Gen 3 butterfly keyboard

Yup. :/ I have a €149 Chromebook that's been...handled not so gently. The keyboard – and everything else – works without a hitch. It's 4-5 years old, and admittedly I'm not using it nowadays, but it was almost 15 times cheaper than this MBP!

Perhaps I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome when it comes to Macs... If Scrivener and Adobe CC worked on Linux, I would have been on, er, linuxrumors.com by now. I can't believe the only "safe" (keyboard-wise) laptop Apple produces now is the Air.

 

Similar I would switch to Linux, however I need W10 or OS X right now and certainly done with Apple's "we support our professional's" nonsense, fully expecting crappier & ******** computers anytime soon from Apple...

I have the original Huawei Matebook and it's a better product than my rMB, if I was in the market for a thin & light (for me) I'd be looking a the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Extreme or the new ThinkPad P1. Heard nothing bad about the Matebook Pro, tempted although don't have a need currently.

Right now if I wanted a faster Mac than this W10 notebook I'm responding on, Jony Ive would need to design a nice little travel bag for the iMac Pro, which is really sad and a little funny This notebook gets dragged all over the world, in every form of transport, never misses a beat, nor do I expect it to, nor does the OEM coming with a 24 month international warranty and a 36 month national warranty.

Does it look as nice a MBP no, what it does do is deliver in spades exactly as advertised, doesn't present problem's whatsoever, crushes everything and more than pays the bills. Meanwhile back at Apple Phil's Working hard on the next barrage excuses Apple can foist on its customer's why yet again Apple is incapable of offering a competent computing range.

Q-6

 

Apple, if you can’t fix this keyboard problem, then please keep the MBA around for another couple of years until you are ready for a complete redesign of the rMB and MBP. All we ask is periodic modest processor updates to keep the MBA internals current. Leave everything else alone. Don’t touch it. Don’t let Jony anywhere near it. Don’t even let him start playing with color schemes to justify a $200 premium rose gold option.

Just give your faithful everyday consumers an option to stay in the Apple ecosystem with a reliable affordable laptop.

 

At its core I think the issue here is, it’s still the same flawed keyboard, but with a membrane to delay the onset of any problems caused by debris incursion. Eventually it’s still very likely to exhibit similar issues to the gen 2, as it’s largely the same and not hermetically sealed against dust and detritus. Overall the problem is the actuation is so small that tolerances aren’t real-world proof, Apple need to make the key travel greater to remedy this.

 

What is the difference between the two? Protecting means less ingress, but not zero. Ergo - delaying the inevitable.

Culprit is the tolerance margin for failure. OK for lab and showroom, not nearly adequate for real world.

 

I have had to bring mine (maxed out version of 2018 15") twice to a local AASP for repairs. The letter "O" and the spacebar repeat themselves twice or more times with just a single keystroke, normal typing. The letter "O" has that issue consistently while the spacebar has it randomly.

The first time (whole last week), the AASP reset whatever it is per Apple's instructions (that's what they told me). And the problem still happened just after couple of days receiving it back. The second time has been for 4 days without response yet.

I'm out of business for 2 weeks now and I don't know what to do about it (suing them is not an option for me lol, because I'm living in one of those third-world countries atm).

TLDR, they didn't fix their keyboard problems with that condom.

 

It’s not a full seal, you can see that from the ifixit photos - to me this suggests eventually debris will work it’s way inside the mechanism, and then continue to cause problems as before. The only question is whether it protects the mechanism long enough the computer is largely past its useful life. I guess a large part will be luck, but I would still feel a lot better if Apple made a proper fix to the design (unlikely) which meant even if debris entered it wouldn’t stop the mechanism functioning - the only way I see to do that is to increase the key travel so there’s more lee way with the keystroke tolerance

 

You did see users with failed 2018 keyboards in this topic, right?

 

I had to return a 10 day old unit due to keyboard issues, but it had the opposite problem. Rather than keys that would repeat, it had several keys that would not always register on the first press.

My own feelings are that the silicon barrier addresses some of the issues (at least in part) but not all of them.

 

Based on my experience with rMB I wonder if the membrane perhaps *causes* the new problems?

 

I have wondered that myself. Particularly the keys failing to register a keypress issue. Is the membrane maybe at times being pinched and preventing the keypress?

 

It DOES make typing feel 100x nicer as far as I am concerned, but...aye.

I did a typing speed test today. With Unshaky I did 94 words per minute, 1 typo. Without – 92, 4 typos (I caught one or two and corrected them in both instances). OObviously (that's the keyboard in action) that's hardly scientific evidence...

 

We will have to agree to disagree for the most part on the 100x nicer. I do agree it feels nicer than the 2016, but I still overall hate it and it would be the one thing I would most like to see changed for the next release

I know, keyboards are subjective and many people love them. But I just find it clicky and cheap feeling. That's only my own .2 though

 

I have a 2016 13" TB and a 2017 15". Have had the 2016 going on 2 years. I can't tell any difference between the 2 as far as KB, just saying because I have seen post that claim 2017 KB was an unrecorded improvement. And Honestly when I went into the apple store a few times to compare the 2018 both TB sizes, I could not feel any difference between GEN 3 and GEN 2 in my bag. The feel was the same to me. Maybe they might be a bit quieter but I was not going to be able to tell that in a crowded Apple store.

Some have posted that the real downfall of the KB is heat and temporary warping from the heat causing failure. Then if this is true the 2018 15" GEN 3 KB will be more of an issue then the 2017 15" GEN 2 KB. The 2018 6 Core from what I seen run considerably Hotter than the 2017 4 core, given the same chassis It should be expected.

I don't think this will be the case, but I don't understand how so many people can have issues with the GEN 2 KB and so many that do not. What is the cause of failure, besides the ridiculous blaming of dust, food, pollen.

 

deleted

 

My mind is ever so slightly blown. I sent an email (without bothering to correct typos) to tcook@apple.com, and I just got a phone call from Ireland. They took the serial number, asked where I bought the laptop, and tomorrow I should expect another call. The word "compensation" was used. I didn't expect that.

Oh well. Tomorrow I'm picking up my fourth MBP. Curious how long it will manage before the first key breaks. Anyone wants to bet? Based on experience so far, I say 5 days.

 

Unit #3 for me made it to 10 days. I will be optimistic and say 12

 

Let's hope for a fortnight at least.

 

Sad times when we count days until failure like one of those workplace safety posters.

“We have proudly worked 14 days with no issues!”

 

I just hope the next revision makes it a total non-issue once again.

 

One can hope. I would love to see a major revision in 2019

 

Careful what we wish for…
“Glass keyboard” incoming!

(Ive starts drooling)