That's what I'm currently doing. I have a Magic Keyboard sitting right across the top of my Macbook Pros keyboard. On the upside, the magic keyboards keys feel way better than the MBP's keys. Unfortunately not backlit though.
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Gen 3 butterfly keyboard
- Thread starter Lastgreen
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I'm impressed with your stickwithittoitiveness.
Seems like everything from bios (do macs have that), or software to screens to keys.... Talk about depressing. Yes, depressing. We don't have a lot of choices it still amazes me nobody these days is capable of creating an alternative OS..
I give you kudos for your patience with Windows. Their echo-system created a lot of jobs by way of ineptitude. Who cottage industries based on certifications and IT support for what should've been simplified but probabgot harder.
The Surface keyboard has a nice feel but the boxy Windows OS seems almost worse than when I finally threw up on my 20-whatever 3.5" floppies they delivered WINDOWS 95 on after wiping my HHD clean about 400 times. (Amazing what one had to go through for word processing back in the day!)
"Love/hate". Funny you said that I feel the company is continuously celebrating itself as it ships away jobs by using cheap foreign labor and instead of reinvesting their wads of tax avoidance cash, stockpiling it overseas, they build themselves a campus instead. I don't see a whole lot of new software out of these Mohave and snow Leopards. Just some new screen shots, maybe security updates, a few odd things but innovation? How many people do they employ? The sum total of their existence is an incremental update, a condom, Tim swaying his hips on the stage?
I'm forced to love, as the two choices we have seem suboptimal. Amazing how much good money is going after bad. There just seems to be a culture of entitlement running rampant everywhere with nobody really doing anything well. (Insert draconian sops interspersed with wry grins and white knuckles.)
So you can buy. 2018 with a 3-year warranty at full pop and try to dump it on some poor bloke a month before said warranty expires, replacing everything or nothing and possible reduced to haggling the entire time you own your 2018, do same with 2016 or 2017 only those warranties are shorter, or you get one with a receipt AppleCare, or harken back to 2015 and wait for the software to outpace the tech like they just love to do. What's your Time widow With That? (I typed "window" and never capped the other three words this is Apple "innovation" and it is the part of Apple I am hating right now, among other things....)
I feel for us all. We are not here because we want Apple to fair, or to piss in them. Imagine how lucky we ourselves would be to have people telling us what we could do to make them happy. There's TIMS "road map". (I did not all cap Tim either....)
Astonishing!
I saw this video last night while reading MBA reviews, and it really is a bummer. I have a perfectly functioning 2014 MBA, so it will last me at least another year. Hopefully, Apple will figure this out in the next year or two, but it doesn't look good.
My more immediate issue is that our youngest will be going to University in the Fall, and we need to replace his 7y.o. MBA, which has been flawless. This includes carrying it to middle school every day to participate in the laptop program. So, unless Apple pulls a rabbit out of a hat with this keyboard issue, I will replace my son's old MBA with a 2017 MBA for college. While he won't have the latest technology, the 2017 MBA will have better internals and more RAM than his old machine. If I watch for deals, I can probably get a new one on sale for $800, which is $400 less than a 2018 MBA. So, if it is supported for 4 years, that will be a pretty good deal. I just don't want to send him away to college with a keyboard that could fail at any time. It would be a disaster during exams and term paper deadlines.
BTW - I would love to see Apple sell the old MBA with just a few minor modifications: 1080p IPS display, replace thunderbolt 2 with thunderbolt 3 port, and routine processor/internal updates (does not need to be latest tech). Use the same case, form factor, mag safe, Apple logo etc... Call it MBA classic! It won't happen.....just wishful thinking.
