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iFixit Teardown Suggests 2018 MacBook Pro Keys Feature a Silicone Barrier to Prevent Malfunctions Due to Dust
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Seriously?
They’re a business. It is in their best interest to reduce product failures.
Agreed. And I'm one. Typing on it now and I like it. And I am a huge mechanical keyboard fan - I've got Steel Series and several other Made in USA mechanical keyboards in my possession. Only difference, I'm not going to tell you what is best for you. Why would I? What works for me may not work for you. Personal preference. It really gets me when people who don't even own the laptop bash on it and say everyone hates the keyboard.
We will never know if Apple ever planned obsolescence, but such gentry does seem to suffer from transference.
And "you're using it wrong"
I should add that, having formerly upgraded PowerBooks and MacBook Pros every 2 years, I've held out with my 17" for 8 years now due to 1) discontinuation of the 17", 2) Each MacBook Pro having compromises I wasn't happy with.
For the last release my concern was 1) MagSafe, 2) Keyboard, 3) Memory.
I continue to be horrified that Apple ditched such a fantastic innovation with MagSafe, even as recently as a few weeks ago it has saved our machines more times that I can possibly count, but will have to give in.
Memory is obviously resolved with this, so I'll be going i9, 32GB, 2TB.
But the keyboard I am waiting on iFixit's full assessment. If they conclude it is still a risk then no buy from me - in Australia the purchase is going to set me back $7000.... that is a serious amount of money and I will not be making that purchase lightly.
For those that think Apple wouldn't just release new machines with known issues, I should point out I am typing this in a 17" which had the famous video flaw that they *finally after significant pressure from class action* replaced with exactly the same flawed mainboard and thus eventually failed again. They continued to sell the machine with that flaw, the fixed it with the same flaw, and walked away without a care in the world. As big a Apple fan as I am, I also acknowledge they are not the moral saints they think they are. They have done this same behaviour time and time and time again. Only reason my machine still works is that, when it outright died again, I have forced the machine to use Intel GPU only to bypass it.
To be honest if it weren't for Photoshop and Office I'd have moved on now - I've done some playing with Debian 9 and KDE 5.12 and boy is it an incredible viable alternative to both Windows and MacOS. KDE 5.13 will bring even more niceties that bring it even closer to MacOS.
I think it should help with the dust ingress, but I’m afraid it won’t help with the issue of keys starting to stick when the machine heats up.
Well Apple was denying that there was any problem with the keyboard and said they'd done nothing to fix it because there was only a small problem:
"Sadly, while the new 2018 MacBook Pro does have an updated third-generation keyboard, Apple tells CNET it doesn't include any new engineering or tweaks to address the sticky key issue."
So they're lying for some reason.
Either that silicone will get stuck, or it will prevent the heat transfer and actually help in keys not getting sticky.
I used to love MacBooks because they had thoughtful features which are now gone.
A) Magsafe - has a useful light on it, easy to attach, has saved multiple MacBooks in my household multiple times.
B) The trackpad.. well the new one isn't terrible but I think the new one is too large to be comfortable
C) The keyboard - they've well and truly ruined that one!
D) Other things like being able to remote control my Mac with the Apple remote, or the battery life indicator... All gone now.
Reminds me of trying a few rubbish keyboards recently.
A editorskeys Backlit Mac Keyboard - Standard Keyboard which suffered from random ddouble kkey ppresses and a Logickeyboard MacOs Astra keyboard which didn't work after 2-3 wake from sleep sessions - check out the video below
What amazed me with both was the customer service. Editorskeys didn't refund my orginal £5 postage costs and my return postage - so I was £9 out of pocket.
Logickeyboard were the worse though - they said they couldn't replicate the issue and wanted to send it back! I'd spent about £90 + £17 on posting it back to them in Denmark.
