Me too - I totally love the Magic Keyboards.
I wish they'd swallow their pride and put them in the MBP's
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MBP keyboard driving us to Windows
- Thread starter iTundra
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Me too - I totally love the Magic Keyboards.
I wish they'd swallow their pride and put them in the MBP's
Apple rarely if ever admits fault, we certainly know that much. I don't expect to see anything except maybe that new patent that was just put out there.
My business partner for months and months complained about the lack of a number pad with the MK (we're web devs) and finally when Apple released one with the number pad I threw it at him and told him to shut up about it.
But yes. The current iteration of the MK is very nice. I was hoping for one with a Touch Bar, not a number pad. Here's hoping.
Yes, but with a problem as widespread as this appears to be they need to also be doing so for those out of warranty. Telling someone with a 15 month old $1700 laptop that has not been abused that they need to pay $400-$700 to fix a problem created by Apple's poor design is not right.
It'd be one thing to have a noticeably high failure rate of 3 year old laptops but not a high rate of less than 1 year old and failures following for years to come. How many times will people have to pay to have their keyboard replaced? A well cared for laptop should last for 3-5 years or longer. We've still got old Apple, Dell and Lenovo (and even an IBM Thinkpad) laptops that we haul around to use on shoots and they still work well. Out of perhaps 14-15 laptops over the past 10 years I can only think of two that have failed - a 2011 Dell about a year ago and my 2016 MBP.
Well said.
You're right. I was commenting specifically to those machines that are still covered under warranty. Perhaps in the future if the problem is widespread that Apple will do something to remedy it. I don't recall how long it took Apple to acknowledge the Anti-Glare coating or the graphics card problems in the older MacBook Pro models, but they did finally address it.
No limitation? The fact that I would have to plug in a dongle to do anything is a limitation. It's not about not accepting change, it's about it being impracticle and expensive to need all these dongles!!! I agree, USB-C is the future, but we need some backwards compatibiliy as we are still in a transition period. The needs of the customer should not come before the ego/agenda of some designer at Apple. As a business user there's no way I can accept a machine that does not have all the ports I need built-in. It makes absolutely no business sense to buy a product that is less cabable than the old one, yet costs more. And dongles are just a complete rip off.
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If it infuriates you this much, don’t buy it. Submit feedback to Apple and either stick with the 2015 models, or buy Windows. Apple are not forcing you to do anything. Tim Cook, and Jony Ive are not holding a gun to your head, saying “buy this or else.” As a business owner myself, I have no squabble with Apple making the change, and some of our software is Mac only.
As for needing backwards compatibility, what about the optical drive? Apple ditched those in one fell swoop as well, not much of a transition period there. Apple offered... a dongle of sorts in the USB SuperDrive. This isn’t the first time Apple made a drastic design change, and you can bet it won’t be the last. Either we deal with it and move forward or we don’t.
And just so you know, the fact that you can plug in a dongle to add functionality is the exact opposite of limitation. Limitation is the “inability to do something”. As in “my ability to help you see reason is limited”. You can say it’s a pain in the a.., but you can’t say it’s limited, because factually, it’s not. You are simply choosing to see it that way.
Possibly I’m just on the street corner “smoking crack” as you say. But I’m making money with the new MacBook Pro while doing it, not on here complaining to the ether about it.
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I didn't buy one - I bought a machine that had loads of ports, a ton of RAM, etc, etc so I can do my work. I still think, sorry know, dongles as a replacement for actual ports is an utterly stupid idea.
Usually people with issues look for solutions on the internet and eventually find their way here. They then share their experience. I on the other hand have friends looking for new laptops, but they have been hesitant to buy Apple for the reasons the OP states. Not too far fetched in my opinion.
You forgot to add “for me” As in “For me dongles as a replacement for actual ports is an utterly stupid idea.”
Not everyone sees it your way. Not everyone sees it mine. Which is why I don’t blanket “everyone” in my posts. I post MY use case. MY experience.
But you’ve just made my point anyway, when you say it’s “an utterly stupid idea”. So, I thank you for that.
The keyboard on the MacBook Air is great. What a keyboard should be.
If you like it, there is hope for you yet. Supposedly a new MbA will drop at WWDC. Though what Apple will toss inside is anyone’s guess.
And there is plenty more who has bought one with zero issues on here, imore (where I also follow) and in general
That's always the case. For every person who has had an issue, there are five more who have not. I don't think that is a reason to keep to yourself or refrain from sharing one's frustration or experiences. For the OP and his business, the keyboards seems to be an issue. Hope they find a solution. Not sure why there is a need by forum members to put the OP down, criticize, or accuse someone of being a messy eater.