My more immediate issue is that our youngest will be going to University in the Fall, and we need to replace his 7y.o. MBA, which has been flawless. This includes carrying it to middle school every day to participate in the laptop program. So, unless Apple pulls a rabbit out of a hat with this keyboard issue, I will replace my son's old MBA with a 2017 MBA for college. While he won't have the latest technology, the 2017 MBA will have better internals and more RAM than his old machine. If I watch for deals, I can probably get a new one on sale for $800, which is $400 less than a 2018 MBA. So, if it is supported for 4 years, that will be a pretty good deal. I just don't want to send him away to college with a keyboard that could fail at any time. It would be a disaster during exams and term paper deadlines.
BTW - I would love to see Apple sell the old MBA with just a few minor modifications: 1080p IPS display, replace thunderbolt 2 with thunderbolt 3 port, and routine processor/internal updates (does not need to be latest tech). Use the same case, form factor, mag safe, Apple logo etc... Call it MBA classic! It won't happen.....just wishful thinking.
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The "stickwithittoitiveness" was borderline at the end. If it wasn't for the opportunity to try again with an extended trail period thanks to the Holiday Return program, I wouldn't have done so. Never would have tried again with only the 14-days, based on previous experiences. Seriously Apple, what is with 14 days? Who else does that besides Apple & Razer? OK, I think Huawei at 3 days and I am sure I am unaware of some others so the list isn't inclusive, but Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, MSI, HP all offer 30 days. Apple, for what they charge for the computers should be in this grouping IMHO. I know you can call Apple and sometimes they will grant an extension beyond the standard 14-days, but you shouldn't have to call them. 30 days standard return Apple, it's not that hard.
There are some alternatives to MacOS and Windows in Linux and I am much more ignorant of them than I should be. I kind of choose to be blissfully unaware of all the various Linux distros, when I should probably be taking a better look at them if for no other reason than to expand my knowledge of them.
Windows actually surprised me after having not even looked at it since the XP days. I picked up a Surface with some curious trepidation about wanting to become familiar with Windows again and was pleasantly surprised about how much I actually enjoyed using it and the Surface Pro. Is it as "polished" as MacOS? No. But I don't spend the day blowing bubbles at my OS either. I fire up the computer and expect it to get out of the way. Windows 10 does a mostly fine job of getting out of the way as does MacOS. They both have their own pros, cons, quirks, and annoyances.
Oddly enough it was Windows Vista and my dissatisfaction with the current Windows machines of that era that had me looking over the fence at Apple, now it is some dissatisfaction with the current Apple machines that have had me taking a look back over the fence recently.
I am not an Apple hater and generally do love my Apple products, but that doesn't mean I have to love everything that Apple does and can't hold their feet to the fire in my own small and insignificant way when I feel they could do better.
The return policy is an absolute joke. Best Buy went to a 14 or 15 day return policy for most customers years ago, and it is just as ridiculous. 30 days should be the standard.
Windows 10 is fantastic. My main issues with it are a lack of good calendar, email, and todo apps. I cannot find anything that is as good as Things 3 and Fantastitcal. And I like the macOS Mail app much better than what Windows offers. If I could have found those three things, I may have made the move this time. Take those apps and add Messages and AirDrop, and macOS is pretty appealing. I have a self-built desktop that is great. I just can't get Windows to fit my workflow like the Mac does.
Everytime I think of jumping ship to Windows, someone presents me with their Windows laptop to repair and then I spend the next 18 hours screaming at Windows Update and turning "chkdsk /r" into a curse word.
Windows Update certainly can be annoying, but on my desktop it just installs on shutdown. I have not felt that pain yet.
Ditto. Windows Update has been flawless for me, it asks me what time to install it and the next day it's all done.
Wish I could say that. Windows Update on machines I'm restoring for people has already taken way more time away from me than a glitchy key could ever do. I just had a dreaded 1803 update chew up 8 hours (before dying and corrupting the system) and then another 6 hours (after a clean install). This was on a system with an SSD too. Granted I'm always get handed older machines by people and they're never well maintained machines, but it's still pretty ludicrous that the software updater works so poorly on stock installs.
