iFixit Tests Silicone Membrane on 2018 MacBook Pro Keyboard With Dust Exposure

[macduke]

The worst thing about the MacRumors forums, and indeed any Mac forum online these days, is people like yourself. Here's what I'd like to pound into your skull with a hammer: Apple has not started doing anything. They have continued designing products in the same exact way they always have. They have continued valuing design above all else. They have continued aggressively adopting new standards and dropping older ones. None of this is new, nor will it ever change. It is key to what the Mac is as a concept. It's what sets them apart from other laptop manufacturers.

And as a designer, here is what I’d like to inscribe upon your skull with a chisel: Design is not how something looks. To quote my mentor Frank Chimero who I studied under in design school, design is:

The technical know-how, skill, craft, and art involved in production, manufacturing & making; using good deliberation, understanding, resulting in deliberate desire to be carried out with cleverness.

Apple exercised zero skill or cleverness in developing a keyboard that could be easily defeated by dust, full stop. To continue to defend them is an exercise in futility and I suggest you stop before you further embarrass yourself in a public forum. To continually excuse such oversight is to endorse such behavior—which I fear will lead to the downfall of the creative tools in which we rely upon to make a living.

 

[1498032]

And as a designer, here is what I’d like to inscribe upon your skull with a chisel: Design is not how something looks. To quote my mentor Frank Chimero who I studied under in design school, design is:



Apple exercised zero skill or cleverness in developing a keyboard that could be easily defeated by dust, full stop. To continue to defend them is an exercise in futility and I suggest you stop before you further embarrass yourself in a public forum. To continually excuse such oversight is to endorse such behavior—which I fear will lead to the downfall of the creative tools in which we rely upon to make a living.

Did you mean to quote someone else? You're not replying to anything I said.

 

[skinned66]

And as a designer, here is what I’d like to inscribe upon your skull with a chisel: Design is not how something looks. To quote my mentor Frank Chimero who I studied under in design school, design is:

The technical know-how, skill, craft, and art involved in production, manufacturing & making; using good deliberation, understanding, resulting in deliberate desire to be carried out with cleverness.

Excellent definition. That's a man that obviously knows how to design things. I think Apple post-Jobs has been slipping mostly on "good deliberation" - at least from my perspective. They may be getting directives we're not privy to that make them come to design decisions like (and certainly not limited to) the butterfly keyboards, the new WiFi toggle and dongles, dongles, dongles.

 

[1498032]

Excellent definition. That's a man that obviously knows how to design things. I think Apple post-Jobs has been slipping mostly on "good deliberation" - at least from my perspective. They may be getting directives we're not privy to that make them come to design decisions like (and certainly not limited to) the butterfly keyboards, the new WiFi toggle and dongles, dongles, dongles.

As I have said countless times in this thread: NONE OF THIS IS NEW. NONE OF THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN APPLE UNDER JOBS. It's literally identical to the way they've operated SINCE ALWAYS. The butterfly keyboards being prone to breaking isn't a design decision. The design decision is trying to push the boundaries to improve the keyboard design. This time, it went poorly. Guess what? It's happened before and it WILL happen again. Same goes for the dongles. Apple is not making a design choice to force you to carry dongles. It's being aggressive in adopting new standards and dropping old ones. Again: THEY'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOREVER. If you're surprised by this you are dumb as rocks.

Remember when the original Mac didn't have a fan and wasn't user-repairable? When the original iMac didn't have a floppy drive? When you couldn't hold the iPhone 4 like a normal person without losing signal? People sounded then EXACTLY like you sound now. So I will scream it again until you absolute moronic children listen and then shut up:

NONE
OF
THIS
IS
NEW

E: And by the way - the reason that Apple produces great products with great features is the same reason they occasionally produce things like the butterfly keyboard, or make decisions like dropping USB-A before USB-C was popular enough. They never stop moving forward, they never sit on their laurels, they're never content with "ain't broke don't fix it." They will always attempt to improve their products in every way they can. If you're asking them to stop making mistakes, you're asking them to stop trying at all.

