If the added seal resolves the majority of the keyboard issues then it indicates a missing element in their testing regimen. I have no doubt that Apple does accelerated lifetime testing of their keyboards using some sort of automated key pressing test fixture. To better match actual in-service use they should consider adding test cases that involve operating the keyboard for intermittent periods of time within a blanketing fog of Cheeto dust with an occasional splash of Mountain Dew and/or coffee. May as well slather on some Krispy Kreme sugar glaze for good measure. That’ll cover most of the test cases for the software developer persona use cases. For software manager persona use cases, substitute drool and spittle for the Cheeto dust and Dew.
Don't write if you can not prove. And don't spread fake news like mention in article "Apple said the revamped keys are not intended to improve reliability. " Apple would never make such comment.......!!
Yeah, well, they specifically did say that, and continue to say it. To Cnet, The Verge, to us, and about four other publications.
Read the commenting guidelines regarding the term "fake news." Cast not the first stone.
Thanks for the information. Apple obviously doesn't want the news headline for the new MacBooks to be: "Apple Fixes Broken Keyboard. Maybe."
well, of course they don't. What company would? Companies in general don't like to admit mistakes - both for PR reasons and for liability reasons. Apple is worse than most in this regard, but far from unique. To be clear, Apple makes very good products, and they are also charge a premium price for the quality, but they're not perfect. The problem is that part of Apple's image is quality and perfection. publicly admitting design flaws damages that image, so as a general rule, they never admit problems.
I agree with you that I would sincerely appreciate a bit more openness and honesty from corporations in general when it comes to problems, but as long as there are lawyers suing them for breathing wrong, can you blame them? If this has made you lose faith in Apple, then you'll have a hard time finding another company to put your faith in. I continue to buy Apple products because they are in general high quality and Apple as a company continues to put a priority on quality. I'm annoyed that the keyboard I'm typing this on is more susceptible to dust than my 2011 MacBook Air was but I'm not going to trash the entire company because of it.
Hopefully there won't be an excess heat issue with potentially less ventilation through the keyboard, plus the larger battery.
I assumed it wasn't so much about hot air escaping, then it was about key being able to transfer from the top of casing, or which the aluminum probably helped most with sapping heat from internal components. If there is also convention the design looks to still allow the hot air to be funneled upwards to an opening under the key. Maybe each key will get warmer from the silicon being added, but I'd doubt it.
Hopefully there won't be an excess heat issue with potentially less ventilation through the keyboard, plus the larger battery.
That’s a very good comment since the air flow through the keyboard has previously been mentioned by Apple as a contributing factor to heat dissipation.
Did they mention airflow thought the keyboard or mention heat transferance through the keyboard?
Hopefully there won't be an excess heat issue with potentially less ventilation through the keyboard, plus the larger battery.
That’s a very good comment since the air flow through the keyboard has previously been mentioned by Apple as a contributing factor to heat dissipation.
The heat dissipation mainly goes from the side & the center of your hinge, and the airflow from the gaps of keyboard are insignificant at best. When did they ever said that?
To me it looks like cool is air pulled in from the sides and then transferred out the back. You may know that most heat lost in a home is lost out through the ceiling, as oppose to walls or the floor, so can we expect that being a plausible way to reduce heat by making the entire aluminum top casing of the MBP a giant heat sink since it's passive and they wouldn't need to do anything to get air to float up?
I'll see If I can find the video where the statement was made.
edit: Not it, but it is the video where they first talk about how they did it. Go to 11 minutes in to see Jony Ive talking about the new and old ways.
If you assume that there is a bit of leakage of air into the mechanicals of each key, then the vent is almost certainly there just to give you a consistent key response; you wouldn't want the air underneath to compress and add to the force of the key assembly's spring in an unpredictable way.. Even if you assume that there is no leakage from below the assembly, and it is just an acoustic treatment, not a seal, then the vent is still there to provide a consistent key response.
The small amount of air transferred with a keystroke would not be relevant to removing heat from the housing.