Windows Update alone is the reason I'm never going to be a Windows person.
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Things 3 and Fantastical are great Apps and definitely go-to’s. Of course they are 3rd party as well and not the Apples, but Windows does lack alternatives that are as thorough and polished. Windows Mail App (not Outlook) does have its shortcomings, though I do have so say I like the Focused In-Box (also available in Outlook). I think it is a nice concept that allows the user another level between in-box and junk for mail and notifications that aren’t important enough to require being seen prominently, but are important enough to not be junk/spam. That is one feature from Microsoft Mail I do wish I could bring over to Apple Mail. That and since Microsoft Mail does just appear to mirror the settings of Outlook, Outlook does have much better junk mail filtering than Apple Mail imho as well as the ability to block specific email addresses. I had to purchase Spam Sieve to get that blocking feature. You can sort of replicate the focused inbox with smart inboxes, but it isn’t as seamless or as slick.
Apple messages was one of those things I miss most in Windows. I have a tendency to leave my phone everywhere except nearby and I like being able to receive and send messages from my computer. Of course I could just adopt better habits about where I leave my phone....
AirDrop I seldom use because when I do need to do a transfer is it cross platform anyway do have been using SHAREit. I should probably spend more time looking at alternatives, but like my experiences with AirDrop, it works.... mostly.
I am thinking about selling my iMac and building a PC desktop, but for a number of reasons I find the Mac Laptop the hardest to give up in terms of workflow. But that could change year to year and if I do decide to sell the iMac, perhaps it’s another step in that direction.
Of course I have been in the “I am going to sell my iMac” mode since July and have made absolutely zero progress toward actually doing that....
As with anything in tech, there are always compromises. There is no perfect solution - it's something I struggle with and why I end up not being able to clearly go one way or the other.
I was wondering if that was just me... honestly, the biggest hassle I find running Windows (under Parallels), is the inordinate about of time Windows Update takes.
Pulling the trigger on a 2015.... This forum is so helpful with everyone having such useful perspectives on things. A bit of $&*# slinging isn’t always a bad thing either....
SDColorado you have been through Hell and back! Holy cow do I admire your level demeanor. If only I had such a manner!
I know a little of how smirking feels, it only a generation + ago. I do have a Windows machine but my wife is using it. God bless her. I had bitched about Windows on another thread and was being given email config lessons. People try to help and like it is well documented tech is imperfect yet the makers pose themselves as the solution.
Greed is a big part of the problem as everyone wants to be a billionaire and the CEO needs to make trillions next, as billions won’t be enough. A few generations ago they did fine making 20x the average worker.
Maybe the keyboard could be fixed if Timmy Boy wasn’t hauling in so much hay, and his cronies in the boardroom. I think tech could be a lot better if the CEOs make fantastic money and their boards and shareholders made the companies invest in their products more.
It’ll never happen though. Just like chemical companies polluting rivers. CEOs can’t help but grab all they can and the empty din of customer dissatisfaction is correlated to the lack of reinvestment resulting from greed. I wouldn’t be any better, I’m sure of it.
But, since I’m not the Timster, I’ll have to settle for a used 2015 until Imcan afford to buy a machine and AppleCare every 2.5 years. Might not be ever... for me.
SDColorado you have been through Hell and back! Holy cow do I admire your level demeanor. If only I had such a manner!
I know a little of how smirking feels, it only a generation + ago. I do have a Windows machine but my wife is using it. God bless her. I had bitched about Windows on another thread and was being given email config lessons. People try to help and like it is well documented tech is imperfect yet the makers pose themselves as the solution.
Greed is a big part of the problem as everyone wants to be a billionaire and the CEO needs to make trillions next, as billions won’t be enough. A few generations ago they did fine making 20x the average worker.
Maybe the keyboard could be fixed if Timmy Boy wasn’t hauling in so much hay, and his cronies in the boardroom. I think tech could be a lot better if the CEOs make fantastic money and their boards and shareholders made the companies invest in their products more.
