Movie Director Taika Waititi Tells Apple to 'Fix Those Keyboards' at Oscars

[NickName99]

It seems like many people are misunderstanding Taika here. He’s specifically talking about the key travel being too short on Apple keyboards, he’s not talking about reliability issues. I’m hoping he’s referring to the old butterfly keyboard, not the newer 2019 keyboard used in the 16” MacBook Pro.

 

[lostczech]

Go google up the estimates. Apple sells about ~20 million Macs per year. Butterfly mechanism was introduced in 2015. 4 years *20 = ~80 million. Subtract iMacs and non-butterfly switch Macs, so maybe about ~50million. Want to be conservative? Fine, 25 million butterfly-switch devices. Find me a million users that are complaining about it. Then we'll reach the 5% average defect rate and at that point we can consider it a problem.

But go ahead and rely on your meaningful 5-person (6 including you, i guess) data point to speak for millions of customers. I'm glad you're not an analyst.

I was speaking specifically to your number of "You and a thousand (loud) people?"

I guarantee you it's far more than one thousand. The rest of your "analysis" is meaningless when you start off with such a blatant false number. I'm really glad you're not an analyst either.

 

[SBlue1]

I loved how Dell immediately wrote him to get in touch to provide him some great laptops. Dell ships junk but hey they made me lough out loud!

 

[mw360]

Doesn't mean anything. Those same journalists wrote about Antenna-gate which ended up being a non-issue.

Ok, we got to the part where you claim people are just making it up. I guess we’re done.

 

[ksec]

If Apple's smart they'll send him the new 16-inch macbook. Although RSI has more to do with size of the keyboard and sitting position behind a laptop than it has to do with the quality of the keyboard.

I mean, now that Apple is back to the scissor-style keyboard and already put out the first laptop with it.

You tell ‘em, I guess! lol

...but not as tried and tested as the original 2008-2015 keyboard (as used in 'unibody' MacBooks and the wired/wireless external keyboards pre-2015) which was the non-broke thing that Apple fixed.

The Magic keyboards have a re-designed mechanism with shorter travel than the original design. Nothing like as extreme as the butterfly keyboard, but still not the same as the original. Also, they feel like flimsy rubbish compared to the originals, so much so that they rapidly bend in the middle to touch the desk (doesn't really affect their use but doesn't bode well for the internal build quality).

Seriously, Apple, lighter isn't better for a desktop keyboard yet the Magic w/numpad is still lighter than the old wired w/numpad which didn't include a battery. I'm sure it was cheaper, though...

Mine's in the cupboard and I'm using an old 'Wired w/keypad' version.

I think he's also referring to Apple's overly thin keyboards in general. The short throw keyboards are great for some, but some of us like a little more cushion for the pushin' lol.

It seems like many people are misunderstanding Taika here. He’s specifically talking about the key travel being too short on Apple keyboards, he’s not talking about reliability issues. I’m hoping he’s referring to the old butterfly keyboard, not the newer 2019 keyboard used in the 16” MacBook Pro.

He is talking about Key depth, because of its little to no feedback, you arms and position tends to be more tensed while typing on it. And for most people who are aware of this problem, I would bet he had already tried out the MacBook 16" Keyboard.

And to me it is still crap.

 

[AustinIllini]

It seems like many people are misunderstanding Taika here. He’s specifically talking about the key travel being too short on Apple keyboards, he’s not talking about reliability issues. I’m hoping he’s referring to the old butterfly keyboard, not the newer 2019 keyboard used in the 16” MacBook Pro.

He strikes me as a normal person. Someone who doesn't want to replace his 15" MBP with a 16"

 

[ksec]

not sure how your personal experience supports counter-argument with what i said. but good for you, i guess.
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Go google up the estimates. Apple sells about ~20 million Macs per year. Butterfly mechanism was introduced in 2015. 4 years *20 = ~80 million. Subtract iMacs and non-butterfly switch Macs, so maybe about ~50million. Want to be conservative? Fine, 25 million butterfly-switch devices. Find me a million users that are complaining about it. Then we'll reach the 5% average defect rate and at that point we can consider it a problem.

But go ahead and rely on your meaningful 5-person (6 including you, i guess) data point to speak for millions of customers. I'm glad you're not an analyst.

There are organisation with 20K+ MacBook Pro, and close to 60% have had a keyboard problem once in the past 24 months.

And if you think a Keyboard needs to achieve 5% failure to be call a defect then we can agree to disagree.

Indeed. I was pleasantly surprised that in this thread it was almost entirely people who aren't Keyboard-Calamity-Deniers posting for once.

The post is not on front page, that is why they are a little late, like the post I quote above.

 

[NickName99]

He is talking about Key depth, because of its little to no feedback, you arms and position tends to be more tensed while typing on it. And for most people who are aware of this problem, I would bet he had already tried out the MacBook 16" Keyboard.