If the added seal resolves the majority of the keyboard issues then it indicates a missing element in their testing regimen. I have no doubt that Apple does accelerated lifetime testing of their keyboards using some sort of automated key pressing test fixture. To better match actual in-service use they should consider adding test cases that involve operating the keyboard for intermittent periods of time within a blanketing fog of Cheeto dust with an occasional splash of Mountain Dew and/or coffee. May as well slather on some Krispy Kreme sugar glaze for good measure. That’ll cover most of the test cases for the software developer persona use cases. For software manager persona use cases, substitute drool and spittle for the Cheeto dust and Dew.
More likely, the initial failure rate of the design was so low that Apple just continued on a predetermined roadmap for improvement; ie, it is likely that this is yet another case of "continual improvement" of a product that companies like Apple do.
I’m just saying that simpler design are less prone to failure, even though I fully support the new key design.
But having your phone be water-resistant is a less simple design than not having the feature. Now drop both phones into the bath and we'll see which phone fails first. In principle your comment makes sense, but it has to be a case-by-case situation and can't cover everything. Technology device design for the real world must be in the real world. This is why Ive is always adamant about design colleges physically making stuff as much as possible. You can't design products on a computer screen. You need to also build and make them. This membrane is the very same thing. It's an extra part; an additional complexity, but for a reason. It's a better solution. And the next design and the next will hopefully be better and better and some day maybe even simpler.
Fixing MacBook's keyboard is a big deal for Apple, and one it most definitely wants to address. Explaining the company's dismissive statements is a separate issue altogether. With so many lawsuits currently pending, it can be speculated that Apple is hesitant to admit that the new design "fixes" a keyboard problem it never necessarily deemed "defective" in the first place.
LOL. I love how the link to "so many" lawsuits is about "a second" suit.
I'm sorry, but this keyboard thing has always been overblown. Sure Apple wants to improve their products when problems are identified, but a very small percentage of MacBooks had any problems at all.
How are you judging that? Finger in the air and making your own mind up about how significant these failures have been?
Not in my experience. It’s very under blown.
When more than half of your deployed fleet with this keyboard have broken. Some more than once. You know it’s a real issue.
Doesn't this look like it would really trap things in if they do get in? It might help a lot, but might also nix the air-can fix.
randominternetperson said: I'm sorry, but this keyboard thing has always been overblown. Sure Apple wants to improve their products when problems are identified, but a very small percentage of MacBooks had any problems at all.
And, you know that, how? I think it has been under-blown.
avon b7 said: Hopefully these new keyboards can be fitted to older machines when the first and second generation keyboards need replacing.
Yeah, me too... for when my son's needs replacing. He's hoping to keep the machine more than 4 years.
Good interim solution for the keys/keyboard problem until 2020 when redesigned Mackbook Pro comes out.
You are right. Guess we have to wait two more years for a reliable keyboard on a MBP. Maybe the will have a MacMini and MP out in the time. No keyboard to screw up there.
Anyone who had a shred of common sense suspected this. Makes the previous AI kneejerk piece looks pretty idiotic now.
You might want to actually read the "knee-jerk piece." In two days, Apple has now said that there are no keyboard reliability improvements to 11 venues, including AI.
FTA: "The Verge asked directly, and was reminded that the failure rate was low. CNetwas told that the keyboard contains "no new engineering or tweaks" to alter reliability."
And, there are way more yesterday, and even today.
Now, as far as the gasket goes. I suspect it will help some, but not eradicate the issue. It is not a solid gasket, and there are many holes, allowing for the keycap to be attached to the keyboard. Plus, tolerances are still very, very tight, so a stuck key is still a possibility.
Like I said, we're still counting.
Glad AI keeps their readers better informed than Apple. They look like great machines (and you have to give Apple credit for coming out with the 32 GB model) but I can't afford a $700 keyboard replacement if they really haven't solved all the problems with the design. Does the 4 year replacement program continue with the 2018 models? Is the extra years for keyboard coverage extended if you have AppleCare? That would be a big inducement.
k2kw said: They look like great machines (and you have to give Apple credit for coming out with the 32 GB model) but I can't afford a $700 keyboard replacement if they really haven't solved all the problems with the design. Does the 4 year replacement program continue with the 2018 models? Is the extra years for keyboard coverage extended if you have AppleCare? That would be a big inducement.
Yeah, that's a very good point/concern. I think (from other articles) they have improved the keyboard enough to have a reliability improvement, but time will tell.