Ironically now using a Logitech windows keyboard with 0 issues - it's a excellent keyboard and backlit! The kb740. Just stick command on alt / alt on windows logo and all is good
Oh and I also tried the new space grey 'magic' apple keyboard - hated it compared to the near perfect older aluminium keyboard which I got with my MacPro some 4,000 years ago.
Way too shallow and not great on the wrists and fingers. Just seems they've gone as slim as possible just for the sake of it.
A editorskeys Backlit Mac Keyboard - Standard Keyboard which suffered from random ddouble kkey ppresses and a Logickeyboard MacOs Astra keyboard which didn't work after 2-3 wake from sleep sessions - check out the video below
What amazed me with both was the customer service. Editorskeys didn't refund my orginal £5 postage costs and my return postage - so I was £9 out of pocket.
Logickeyboard were the worse though - they said they couldn't replicate the issue and wanted to send it back! I'd spent about £90 + £17 on posting it back to them in Denmark.
Ironically now using a Logitech windows keyboard with 0 issues - it's a excellent keyboard and backlit! The kb740. Just stick command on alt / alt on windows logo and all is good
Oh and I also tried the new space grey 'magic' apple keyboard - hated it compared to the near perfect older aluminium keyboard which I got with my MacPro some 4,000 years ago.
Way too shallow and not great on the wrists and fingers. Just seems they've gone as slim as possible just for the sake of it.
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And how many keyboard revisions did the 2012-2015 line have? Other than under the hood improvements I can't really think of any hardware revisions. If anything they just added force touch to the 2015 models.
I really like the trackpad. I've tried the 'magic' mouse and that's poor in comparison.
I used one of those £400 or so 17" HP laptops the other day and it was much less responsive and didn't have a quality feel to it. However, I found the typing experience to be superior. And I could plug something straight into a USB port.
None, because they didn’t try to radically reinvent the wheel either. Think like how every iPhone ‘S’ cycle improves on what the previous year’s version got wrong. Or the 2008 to 2010 MBA. Or Touch ID to Face ID.
Once the low-hanging fruit has been plucked, you have to be willing to give up what already worked for you in order to be able to make the leap to the next level. That’s just the nature of progress.
I think it’s wildly premature to claim that the membrane has fixed the reliability issues with these keyboards. It may very well have, but it will take months to see if people are still reporting issues down the road. These things have been in the wild all of one day.
They didn't invent a new type of switch in 2012. As a mechanical keyboard enthusiast, I'm not that surprised that they've had so many problems with the keyboard. People think keyboards are easy. Boring ones are easy, but companies that try putting out new concepts on keyboards or entirely new types of keyboards often crash and burn. @steveOooo above was talking about some keyboards he bought recently that didn't work right. Stories like that are quite common when you start getting into smaller market keyboard models.
People take the humble keyboard for granted. It's only when things go wrong that people realize that they're not as simple as they look and even then it seems a healthy contingent of MacRumors will still refuse to believe that keyboards aren't easy as pie. smh.
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Thats true and I will be waiting to see how it all pans out before I upgrade my 2011 MBA but i'm really hoping it does as the battery in my MBA is no longer holding a charge.
Well you have to give Apple credit for their tenacity on trying to actually make this keyboard work as it should...
Dunno when people will learn.
Old keyboard = never going to happen.
Old track pad = never going to happen.
Ports = never going to happen.
Touch bar = never going to happen.
Eventually all of their laptops will have the new features. Move on.
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I think it’s meant to be a pun - they’ve ‘covered up’ the keyboard mechanism to stop dust ingress. ifixit do a lot of little jokes and plays on words like that in their teardown reviews.
macbook air keyboard ... after 6 years still ROCK solid
Macbook AIR I think is apples best product ever created.
Macbook AIR I think is apples best product ever created.
If this is true, it would mean that if reliability is a major concern, the 2016/2017 models would have very little value as a second hand or refurb purchase. Stick with the 2015 Macbook Pro, or make the jump to the 2018 models if the budget allows.
Personally I'd prefer the 2015 style keyboard, with the updated components, even if it was another 1-2 mm thicker.
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