It’ll never happen though. Just like chemical companies polluting rivers. CEOs can’t help but grab all they can and the empty din of customer dissatisfaction is correlated to the lack of reinvestment resulting from greed. I wouldn’t be any better, I’m sure of it.
But, since I’m not the Timster, I’ll have to settle for a used 2015 until Imcan afford to buy a machine and AppleCare every 2.5 years. Might not be ever... for me.
It baffles me at how Windows can be so bad at package management. I've never had a Mac or Linux machine eat up an entire day just trying to catch up on some updates. I went to go visit an aunt one time and she asked me to fix her computer. It was ok. It just needed some updates, but it took so long to update that I had to take her computer back to the hotel with me. I spent from 8pm to 10am doing nothing but running Windows Update. I had to get up every hour to check to see if a process had completed so I could reboot or do whatever I needed to proceed to the next step and after 14 hours, it still wasn't finished.
This should have been a scene in the movie Office Space. Everytime I get tempted to consider jumping ship, my wife reminds me of this incident.
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Only from resellers that have stock. Mostly the 2015's that are available are refurbs. In most cases you can't get a 2015 with a dGPU. The ones still available are almost always ones with iGPUs.
Used on eBay. I was high bidder and lost out (sleeping on the job walking my dog, ugh.) Lots w a year or less on AppleCare between $950-$2k+ dep on condition or specs.
As I’m not using this to render video or anything super cpu critical I should live with the older unit. Cheaper than buying a $2700 2018 and having to deal with warranty nightmares. Maybe they will get it together by the tine the thing croaks.
Odds are a new machine won’t fail most but with my luck it’ll crap out on me over and again.
Somehow I envision Cook and Ive huddled in a cave staring at the MacBook Pro and saying “We will never let them make you thicker my precious, only thinner, always thinner. We swears to make the precious thinner we swears on the precious”
Oddly enough, the keyboard has been the most reliable part of my 2018. A little bit of of the black looks like it is starting to wear on left command, and sometimes A seems to not register, but... just moments ago my screens lit up with the machine asleep and it restarted. This has happened a few times. Usually when it restarts “because of a problem” it doesn’t even wake the screens.
We’re halfway through the Mojave cycle, and these BridgeOS errors still aren’t fixed.
May not like the keyboard at times, but at least it usually works.
We’re halfway through the Mojave cycle, and these BridgeOS errors still aren’t fixed.
May not like the keyboard at times, but at least it usually works.
I am not surprised, though it does sound like your keyboard may also be not well. I have had a few of the major issues like the keyboard and T2 in the 5 units I have had/have, but I still haven't sampled from the growing menu of other reported issues such as blue splotches on the display, speakers cracking, light bleed along the edges, gaps in the trackpad when pressed? (saw that one one of the threads) or coil whine. I do have the Vega 20 screen flickering thing, but it seems like an odd use case so not sweating it and a little unevenness to the tint of the display, a little pinker on one side and a little bluer/greener on the other, but that's not worth my trying for a 6th round. You get beaten down to a point where it is live with the one you got or jump ship
Problem is he’s thinning everything (except his bonus)!
I could be wrong, but I believe the phones are actually getting thicker? Or at least they were trending that way. I would still love to see Apple do a MacBook Pro workstation in the previously thicker body, but I know that will never happen. Thin is in baby!
Hey @SDColorado, you've been through at least one top case replacement, right? How long did it take? I've got to get one of those done because of my battery.
No sir, never had the pleasure. All of the 2018’s that I have had trouble with have all had their issues within the return period and were returned and repurchased.
I had a couple of displays replaced on my 2013 13” due to the stain-gate issue. Those each took 4-7 days. I have had to replace the battery in a 2012 15”, but I purchased that from iFixit and did it myself. That was a real joy, glued in P.O.S