Anyone who had a shred of common sense suspected this. Makes the previous AI kneejerk piece looks pretty idiotic now.
You might want to actually read the "knee-jerk piece." In two days, Apple has now said that there are no keyboard reliability improvements to 11 venues, including AI.
FTA: "The Verge asked directly, and was reminded that the failure rate was low. CNetwas told that the keyboard contains "no new engineering or tweaks" to alter reliability."
And, there are way more yesterday, and even today.
Now, as far as the gasket goes. I suspect it will help some, but not eradicate the issue. It is not a solid gasket, and there are many holes, allowing for the keycap to be attached to the keyboard. Plus, tolerances are still very, very tight, so a stuck key is still a possibility.
Like I said, we're still counting.
Like @Slurpy, I too felt that your previous article was a bit of a knee jerk reaction. Or may be, the part of the title that said, '...and that's a problem', made it sound like one.
I read through the article and found it quite factual and heartily agreed with your observation that comments like, 'My MacBook Pro keyboard is ruining my life' were hyperbole. I think that Casey Johnston has been over the top with her articles about the MacBook Pro keyboard - if one reads through her articles, it seems like she had an agenda or at least let her frustration/hate get the better of her common sense because she even wrote an article exhorting people not to buy the Macbook Pro even at the discounted price that Best Buy was offering. And, when Apple started the repair program, she wrote another snarky article because Apple didn't respond to her request for more details. As if they would, after the way she was singularly responsible for blowing up the issue out of all proportion.
As numerous other posters mentioned on that article and this one, Apple isn't going to come out and openly admit that the new keyboard will improve reliability, because it would be tantamount to accepting that the old ones were not. It's fair to say that particles getting into the keyboard was a definite miss by the design team when it tested the new design for reliability. Hopefully, the new silicone membrane will put an end to that issue.
If the added seal resolves the majority of the keyboard issues then it indicates a missing element in their testing regimen. I have no doubt that Apple does accelerated lifetime testing of their keyboards using some sort of automated key pressing test fixture. To better match actual in-service use they should consider adding test cases that involve operating the keyboard for intermittent periods of time within a blanketing fog of Cheeto dust with an occasional splash of Mountain Dew and/or coffee. May as well slather on some Krispy Kreme sugar glaze for good measure. That’ll cover most of the test cases for the software developer persona use cases. For software manager persona use cases, substitute drool and spittle for the Cheeto dust and Dew.
Well to know how good their testing regime is, you’d need to know the actual percentage of keyboards are failing due to particles getting under the keys. Apple says the percentage is very small, but given how many of these things they sell, that could still be a very large number. Likewise, the internet echo chamber being what it is, the whole thing could be overblown.
You obviously don’t know many software developers. These days, they’re more likely to spill a protein shake or some hideous vegetable smoothie.
cgWerks said: And, you know that, how? I think it has been under-blown.
What you said works both ways. No one has proven that the butterfly design actually qualifies as "unreliable" either. Remember how many people on the internet claimed to be convinced that the iPhone 6 case bent too easily? Turned out the actual number for three point bend was within the industry standard. It wasn't the best in the industry, but it wasn't deficient vs. the standard either.
cgWerks said: And, you know that, how? I think it has been under-blown.
What you said works both ways. No one has proven that the butterfly design actually qualifies as "unreliable" either. Remember how many people on the internet claimed to be convinced that the iPhone 6 case bent too easily? Turned out the actual number for three point bend was within the industry standard. It wasn't the best in the industry, but it wasn't deficient vs. the standard either.
I think reasonable doubt comes into play when surefire answers are absent.
Apple announces a warranty extension programme for every single butterfly keyboard ever made but refuses to speak openly on exactly what the problem is.
That is not normal.
We don't really need to have Apple say it is unreliable when they are covering all of them (the situation for third gen needs clarification, though) for four years and have made changes to the design twice without detailing them. That in itself is strange as Apple went out of its way during the presentation of the original butterfly design to tell us how much better they were. Apple also likes to tell us about its painstaking attention to detail. If that is the case, how did such an important factor such as noise (something Apple hates more than most) slip through the net and only get dealt with in the third generation of a product? which in itself is three generations in three years.