Relevant discussion at r/apple
The keyboard failure rate, even after the compressed air "solution" (as officially suggested by Apple), appears to be around 7% according to this random reddit guy.
That's an alarmingly high rate. I'm guessing it's probably going to reach > 10% with more time.
The keyboard failure rate, even after the compressed air "solution" (as officially suggested by Apple), appears to be around 7% according to this random reddit guy.
That's an alarmingly high rate. I'm guessing it's probably going to reach > 10% with more time.
My company has seen no uptick in support tickets for new MacBooks based on any keyboard issues. New employees are given a choice of Windows vs MacBooks and its pretty incredible how many more pick the MacBook.
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No flaws? Prove it to me that we are talking about vocal minority. I'm not even claiming that you are wrong. I'm saying that I don't know.
You're the one that claims otherwise. So either prove your statements with actual facts, or we can leave at at logic flaws, and unwillingness to admit that you can't actually prove any of your statements
Curious, can you prove the opposite? Widespread issues? Forum posts are a bad representation of reality.
If I end up getting a Windows notebook it won't be the keyboard that drives me to it. Have I had issues with my keyboard? Yes, but it was minor. I have a 2016 model, and like every other piece of tech I own (and my house, and my car, etc.), I treat it with care and respect.
I don't eat over it. I keep it spotlessly clean. I've sold computers and phones that were years old, many times, and had people marvel at how pristine the machines looked.
And yet the X key randomly stopped working. There was no indication anything was under the key or anything, it just bottomed out and stayed that way, as if the mechanism had collapsed. You could get it to register keypresses if you tapped it hard and repeatedly, but regular typing pressure had no effect on it. Had to be taken off and reattached to begin working properly again. Fortunately that fixed it and it's been fine ever since.
Anyway, it's not the keyboard that bugs me the most, and to the extent that it does I remind myself that for every Windows laptop with a great keyboard there are 100 Windows laptops with garbage trackpads.
No, what'll eventually drive me to a Windows machine is Apple's continuing obsession with thinness. I travel sometimes, and I'd like to be able to take a machine on the road with me that can dual boot Windows to play a few modern games at decent frame rates without throttling or producing a scary amount of heat.
That is, sadly, a market Apple seems disinterested in serving.
I recently picked up a Windows notebook with a 7700HQ and a GTX 1070 for about half what I paid for my MacBook Pro. The keyboard is much better, the trackpad is good enough, and after some tweaking it games at FHD High and Ultra with GPU temps in the low 60s and CPU temps in the high 60s and low 70s.
Why Apple has no interest in serving any of the market between "causal consumption" and "extreme pro-level creation" is beyond me. I need more than a web surfing appliance but less than a Xeon-powered monster, but, especially in the notebook segment, Apple just doesn't care.
I don't eat over it. I keep it spotlessly clean. I've sold computers and phones that were years old, many times, and had people marvel at how pristine the machines looked.
And yet the X key randomly stopped working. There was no indication anything was under the key or anything, it just bottomed out and stayed that way, as if the mechanism had collapsed. You could get it to register keypresses if you tapped it hard and repeatedly, but regular typing pressure had no effect on it. Had to be taken off and reattached to begin working properly again. Fortunately that fixed it and it's been fine ever since.
Anyway, it's not the keyboard that bugs me the most, and to the extent that it does I remind myself that for every Windows laptop with a great keyboard there are 100 Windows laptops with garbage trackpads.
No, what'll eventually drive me to a Windows machine is Apple's continuing obsession with thinness. I travel sometimes, and I'd like to be able to take a machine on the road with me that can dual boot Windows to play a few modern games at decent frame rates without throttling or producing a scary amount of heat.
That is, sadly, a market Apple seems disinterested in serving.
I recently picked up a Windows notebook with a 7700HQ and a GTX 1070 for about half what I paid for my MacBook Pro. The keyboard is much better, the trackpad is good enough, and after some tweaking it games at FHD High and Ultra with GPU temps in the low 60s and CPU temps in the high 60s and low 70s.
Why Apple has no interest in serving any of the market between "causal consumption" and "extreme pro-level creation" is beyond me. I need more than a web surfing appliance but less than a Xeon-powered monster, but, especially in the notebook segment, Apple just doesn't care.
I feel your pain on the dual boot gaming front, but to be fair, they've never cared about gaming on desktops or laptops.