And to me it is still crap.

Literally every one of the 10 or 15 reviews I've looked at for the 16" MacBook Pro said the keyboard was now excellent. It sounds like Apple keyboards are just not your thing!

 

[ipponrg]

Literally every one of the 10 or 15 reviews I've looked at for the 16" MacBook Pro said the keyboard was now excellent. It sounds like Apple keyboards are just not your thing!

The 2015 keyboards were fine. My work replaced my 2015 MBP with a 2018 MBP. The 2018 MBP is currently in repair with the keyboard stickiness right now, so I am now on a 2016 loaner. All they had to do was not break what was working. Wasn't too hard, but I must applaud them for the courage to piss people off

 

[Mikeysworld]

If Apple would just adapt the newer keyboard in the 16" MacBook Pro to replace those with the Butterfly keyboards in the World Wide replacement program they could solve most issues in one fix. I have had my keyboard replaced on my MacBook Pro 15 2017 and am counting the days until I need this keyboard replaced. Such a waste of time and resources just to replace a faulty keyboard with the same newer faulty keyboard but with a simple rubber under the keys. Call it what it is, a simple bandaid.

Would love to get the new 16" to fix the woes of the Butterfly keyboard but having to save for so long to purchase my 20017 MacBook Pro has put a financial hardship to get what I thought I was originally paying for. A pleasurable laptop experience. Try selling your 2016-2019 MacBook and you will see that nobody wants to pay a decent price for it. Just like the old Ford Pinto. Once it was discovered that in the event of a rear end accident it could just become a fireball that nobody wanted to buy.

 

[definitive]

Now if this isn’t a humbling experience for Tim Cook, Dan Riccio and Phil Schiller I don’t know what will be.

they pretty much brushed off ricky gervais' comment about them running sweatshops in china, so this is nothing for them.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

Love Taika Waititi's work and his sense of humor. And I'm glad Apple is getting shaded like this. They deserve it.

Since back in 2012 Apple decided to start removing upgrade-ability, when combined with the keyboard issue this has exacerbated my reticence to upgrade from my 2011 & 2012 MBPs. The 16" MBP is the first ray of light, but I'm at the point where I just don't need the power of a MacBook Pro, although I could use its storage capacity (at least 1TB).

Thus, given I still love Apple's products, I'm left with the decision to go iPad or MBA (once they fix the keyboards). Which really puts me at MBA, 'cause I don't draw and iOS can drive me bonkers sometimes.

 

[farewelwilliams]

There are organisation with 20K+ MacBook Pro, and close to 60% have had a keyboard problem once in the past 24 months.

And if you think a Keyboard needs to achieve 5% failure to be call a defect then we can agree to disagree.

Link me to the source. Otherwise you're just making up data.

 

[ignatius345]

You and a thousand (loud) people? Assuming a total of ~50 million butterfly switch devices were sold, that's 0.002% of the total customer base. That's less than Dell's 5% average laptop defect rate. Come back to me when you find at least 2.5 million people having problems with it.

Like I said, overblown. It's just another Antenna-gate.

Please. There is a special warranty JUST for this keyboard. This misbegotten design is surely on its last legs with the reintroduction of scissor switch keyboards on the newest MBP.

The debate is over, though some people would apparently defend Apple if it sold a keyboard made from cat ****. (“It’s fine! People complaining about the smell are just whiners!”)

 

[farewelwilliams]

Ok, we got to the part where you claim people are just making it up. I guess we’re done.

Never said Antenna-gate was made up. Do you enjoy putting words in people's mouths?

 

[Shanghaichica]

So we had actors using the oscars as a platform to highlight discrimination and inequality and another to complain about a computer keyboard lol

 

[seadragon]

Link me to the source. Otherwise you're just making up data.

You’re also making up data. You don’t know the numbers involved. Apple clearly back pedalled on the butterfly.

 

[EugW]

Please. There is a special warranty JUST for this keyboard. This misbegotten design is surely on its last legs with the reintroduction of scissor switch keyboards on the newest MBP.

Indeed. Obviously Apple agrees there is an issue, or else this additional warranty program wouldn't exist.

Keyboard Service Program for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro - Apple Support

Keyboard Service Program for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro

support.apple.com

My 2017 MacBook gets the addtional warranty until mid 2021. However, I was hoping to keep the thing much longer than that. Mind you, it may not matter so much, since I use my iPad Pro much more than my MacBook anyway these days.

 

[farewelwilliams]

I was speaking specifically to your number of "You and a thousand (loud) people?"

That sentence ended with a question mark for a reason. He said "many others said it", so how many is he talking about? 100? 1000? 100000? Somehow you're incorrectly assuming I'm thinking that he definitely means 1,001 people. I simply gave the explanation that would likely cover a range of his responses, but the question leaves it open ended incase he means tens of millions in which cause I would give a different counter-argument.