In the absence of a detailed explanation from Apple for users who paid thousands of dollars for these machines but with the butterfly keyboard programme in place, we can be quite sure that they (1st and 2nd gen at least) are more unreliable (and possibly due to the design) than keyboard designs without it needing to be proven or perhaps in fact to even have an actual failure, as the issue appears to be in the design itself.
If Apple backed itself into a corner with the Mac Pro design, they are back in another one with the butterfly keyboard.
For users the only truly valid solution is getting keyboard problems fixed and being told what the problem is.
The first part has a solution of sorts. Four years of protection but possibly seeing replacement keyboards with the exact same 'problems'. Or do you get four more years of protection in that case or simply a standard six or twelve months warranty?
As far as finding out what the problem really is, this is a tricky one. Is it reasonable for Apple to hold this information back? I have the sensation that if this reaches closer legal examination, the specifics will come out anyway and things could look worse than they already do.
It's one thing to say the keyboard has a design problem but another to say the design itself was necessitated because of the desire to make the machine thin, for example.
Good interim solution for the keys/keyboard problem until 2020 when redesigned Mackbook Pro comes out.
You are right. Guess we have to wait two more years for a reliable keyboard on a MBP. Maybe the will have a MacMini and MP out in the time. No keyboard to screw up there.
Anyone who had a shred of common sense suspected this. Makes the previous AI kneejerk piece looks pretty idiotic now.
You might want to actually read the "knee-jerk piece." In two days, Apple has now said that there are no keyboard reliability improvements to 11 venues, including AI.
FTA: "The Verge asked directly, and was reminded that the failure rate was low. CNetwas told that the keyboard contains "no new engineering or tweaks" to alter reliability."
And, there are way more yesterday, and even today.
Now, as far as the gasket goes. I suspect it will help some, but not eradicate the issue. It is not a solid gasket, and there are many holes, allowing for the keycap to be attached to the keyboard. Plus, tolerances are still very, very tight, so a stuck key is still a possibility.
Like I said, we're still counting.
Glad AI keeps their readers better informed than Apple. They look like great machines (and you have to give Apple credit for coming out with the 32 GB model) but I can't afford a $700 keyboard replacement if they really haven't solved all the problems with the design. Does the 4 year replacement program continue with the 2018 models? Is the extra years for keyboard coverage extended if you have AppleCare? That would be a big inducement.
The replacement program has not at present been extended to the 2018. The keyboard coverage has a finite expiration, and is not on top of any other warranty coverage.
avon b7 said: We don't really need to have Apple say it is unreliable when they are covering all of them (the situation for third gen needs clarification, though) for four years and have made changes to the design twice without detailing them. That in itself is strange as Apple went out of its way during the presentation of the original butterfly design to tell us how much better they were.
Apple gave out free bumpers for the iPhone 4 when it wasn't actually necessary. There was no flaw in the antenna design, but there was an inordinate amount of press coverage implying that there was. Did the antenna design change in the 4S? Yes, but it also changed in subsequent models as well. That's also no different than the iPhone 6 example. There were structural changes to the case in the 6s, but also in subsequent models too. For an industry that is centered around constant improvements in order to entice customers, it's hard to see that as an automatic red flag.
Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to "changes to the design twice without detailing them". They talked about the 1st gen butterfly in the 2015 MacBook. Then they talked about the 2nd gen butterfly in the 2016 MBP. Now they've talked about the 3rd gen butterfly in the 2018 MBP. They've always specified when the design iteration was changed.
avon b7 said: We don't really need to have Apple say it is unreliable when they are covering all of them (the situation for third gen needs clarification, though) for four years and have made changes to the design twice without detailing them. That in itself is strange as Apple went out of its way during the presentation of the original butterfly design to tell us how much better they were.
Apple gave out free bumpers for the iPhone 4 when it wasn't actually necessary. There was no flaw in the antenna design, but there was an inordinate amount of press coverage implying that there was. Did the antenna design change in the 4S? Yes, but it also changed in subsequent models as well. That's also no different than the iPhone 6 example. There were structural changes to the case in the 6s, but also in subsequent models too. For an industry that is centered around constant improvements in order to entice customers, it's hard to see that as an automatic red flag.
Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to "changes to the design twice without detailing them". They talked about the 1st gen butterfly in the 2015 MacBook. Then they talked about the 2nd gen butterfly in the 2016 MBP. Now they've talked about the 3rd gen butterfly in the 2018 MBP. They've always specified when the design iteration was changed.
Something changed in the second generation butterfly keyboard between the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro -- the service numbers bear it out.
If the added seal resolves the majority of the keyboard issues then it indicates a missing element in their testing regimen. I have no doubt that Apple does accelerated lifetime testing of their keyboards using some sort of automated key pressing test fixture. To better match actual in-service use they should consider adding test cases that involve operating the keyboard for intermittent periods of time within a blanketing fog of Cheeto dust with an occasional splash of Mountain Dew and/or coffee. May as well slather on some Krispy Kreme sugar glaze for good measure. That’ll cover most of the test cases for the software developer persona use cases. For software manager persona use cases, substitute drool and spittle for the Cheeto dust and Dew.
Well to know how good their testing regime is, you’d need to know the actual percentage of keyboards are failing due to particles getting under the keys. Apple says the percentage is very small, but given how many of these things they sell, that could still be a very large number. Likewise, the internet echo chamber being what it is, the whole thing could be overblown.
You obviously don’t know many software developers. These days, they’re more likely to spill a protein shake or some hideous vegetable smoothie.
You do know this was just a joke? But I've worked with hundreds of software developers around the world including myself and I've yet to see a protein shake or vegetable smoothie, but I'm sure there are some who do indulge in such things, maybe on the left coast. I do have many fond recollections of baskets full of junk food being dumped on tables at developer conferences and the hoards of developers swooping in to gather them all up. I've also seen developers holding their laptops sideways to let the coffee drip out of the keyboard/case.
On a serious note, I'm pretty sure that Apple does test their keyboards with some sort of automated test fixtures that synthesize keyboard use and exercise all of the keys. You know, the automated "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" type of key pounding that's been used since the days of typewriters and teletype machines as a matter of course. The question is whether Apple does these tests in the presence of dust, debris, and other such crud that is indicative of the environments in which its products are used. There's no way that Apple knows every possible environmental in which its products are used, but they can pick a few based on a knowledge of their customer based and select a few of the worst case scenarios for testing. Every new product that I've ever worked on has undergone environmental testing that is geared towards the operational environment that the product will be used in as well as general regulatory requirements like UL, CE, FCC, etc. Environmental testing includes shock, vibration, thermal, salt spray, dust, hot water wash down, etc., while regulatory testing includes EMI, EMC, and whatever UL/CSA/CE/FCC requires at the specific point in time.
The real questions are whether Apple's keyboard is failing at higher than predicted failure rates under environmental conditions for which the keyboard was tested, or did Apple fail to identify some of the actual environmental conditions that the keyboard turned out to be routinely subjected to? We really don't know at this point if the failure rates were even higher than expected, much less the conditions under which the keyboard was tested. Heck, we don't even know if the added seals have anything at all to do with trying to mitigate a reliability issue. Everything is speculative at this point and until Apple chimes in with more information. What we do know is that the keyboard is one of the bigger reliability challenges of a computer's design. With very few exceptions like the Control, Option, and Command keys that have redundancy, every single key on the keyboard must work flawlessly for the keyboard as a whole to be fully functional. This means that the reliability of the keyboard as a functional unit is reduced from the reliability of each key proportional to the number of keys. I've only experience one or two keyboard failures ever over 30 or so years, both on Dell laptops, so the key switch and keyboard designers seem to be doing a very good job from where I'm sitting, or from where I'm typing, even with Cheeto dust and Mountain Dew involved.
avon b7 said: We don't really need to have Apple say it is unreliable when they are covering all of them (the situation for third gen needs clarification, though) for four years and have made changes to the design twice without detailing them. That in itself is strange as Apple went out of its way during the presentation of the original butterfly design to tell us how much better they were.
