I used to be able to easily feel for the left/right/up/down keys because of the gap above the left/right. This now bothers me roughly a couple of times each day.
Others have expressed dislike for the change. No one has complained about the lack of tactile differences in the other keys, though (e.g. the letter keys), because we're all used to that. Myself, I can still tell where the up/down and thus the left/right keys are by touch. Not as easy as before, no doubt.
I prefer it because it looks more symmetrical but I don't use them all that often anyway. Maybe they should put a couple of bumps on them like they do with the F and J keys.
When coding, I find the 'new' arrows incredibly annoying.
I bought my 2015 rMB in the first few weeks of launch and it's the one thing I still find frustrating on a daily basis to this date - nearly two years later. Weirdly, it's not hitting the new left/right keys that's the problem - it's hitting the up/down keys on keyboards with the new left/right keys
Same here. At first it seemed like a very minor change (when trying it Apple Store for instance) but now I find it quite annoying. It's compromising efficiency (to make the keyboard look more harmonious / symmetric). I guess as with everything else on the tmbp 15" (good or bad) I will get used to it but for the moment it's a bad idea in my view.
Hope it works out better for you - I've still never gotten used to it on the Magic Keyboard and that's been in use for over a year. It's, quite frankly, just a bad change with essentially no upside. It's particularly annoying because I care about how a keyboard works and feels WAY WAY WAY above any type of aesthetic or symmetry concerns.
It is ass backwards to be designing input devices with that much priority on looks in my opinion.
I don't mind it at all but no, it's not nitpicking if you don't like it, these things are always a very personal choice.
Thankfully I switched to a new Magic Keyboard on my iMac, so I was already accustomed to it. But to be honest I didn't like it initially, it took me a couple of days to get used to it, especially in Xcode where I'm often moving the cursor with the keys. But I acclimated to it quickly and now it's just second nature, just as the old style was.
One thing I was very glad of though is the full sized enter/return key. It's been so long since I've had a MacBook that I forgot the one on the U.K. Layout was full size. I hate the little skinny version and with every image I'd seen having the US English layout I was getting prepared to be annoyed for a while.
Stupid thing to forget of course, but still a relief when it arrived