I think if macOS had ever turned into more of a gaming platform maybe they would have, but of course that's a chicken and egg thing as they have never done what's needed on the OS side to cater to that market and foster growth.
Back to your point - and I'll tweak it slightly..
I think the problem that you run into is that Apple wants to deliver the “best customer experience” if you will, in that they try to balance power, size, battery life, etc.
I don’t recall a time when Apple was ever truly focused on gaming, other than a few ads back in the G4 days when they would show demos of the towers running Unreal or Quake III.
The problem you get into with (some) windows machines, like the Surface Book 2 is that the graphics card so so high end that the supplied charger can’t keep it powered. Or that the battery life can be subpar. Case and point: When I owned a SB2, it was discharging while plugged in while installing Windows Updates. And then there is the Dell XPS 9660. Great video, decent amount of ram and what not, and a 4K screen to boot. However battery life suffers a bit there too.
I think it all comes down to Apple wanting to provide the best experience they can for their installed user base. *shrug*
Pretty much all the previous generation Mac keyboards are great. But there is more that just Mac keyboards encompassed in my comment. I have an HP keyboard at work which is a massive suckfest. The Dell one I had before was even worse.
This is incredibly useful information. Thanks for sharing. I think for many of those with AppleCare warranties, in another 2 to 3 years, these laptops are going to become issues.
What would also be nice to gather is the rate of failure per unit time. That way we can have a prediction about how likely an individual laptop is to fail after a certain amount of time under usage. Something like 10% annualized or so.
I have AppleCare on my machine, but lots of folks don't.
Given the failure rate on these keyboards, even if it's not as high as it might seem from all the anecdotal evidence, I wouldn't buy another one without getting AppleCare again, which makes an already expensive device just that much more expensive.
When you consider that that added expense is due, in part, to engineering choices that makes fixing the keyboard insanely complex and expensive, it gets harder and harder to justify.
And why engineer a computer with a keyboard that can't be replaced without throwing away half the computer? Oh, yeah, because it's some few fractions of an inch thinner than it would otherwise be. I guess that's the crux of the problem for me: they made it worse (in my opinion), they made it more prone to failure, and they made it far more expensive to fix when it fails.
And ever since my keyboard randomly crapped out on me that time, I don't travel with it without a backup Bluetooth keyboard in my bag, which sort of offsets all that sexy thinness and reduced weight Apple is so proud of.
And, eventually, if a key on your keyboard stops working after your warranty is over you get to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Which, if you're fine with that, is okay, I guess. It just seems like a bad engineering decision, making something so failure-prone (all keyboards, not just this one; anything with moving parts that is pounded on for sometimes hours a day) so hard and expensive to replace.
But my 2016 machine is over a year old now, and when it comes time to replace it if the only option is another extremely expensive non-serviceable appliance with an expensive and essentially non-optional warranty extension, I dunno. Maybe I'm falling out of Apple's target market segment.
Given the failure rate on these keyboards, even if it's not as high as it might seem from all the anecdotal evidence, I wouldn't buy another one without getting AppleCare again, which makes an already expensive device just that much more expensive.
When you consider that that added expense is due, in part, to engineering choices that makes fixing the keyboard insanely complex and expensive, it gets harder and harder to justify.
And why engineer a computer with a keyboard that can't be replaced without throwing away half the computer? Oh, yeah, because it's some few fractions of an inch thinner than it would otherwise be. I guess that's the crux of the problem for me: they made it worse (in my opinion), they made it more prone to failure, and they made it far more expensive to fix when it fails.
And ever since my keyboard randomly crapped out on me that time, I don't travel with it without a backup Bluetooth keyboard in my bag, which sort of offsets all that sexy thinness and reduced weight Apple is so proud of.
And, eventually, if a key on your keyboard stops working after your warranty is over you get to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Which, if you're fine with that, is okay, I guess. It just seems like a bad engineering decision, making something so failure-prone (all keyboards, not just this one; anything with moving parts that is pounded on for sometimes hours a day) so hard and expensive to replace.
But my 2016 machine is over a year old now, and when it comes time to replace it if the only option is another extremely expensive non-serviceable appliance with an expensive and essentially non-optional warranty extension, I dunno. Maybe I'm falling out of Apple's target market segment.
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That is the truly ridiculous part here..
Apple created this problem themselves, for an exceptionally minimal thinness gain.
I've started to realize over the last few years that a divorce from Apple may be coming.
They seem to have their wandering eyes on customers that aren't me.