 

[skinned66]

The butterfly keyboards being prone to breaking isn't a design decision.

It is the result of a design decision.

Of course it happened before and will happen again. I'm not arguing that. My argument is their good deliberation has gotten worse overall. That's an opinion. You can argue it all you like, but if you want to change my mind you're going to have to do a much better job.

Your hammer missed the chisel.

Did you mean to quote someone else? You're not replying to anything I said.

Here's a favour from a moronic child that won't shut up: it's exactly something you said.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...th-dust-exposure.2128376/page-9#post-26268323

EDIT: correct link this time.

 

[1498032]

It is the result of a design decision.

Of course it happened before and will happen again. I'm not arguing that. My argument is their good deliberation has gotten worse overall. That's an opinion. You can argue it all you like, but if you want to change my mind you're going to have to do a much better job.

Except it's not an opinion. It's a testable hypothesis. Can you prove your assertion?

Here's a favour from a moronic child that won't shut up: it's exactly something you said.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...th-dust-exposure.2128376/page-9#post-26268323

Can you quote the part of my comment where I assert that design is only what a product looks like? Because that's what he's replying to and that's not something I ever said.

 

[skinned66]

Except it's not an opinion. It's a testable hypothesis. Can you prove your assertion?

Unless you sit in on internal panels and attend meetings (I don't) neither one of us can possible know for a fact if there is good deliberation or not. So it's not a testable opinion. All we see are the results, and we have a different opinion on some of those and we likely agree on others.

Can you quote the part of my comment where I assert that design is only what a product looks like? Because that's what he's replying to and that's not something I ever said.

I'll let the original poster do that. You didn't need to assert it though, you implied it by your flippant responses to other posters in this thread and asserting that the Apple design process has not changed over the years.

For the former you didn't even deserve this response IMO; so it will be my last to you.

 

[DanBig]

I am in the process of trying to find reference to the original T chip which was definitely in some of the early Intel MBP's (1,2) and/or (1,3). The first Intel MBP(1,1)didnt have the problem, as it didn't have the T-chip. I can't yet find references on the internet to those, but know from experience that MBPs from 2007-2008 had the chips and would not install linux, at least as of 6 years ago. I had a friend who bought a used MBP (1,2) or (1,3) and who used the same procedure I used to install Linux (using rEFInd) on a (1,1). It would not work. This was about 6 years ago and we found out about the T(some number)-chip in those versions of MBPs. Apparently the new Macs with the T-2 chip have a means of disabling "secure boot", which will allow installation of Linux. That wasn't the case in 2007-2008.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...acos-windows-support-t2-chip-secure-boot.html

The original T(some #, maybe not "2, don't remember) chip was used to help implement secure boot, which guaranteed that only "blessed" systems could be installed. Those systems were OSX and MS Windows installed via Bootcamp. The issue really didn't come up until people tried to install Linux on some of these older Intel MBPs - generally after Apple no longer provided OS updates for the machines. I also don't remember why Apple decided to remove the chips on machines manufactured after 2008, but they did. My guess is that, as implemented ten years ago, the use of the chip was deemed overkill. Hardly anyone back then wanted to install Linux on Macs. The link above documents the new generation T-2, and yes, secure boot can be turned off to allow Linux installations. Linux kernels have also become more sophisticated in dealing with UEFI boot in the last 10 years. Back then (2007-2008) only Macs were using UEFI, so Linux boot loaders only worked with MBR BIOS machines. PCs began implementing UEFI around 2011, and Linux can now load onto UEFI machines as long as secure boot can be disabled. Secure Boot is the primary "security feature" provided by T-2. I stand corrected that Linux won't install on the new Macs, as secure boot can be turned off by the user. That is also the case for PCs with UEFI. I'll continue to find documentation on those early Intel Macs, but ten years ago there was very little said or published about it. It didn't affect many machines, and only people trying to install Linux on one of those boxes would run into the issue.