Apple gave out free bumpers for the iPhone 4 when it wasn't actually necessary. There was no flaw in the antenna design, but there was an inordinate amount of press coverage implying that there was. Did the antenna design change in the 4S? Yes, but it also changed in subsequent models as well. That's also no different than the iPhone 6 example. There were structural changes to the case in the 6s, but also in subsequent models too. For an industry that is centered around constant improvements in order to entice customers, it's hard to see that as an automatic red flag.
Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to "changes to the design twice without detailing them". They talked about the 1st gen butterfly in the 2015 MacBook. Then they talked about the 2nd gen butterfly in the 2016 MBP. Now they've talked about the 3rd gen butterfly in the 2018 MBP. They've always specified when the design iteration was changed.
The bumper cases were never an official admission of any fault. The butterfly keyboard warranty extension programme is (possibly a design fault but we don't know because Apple is keeping mum).
Apple hasn't detailed any changes for the third generation keyboard. It has stated that it is been made quieter but without saying how it was achieved. That was (at least partly) revealed in a teardown.
Rayz2016 said: Well to know how good their testing regime is, you’d need to know the actual percentage of keyboards are failing due to particles getting under the keys. Apple says the percentage is very small, but given how many of these things they sell, that could still be a very large number. Likewise, the internet echo chamber being what it is, the whole thing could be overblown.
Or, if one understands the problem correctly (from the info we've seen), it's eventually going to be 100% unless everyone works in clean rooms. This issue doesn't seem to be some percentage with a manufacturing flaw showing up... it's a problem EVERY SINGLE UNIT can/will eventually have.
cgWerks said: And, you know that, how? I think it has been under-blown.
What you said works both ways. No one has proven that the butterfly design actually qualifies as "unreliable" either.
I don't know about proven, but it isn't exactly rocket science either. I guess it kind of depends on whether you think susceptibility to low levels of dust causing it to fail makes it a design flaw or not. I do, as I think I've only experienced one flaky key in decades of Apple laptop use.
avon b7 said: We don't really need to have Apple say it is unreliable when they are covering all of them (the situation for third gen needs clarification, though) for four years and have made changes to the design twice without detailing them. That in itself is strange as Apple went out of its way during the presentation of the original butterfly design to tell us how much better they were. Apple also likes to tell us about its painstaking attention to detail. If that is the case, how did such an important factor such as noise (something Apple hates more than most) slip through the net and only get dealt with in the third generation of a product? which in itself is three generations in three years.
I suppose in the fanboy mind, Apple is simply doing this just for PR purposes and to satisfy all the complaints? Apple would never do something like fib a bit about the 'small percentage' thing or attribute the 'fix' to noise rather than admit a problem, right? I still have this bridge for sale...
dewme said: I've only experience one or two keyboard failures ever over 30 or so years, both on Dell laptops, so the key switch and keyboard designers seem to be doing a very good job from where I'm sitting, or from where I'm typing, even with Cheeto dust and Mountain Dew involved.
I think that pretty much answers the question right there. Same here. I've also known dozens of MBP owners (or Apple pro laptops) for decades, and I've never heard such complaint and high numbers of them who have experienced issues as with these models. It's a small sample size, but as I said in another post... either that indicates something, or the people I know are one incredibly unlucky bunch.
avon b7 said: We don't really need to have Apple say it is unreliable when they are covering all of them (the situation for third gen needs clarification, though) for four years and have made changes to the design twice without detailing them. That in itself is strange as Apple went out of its way during the presentation of the original butterfly design to tell us how much better they were.
Apple gave out free bumpers for the iPhone 4 when it wasn't actually necessary. There was no flaw in the antenna design, but there was an inordinate amount of press coverage implying that there was.
Not that this really old news means anything now other than trying to avoid rewriting history claiming "there was no flaw", but it was a flaw according to Anandtech among others, IIRC one which Apple was reported to have subsequently addressed mid-cycle with the addition of a conductive coating to the antenna, well before the 4s was available. Note that the Verizon iPhone 4 version that launched after ATT's wasn't impacted as much (attenuation) by how it was held according to reports at the time, presumably due to the added antenna coating.
In total fairness the overall problem of dropped calls in actual use was measurably better on the 4 than the 3GS according to the same Anandtech article so even if the antenna design had an easily correctable flaw it was still a notable improvement over its predecessor. So yes there was a flaw, but no it was not a highly impactful one. It was definitely overblown IMHO (unless you typically held it firmly in your left-hand where the thumb naturally fell in just the wrong spot on that antenna band), pretty standard blog fare that's hardly unique to Apple right?
