was faster and less fatiguing. (I remember going back to my 2013 Air one day and hitting the keys so lightly they weren't registering!) Never had a reliability problem.

I ended up liking the butterfly. I'm glad they replaced it in the end for all the problems it caused, though. I'm also glad they made something that should be less polarizing, but also glad they didn't return to the full travel distance of the past, because I now think shorter distances are better.

 

[maflynn]

Thanks for the prompt reply. There are definitely some examples of failures. What is your opinion as a MR staff member?

I'm just a volunteer and any opinions I have, are purely personal, and should no way be construed as an official statement from MacRumors.

My opinion is that with each successive update to the butterfly keyboard, Apple has improved the reliability, however, it's a flawed design and while less people are incurring the problem (especially with the 2019 model), its still going to fail for people. The repair program covers them for a period of time, but that is only useful for those who will upgrade after 4 years. For instance, 2020, people who bought the 2016 MBP will be rolling off the repair program. That means any future repairs will be on their dime.

 

[fokmik]

Hasn't there been complaints about the 2016 -> 2019 models having marks on the screen due to the keys? Hopefully, the new keyboard doesn't have this issue

yes, but under some pressure....the surface laptop 3...you just close the lid, take it in your hand and already have marks...i bet i can easily crack the display if i place my mbp 15" on top of surface laptop 3...without the rubber this will be another major design issue
i hope next week, when the 16" will arrive ...the answer will be that Apple still kept the rubber on it

 

[Mainsail]

I'm just a volunteer and any opinions I have, are purely personal, and should no way be construed as an official statement from MacRumors.

My opinion is that with each successive update to the butterfly keyboard, Apple has improved the reliability, however, it's a flawed design and while less people are incurring the problem (especially with the 2019 model), its still going to fail for people. The repair program covers them for a period of time, but that is only useful for those who will upgrade after 4 years. For instance, 2020, people who bought the 2016 MBP will be rolling off the repair program. That means any future repairs will be on their dime.

Thanks. I appreciate your input, and I largely concur. Like all things Apple, I would say that there is a tendency for these things to get a bit overblown. Also, there is a bit of an echo chamber of repeated older problems that are really associated with prior iterations of the keyboard. Nevertheless, buyer beware.

In the end, I decided to purchase a 2019 MBA because the new keyboard appears to be more reliable and the four year warranty provided sufficient coverage. Honestly, I can see how others might see it differently. So far, my MBA has been terrific. No issues. Time will tell.