I guarantee you it's far more than one thousand. The rest of your "analysis" is meaningless when you start off with such a blatant false number. I'm really glad you're not an analyst either.

Great. It's more than a thousand. My point still stands so far.

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You’re also making up data. You don’t know the numbers involved. Apple clearly back pedalled on the butterfly.

I never said I knew exactly how many were involved. I said I'm considering it as "overblown" until I see some hard numbers.

Apple walking back on butterfly isn't a confirmation that butterfly switches were actually a physical issue. It's possible Apple walked back because the huge negative PR surrounding butterfly switches was successfully swaying away many potential buyers of MBPro.

 

[lazyrighteye]

Taika's next post will be from his new 16" MBP that Apple is overnighting.

 

[biziclop]

I thought that the negative press around the keyboard was overblown until I got the MacBook Pro for work. I currently have the key-doubling issue and it drives me insane! I can’t type a single email without experiencing the issue 4-5 times! It’s awful! I can’t wait to get rid of this piece of $3,500 junk!

I took an informal office poll of the people that sit near me that use MacBook Pros and 6 out of 6 had problems that they experienced daily with their keyboards.

*Edit*
I have done all the recommended steps to resolve the issues short of sending it in for repair. I’ll send it in soon because it’s so much of a problem.

Anybody with less-than-perfect keyboards (not just Bad Butterflies), try the free & open source Unshaky app:
https://unshaky.nestederror.com/
It wooooorkkkkkks likkkkkke a charm!!!!!

 

[ksec]

Literally every one of the 10 or 15 reviews I've looked at for the 16" MacBook Pro said the keyboard was now excellent. It sounds like Apple keyboards are just not your thing!

That is exactly what put me off with those reviews. At first I thought it was perfect, until you tried it out yourself. I cant get to myself and agree on what they said, Hey this keyboard is like the Desktop Magic Keyboard. To me it felt "exactly" the same as the old Butterfly. Mushy, shallow, little feedback.

Programming and typing on this thing hurts.

 

[newtonuk]

It's all fine and dandy that Apple has released a new laptop and will probably do away with the butterfly action keyboards, but that doesn't help those folk who purchased a very expensive laptop who can't afford a new one just to replace a dodgy keyboard!

Apple should be working on retro-fitting a reliable keyboard into the chassis.

 

[nylonsteel]

butterfly keyboards are so 2015
some peeps are too slow to the party

 

[macjunk(ie)]

It reminds me of Federighi’s description of how the Mac Pro team came to the realization that they screwed up with the trash can: “We all went on our own emotional journeys, I’d say. There were periods of denial and acceptance. We all went on that arc.”

Some here haven’t made their peace with the bottom line: however well intentioned, overall the butterfly keyboard was a failure. Sometimes Apple screws up. Start over and do better.

There does seem to be an issue with the length of time it takes Apple to recognize there’s a fatal error and course correct.

I just don't understand Federighi at all. One of the advantages being in tech is that most emotions can be validated. For e.g., run an actual real life workload on an iMac, a PC to benchmark and see if your design of the Mac Pro holds up. Run this workload continuously for months...see if the hardware holds up. After all, they did take their time re-designing the Mac Pro. To me this is simple.

Of course, as human beings, tech guys will sometimes lean on their emotions to take a call....but that is where the multi-million dollar paid boss like Federighi comes in. You rely on the boss's maturity to isolate emotions from practical decisions, put your foot down and take ownership of the product you are responsible for! If Federighi himself was the guy pushing for this crappy design, then I am not sure he is deserving of his salary.

Anyway, I am pretty convinced the Apple management is ensconced in their pretty boardroom, completely isolated from real life. This is evidenced by the products they have been releasing (old Mac Pro, butterfly keyboards, sealed workstations etc). Hopefully this changes although they hardly have any reason to do so. It is just a weird world we are living in nowadays....
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....

Apple walking back on butterfly isn't a confirmation that butterfly switches were actually a physical issue. It's possible Apple walked back because the huge negative PR surrounding butterfly switches was successfully swaying away many potential buyers of MBPro.

So you think they just renamed and relaunched their keyboard? Surely this would have been enough cause the butterfly keyboard is perfect and one would not want to waste money retooling their factories for a new design of the keyboard?
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That is exactly what put me off with those reviews. At first I thought it was perfect, until you tried it out yourself. I cant get to myself and agree on what they said, Hey this keyboard is like the Desktop Magic Keyboard. To me it felt "exactly" the same as the old Butterfly. Mushy, shallow, little feedback.

Programming and typing on this thing hurts.

Two new guys in my team got the 16" and their feedback is the same. Does not feel very different, usually need more than one try to enter passwords when logging into our servers.