Quoting from Anandtech: "The results are pretty self explanatory. Inside a case, the iPhone 4 performs slightly better than the Nexus One. However, attenuation gets measurably worse depending how you hold the phone... At the end of the day, Apple should add an insulative coating to the stainless steel band, or subsidize bumper cases. It's that simple."
Signal Attenuation Comparison in dB - Lower is Better
Comments
I agree with you that I would sincerely appreciate a bit more openness and honesty from corporations in general when it comes to problems, but as long as there are lawyers suing them for breathing wrong, can you blame them? If this has made you lose faith in Apple, then you'll have a hard time finding another company to put your faith in. I continue to buy Apple products because they are in general high quality and Apple as a company continues to put a priority on quality. I'm annoyed that the keyboard I'm typing this on is more susceptible to dust than my 2011 MacBook Air was but I'm not going to trash the entire company because of it.
The small amount of air transferred with a keystroke would not be relevant to removing heat from the housing.
Not in my experience. It’s very under blown.
When more than half of your deployed fleet with this keyboard have broken. Some
more than once. You know it’s a real issue.
And, you know that, how? I think it has been under-blown.
Yeah, me too... for when my son's needs replacing. He's hoping to keep the machine more than 4 years.
Not everyone lives in Jonestown.
Glad AI keeps their readers better informed than Apple. They look like great machines (and you have to give Apple credit for coming out with the 32 GB model) but I can't afford a $700 keyboard replacement if they really haven't solved all the problems with the design. Does the 4 year replacement program continue with the 2018 models? Is the extra years for keyboard coverage extended if you have AppleCare? That would be a big inducement.
I read through the article and found it quite factual and heartily agreed with your observation that comments like, 'My MacBook Pro keyboard is ruining my life' were hyperbole. I think that Casey Johnston has been over the top with her articles about the MacBook Pro keyboard - if one reads through her articles, it seems like she had an agenda or at least let her frustration/hate get the better of her common sense because she even wrote an article exhorting people not to buy the Macbook Pro even at the discounted price that Best Buy was offering. And, when Apple started the repair program, she wrote another snarky article because Apple didn't respond to her request for more details. As if they would, after the way she was singularly responsible for blowing up the issue out of all proportion.
As numerous other posters mentioned on that article and this one, Apple isn't going to come out and openly admit that the new keyboard will improve reliability, because it would be tantamount to accepting that the old ones were not. It's fair to say that particles getting into the keyboard was a definite miss by the design team when it tested the new design for reliability. Hopefully, the new silicone membrane will put an end to that issue.
You obviously don’t know many software developers. These days, they’re more likely to spill a protein shake or some hideous vegetable smoothie.
Apple announces a warranty extension programme for every single butterfly keyboard ever made but refuses to speak openly on exactly what the problem is.
That is not normal.
We don't really need to have Apple say it is unreliable when they are covering all of them (the situation for third gen needs clarification, though) for four years and have made changes to the design twice without detailing them. That in itself is strange as Apple went out of its way during the presentation of the original butterfly design to tell us how much better they were. Apple also likes to tell us about its painstaking attention to detail. If that is the case, how did such an important factor such as noise (something Apple hates more than most) slip through the net and only get dealt with in the third generation of a product? which in itself is three generations in three years.
In the absence of a detailed explanation from Apple for users who paid thousands of dollars for these machines but with the butterfly keyboard programme in place, we can be quite sure that they (1st and 2nd gen at least) are more unreliable (and possibly due to the design) than keyboard designs without it needing to be proven or perhaps in fact to even have an actual failure, as the issue appears to be in the design itself.
If Apple backed itself into a corner with the Mac Pro design, they are back in another one with the butterfly keyboard.
For users the only truly valid solution is getting keyboard problems fixed and being told what the problem is.
The first part has a solution of sorts. Four years of protection but possibly seeing replacement keyboards with the exact same 'problems'. Or do you get four more years of protection in that case or simply a standard six or twelve months warranty?