The T2 was first released in the iMac Pro and is the only native hardware encryption system Apple offered until the release of the 2018 MacBook Pro's

I think what you are confusing is what Apple and many others offered (and still do in the older systems) called a hardware lock (firmware password) so the system requires a password to even get to the OS level user account. This level of security has its limits, you don't really protect the information on your drive as that is not by default encrypted. You would need to enable FileVault2 to gain that and only the newer versions of OS-X/macOS offered that.

Here's a good Apple TN that explains this a bit: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156

 

[curtvaughan]

The T2 was first released in the iMac Pro and is the only native hardware encryption system Apple offered until the release of the 2018 MacBook Pro's

I think what you are confusing is what Apple and many others offered (and still do in the older systems) called a hardware lock (firmware password) so the system requires a password to even get to the OS level user account. This level of security has its limits, you don't really protect the information on your drive as that is not by default encrypted. You would need to enable FileVault2 to gain that and only the newer versions of OS-X/macOS offered that.

Here's a good Apple TN that explains this a bit: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156

Thanks. This link rang a bell. The old MbP generally reverted to a "?" or a "not" symbol when trying to boot Linux via rEFIt or the later rEFInd bootloaders.

 

[anshuvorty]

Thanks. This link rang a bell. The old MbP generally reverted to a "?" or a "not" symbol when trying to boot Linux via rEFIt or the later rEFInd bootloaders.

Well this has gotten certainly way off topic. Thread is titled having to do with the keyboard and I am now reading stuff having to do with the T2 chip and encryption. Sounds like this discussion has become off topic.

Any one else?

 

[smirking]

Well this has gotten certainly way off topic. Thread is titled having to do with the keyboard and I am now reading stuff having to do with the T2 chip and encryption. Sounds like this discussion has become off topic.

Which is actually kind of a welcome change because everywhere else, it doesn't matter what the conversation is, the topic ends up being about the keyboard. It's the current version of Godwin's law for MacRumors.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

I am a bit confused. Isn't Product Design under Mechanical Engineering? So JI and those in the design department should have engineering background. If they don't, they are not designers but artists.

The way it typically works is you have people like Ive who start out by drawing devices and then make mock-ups of devices which then get turned into actual devices by the engineering people, who typically get to give input at all stages of the process.

What seems to be happening under Cook's Apple is that the engineering is being cut out of the earlier parts of design or just plain having their input ignored and are simply told to try to make devices based on that look nice, but are almost unworkable from an engineering standpoint. Particularly the obsession with thinness has lead to a situation in multiple devices where there just isn't enough room for a decent size battery without compromises in things like ports, the ability to upgrade components and, something which has been an issue ever since the first Intel Macbooks, cooling.

 

[smirking]

What seems to be happening under Cook's Apple is that the engineering is being cut out of the earlier parts of design or just plain having their input ignored and are simply told to try to make devices based on that look nice, but are almost unworkable from an engineering standpoint.

And this is what a lot of people find tiresome. Cook's Apple is nearly the same Apple as Jobs' Apple. It may have some cosmetic differences, but the DNA of that company is still Jobs' DNA. Steve Jobs was the one who elevated Jonny Ive. Even one of the most mocked Apple phrases about "courage" actually sounds a lot like something Jobs would have said. It was just said in a much more clumsy and less convincing manner.

Apple will never really be Tim Cook's Apple. To see that, he would either need to become a heavy handed tyrant who's willing to reshape and remove entire departments or he'd need to work as CEO until he's 90 years old, by which time most of the influentual people who were groomed and chosen under Steve Jobs will have retired.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

And this is what a lot of people find tiresome. Cook's Apple is nearly the same Apple as Jobs' Apple. It may have some cosmetic differences, but the DNA of that company is still Jobs' DNA.

The fact that you have mostly the same core people doesn't mean that everything and particularly what they end up producing, which is what we're interested in, is going to be the same. How people are managed had very big effect on what they ultimately end up producing and Cook's management style is very different from Jobs'.

Jobs made a point of having different teams and departments compete with each other to produce the best products for their customers and he was very much hands on with product development as he had hired Cook for all the boring stuff like supply chain management (which Cook is known to be an absolute wizard at). If there was a conflict, it ultimately meant that somebody had a better idea than someone else.