As far as finding out what the problem really is, this is a tricky one. Is it reasonable for Apple to hold this information back? I have the sensation that if this reaches closer legal examination, the specifics will come out anyway and things could look worse than they already do.
It's one thing to say the keyboard has a design problem but another to say the design itself was necessitated because of the desire to make the machine thin, for example.
Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to "changes to the design twice without detailing them". They talked about the 1st gen butterfly in the 2015 MacBook. Then they talked about the 2nd gen butterfly in the 2016 MBP. Now they've talked about the 3rd gen butterfly in the 2018 MBP. They've always specified when the design iteration was changed.
On a serious note, I'm pretty sure that Apple does test their keyboards with some sort of automated test fixtures that synthesize keyboard use and exercise all of the keys. You know, the automated "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" type of key pounding that's been used since the days of typewriters and teletype machines as a matter of course. The question is whether Apple does these tests in the presence of dust, debris, and other such crud that is indicative of the environments in which its products are used. There's no way that Apple knows every possible environmental in which its products are used, but they can pick a few based on a knowledge of their customer based and select a few of the worst case scenarios for testing. Every new product that I've ever worked on has undergone environmental testing that is geared towards the operational environment that the product will be used in as well as general regulatory requirements like UL, CE, FCC, etc. Environmental testing includes shock, vibration, thermal, salt spray, dust, hot water wash down, etc., while regulatory testing includes EMI, EMC, and whatever UL/CSA/CE/FCC requires at the specific point in time.
The real questions are whether Apple's keyboard is failing at higher than predicted failure rates under environmental conditions for which the keyboard was tested, or did Apple fail to identify some of the actual environmental conditions that the keyboard turned out to be routinely subjected to? We really don't know at this point if the failure rates were even higher than expected, much less the conditions under which the keyboard was tested. Heck, we don't even know if the added seals have anything at all to do with trying to mitigate a reliability issue. Everything is speculative at this point and until Apple chimes in with more information. What we do know is that the keyboard is one of the bigger reliability challenges of a computer's design. With very few exceptions like the Control, Option, and Command keys that have redundancy, every single key on the keyboard must work flawlessly for the keyboard as a whole to be fully functional. This means that the reliability of the keyboard as a functional unit is reduced from the reliability of each key proportional to the number of keys. I've only experience one or two keyboard failures ever over 30 or so years, both on Dell laptops, so the key switch and keyboard designers seem to be doing a very good job from where I'm sitting, or from where I'm typing, even with Cheeto dust and Mountain Dew involved.
Apple hasn't detailed any changes for the third generation keyboard. It has stated that it is been made quieter but without saying how it was achieved. That was (at least partly) revealed in a teardown.
I don't know about proven, but it isn't exactly rocket science either. I guess it kind of depends on whether you think susceptibility to low levels of dust causing it to fail makes it a design flaw or not. I do, as I think I've only experienced one flaky key in decades of Apple laptop use.
I suppose in the fanboy mind, Apple is simply doing this just for PR purposes and to satisfy all the complaints?
Apple would never do something like fib a bit about the 'small percentage' thing or attribute the 'fix' to noise rather than admit a problem, right?
I still have this bridge for sale...
I think that pretty much answers the question right there. Same here. I've also known dozens of MBP owners (or Apple pro laptops) for decades, and I've never heard such complaint and high numbers of them who have experienced issues as with these models. It's a small sample size, but as I said in another post... either that indicates something, or the people I know are one incredibly unlucky bunch.
In total fairness the overall problem of dropped calls in actual use was measurably better on the 4 than the 3GS according to the same Anandtech article so even if the antenna design had an easily correctable flaw it was still a notable improvement over its predecessor. So yes there was a flaw, but no it was not a highly impactful one. It was definitely overblown IMHO (unless you typically held it firmly in your left-hand where the thumb naturally fell in just the wrong spot on that antenna band), pretty standard blog fare that's hardly unique to Apple right?
Quoting from Anandtech: "The results are pretty self explanatory. Inside a case, the iPhone 4 performs slightly better than the Nexus One. However, attenuation gets measurably worse depending how you hold the phone... At the end of the day, Apple should add an insulative coating to the stainless steel band, or subsidize bumper cases. It's that simple."