Cook's management style on the other hand is very different. Not only is he hands-off and doesn't like taking an active part in product development, he also has the different teams and departments specifically avoid conflict. Instead he wants them to not bother him and find compromises or just not voice disagreements rather than trying to figure out the best way to do things without there being a risk of someone's ideas being found to be inferior to someone else's and thus rejected. Not only that, he still does a lot of the "boring" things that Jobs hired Cook to do for him and thus he doesn't even have time to be as hands-on with product development as Jobs was.

 

[Abazigal]

The way it typically works is you have people like Ive who start out by drawing devices and then make mock-ups of devices which then get turned into actual devices by the engineering people, who typically get to give input at all stages of the process.

What seems to be happening under Cook's Apple is that the engineering is being cut out of the earlier parts of design or just plain having their input ignored and are simply told to try to make devices based on that look nice, but are almost unworkable from an engineering standpoint. Particularly the obsession with thinness has lead to a situation in multiple devices where there just isn't enough room for a decent size battery without compromises in things like ports, the ability to upgrade components and, something which has been an issue ever since the first Intel Macbooks, cooling.

My understanding is that this is how Apple has always worked. In fact, even their engineers are trained to think like designers. That’s why Apple products are as unique and polarising as they are. For better and for worse.

 

[decafjava]

Which means they will need a complete redesign of everything Mac. MacBook / MacBook Pro / iMac / Mac Pro and Mac mini.

All of them are either outdated, not providing enough value, or has severe design flaws.



You are correct, nothing is perfect. It just means the Pre 2016 Keyboard are so much more reliable, cheaper to manufacture, slightly easier to repair, less clicks noise, and much better depth of "feel" then what we have now.

i think the iMac has the least problems I've seen. I got my late model 2015 in early 2017 and it runs great. *Knocks on wood and head* The late 2017 also no complaints from friends and colleagues who got one. Those who got the Mac air are also very pleased.

 

[NT1440]

I love all the definitive statements of the inner working of Apple, a company who’s secrecy is notorious.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

My understanding is that this is how Apple has always worked. In fact, even their engineers are trained to think like designers. That’s why Apple products are as unique and polarising as they are. For better and for worse.

If you're at all familiar with Jobs' management style you'll know that Cook's management style is most definitely very different. Jobs would absolutely overrule his own engineers and expected them to work on their own solutions behind his back if he was wrong like what happened with the infamous Macintosh floppy drive incident*.

*If you're not familiar with the story, Jobs thought they could use 3.5" floppy drives built under license by Alps Electric, who they had a good working relationship with at the time, rather than having to go directly to Sony, the creator of the 3.5" floppy standard. His engineers tried to tell him that Alps didn't yet have production of their drives going and would get it going in time, but he overruled them so they set to work incorporating Sony drives behind his back and even at one point having to hide a visiting Sony engineer in a closet when he unexpectedly showed up at the R n' D lab.

Eventually the reality dawned on him and he commended the engineers for what they did when he told them to get to work with Sony drives and they told him in return that they had been working on that all along.

 

[Abazigal]

If you're at all familiar with Jobs' management style you'll know that Cook's management style is most definitely very different. Jobs would absolutely overrule his own engineers and expected them to work on their own solutions behind his back if he was wrong like what happened with the infamous Macintosh floppy drive incident*.

*If you're not familiar with the story, Jobs thought they could use 3.5" floppy drives built under license by Alps Electric, who they had a good working relationship with at the time, rather than having to go directly to Sony, the creator of the 3.5" floppy standard. His engineers tried to tell him that Alps didn't yet have production of their drives going and would get it going in time, but he overruled them so they set to work incorporating Sony drives behind his back and even at one point having to hide a visiting Sony engineer in a closet when he unexpectedly showed up at the R n' D lab.

Eventually the reality dawned on him and he commended the engineers for what they did when he told them to get to work with Sony drives and they told him in return that they had been working on that all along.

Which is true. Tim Cook would essentially be hands off when it comes to the product side. As I said before, it’s likely Jony Ive taking over Steve Job’s role as product visionary. Tim Cook has never pretended he was anything like Steve Jobs and I don’t think he is going to try anytime soon.

Though I don’t see your point. So...?

 

[SarcasticJoe]

Which is true. Tim Cook would essentially be hands off when it comes to the product side. As I said before, it’s likely Jony Ive taking over Steve Job’s role as product visionary. Tim Cook has never pretended he was anything like Steve Jobs and I don’t think he is going to try anytime soon.

Though I don’t see your point. So...?

This can't be that hard to understand...

Jobs took a very hands-on approach where he would overrule people he thought were making mistakes, including high-up people like Ive. There's a famous example of him actually yelling at Ive because he thought the shade of blue Ive had chosen for the original iMac was wrong. Cook on the other hand takes a very hands-off approach where he just expects people like Ive to not make mistakes or have stupid ideas and when there's a dispute try to make a compromise rather than figure out who's right and who's right and wrong.

To put it even simpler: Jobs spent most of his time on product development personally ensuring that his designers and engineers were doing a good job. Cook on the other hand just assumes they'll do it and spends most of his time on things other than product development.

 

[Abazigal]

This can't be that hard to understand...

Jobs took a very hands-on approach where he would overrule people he thought were making mistakes, including high-up people like Ive. There's a famous example of him actually yelling at Ive because he thought the shade of blue Ive had chosen for the original iMac was wrong. Cook on the other hand takes a very hands-off approach where he just expects people like Ive to not make mistakes or have stupid ideas and when there's a dispute try to make a compromise rather than figure out who's right and who's right and wrong.

To put it even simpler: Jobs spent most of his time on product development personally ensuring that his designers and engineers were doing a good job. Cook on the other hand just assumes they'll do it and spends most of his time on things other than product development.

Because Tim Cook isn’t the product guy like Steve Jobs was. As such, I don’t think there is much meaningful feedback he can give in this regard.

Each has their own strengths and weaknesses and has contributed to Apple in their own ways. If anything, at least Tim Cook doesn’t try to meddle in products he doesn’t know much about.

I am not seeing the issue. Unless you are saying that Apple needs another Steve Jobs at the helm, but how many Steve Jobs are there in this world?

I think Apple will do just fine. They might end up making a couple more mistakes along the way, but they will get to where they need to be nonetheless.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

Each has their own strengths and weaknesses and has contributed to Apple in their own ways. If anything, at least Tim Cook doesn’t try to meddle in products he doesn’t know much about.

I am not seeing the issue. Unless you are saying that Apple needs another Steve Jobs at the helm, but how many Steve Jobs are there in this world?

You kept insisting you didn't think there was a difference between Cook and Jobs so I explained their vastly different management styles.

If you've ever been in a management position you'll know that there can be a vast difference between what a person can/will produce when supervised and what they can/will produce when left unsupervised. Some people can really screw up if left to manage themselves as I've gotten to personally experience when had to take over technical management for a project after the original manager tried to take on way too many responsibilities at once.

Simply put: It's not hard to see the dangers of Cook's style of essentially not bothering to even try to manage the different product development departments. You can clearly see where it can lead in how the design department seems to have decided that the touch bar MBP needed to be even thinner despite additional electronics and the engineering department, whose job it was to make the design into an actual working product, was forced to chose between a smaller and lower capacity battery and a thinner and more failure prone keyboard.

Sure, Apple is making record profits right now, but that's what they did in the years following Jobs' original departure and I'm pretty sure you know the situation they found themselves a few years later.

 

[ksec]

i think the iMac has the least problems I've seen. I got my late model 2015 in early 2017 and it runs great. *Knocks on wood and head* The late 2017 also no complaints from friends and colleagues who got one. Those who got the Mac air are also very pleased.

SSD. Selling a "premium" computer today without SSD by default is literally a sin. For the past decade, no other component come close to giving as much perceived "performance"difference as HDD vs SSD. Not Dual Core or Quad Core, not 4Gb to 8GB Memory, not 100Mbps to 1Gbps Ethernet, Not the better Sandy Bridge IPC.