2016 MacBook Pro butterfly keyboards failing twice as frequently as older models

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Comments

  • Reply 81 of 205
    eliangonzaleliangonzal Posts: 490member
    xyzzy-xxx said:
    I don't have any interest in toy computers (and being as unproductive as on an iPad)...
    Hunny, if you’re making a (played out) comment on this site, you ain’t as productive as you want to pretend to others that you are. 
    Rayz2016chasmfastasleep
  • Reply 82 of 205
    Nicholas GNicholas G Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    I smell a class action lawsuit brewing...
  • Reply 83 of 205
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    I smell a class action lawsuit brewing...
    How will they submit it if their keyboards are broken? Kids don’t even know how to hold pencils anymore.
    edited April 2018 cgWerksSEJU
  • Reply 84 of 205
    apmillerapmiller Posts: 34member
    Remember everyone, to try a can of compressed air to blast small crumbs out, or whatever debris might be causing a key to not work. Even better, a compressor with dusting attachment. I own one now for my pneumatic nailer (DIY home projects), and if its a crumb, it can blast it out. If you don't own one you probably have a friend who does. My wife has a Late 2016 13", & I used it successfully to fix her somewhat unresponsive space bar after she had it a few months. It's been fine ever since.
    fastasleep
  • Reply 85 of 205
    PickUrPoisonPickUrPoison Posts: 302member
    Eric_WVGG said:
    MisterKit said:
    It looks like the vast majority of keyboards work well and are reliable.
    85% is not a vast majority, that's barely better than 4 our of five keyboards working reliably.
    Before the 2016 refresh, about 6% needed repairs. In 2016 the rate doubled to 12%, 1 in 8. 

    We we already knew that Apple revised the keyboard at some point when they saw the warranty numbers, so it makes sense the repair incidence went down to 8%. 

    6% for the old model, 8% for the current model. Of course that’s not great, but to hear certain internet-amplified voices screaming about a recall because keyboards are ruined by a “single speck of dust” when in reality keyboard failures went from 6 in a 100 to 8 in a 100... well, it’s kind of ridiculous. 

    Apple needs to further improve the keyboard, I remember seeing some recent patents on the design of a more robust keyboard so obviously they know it’s a problem. And they should probably have a service program for the 2016 model.

    Also $700 is too much, even if you drop a chunk of donut or some Cap’n Crunch down inside the keyboard, sure you broke it, but it is somewhat easy to break. Maybe $300 would be more reasonable. 
  • Reply 86 of 205
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Remember everyone, to only use your 2016 and newer MacBook Pros in a clean room whilst wearing a full HazMat suit to avoid even skins sloughing off and getting caught under the keyboard¡ :tongue: 

    But if that's not feasible, then what Apmiller said.
    edited April 2018 cgWerksfastasleepapmiller
  • Reply 87 of 205
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Soli said:
    You mean that obsession with thinness that has results in several recent generations of a thicker Apple Watch, iPhone, and other products? Is that the obsession to which you speak?

    While I don't care for the new keyboard I think it's folly to assume that they designed an entirely new mechanism for the sake of thinness.
    Thicker is a bit relative. I don't think any Apple product has gotten a lot thicker.
    The MacBook Pro has gotten considerably thinner/smaller, especially this generation. Of course they used that new keyboard to make it thinner, what could possibly be any other reason?
    And, this has also been a running theme for years now, where we've been questioning the wisdom of Apple making things thinner at the expense of other criteria (battery life, durability, etc.). It's not like Rogifan just came up with that idea, suddenly.

    paxman said:
    I believe they did, and it turns out not to have been a great design over time. The issue isn't so much that Apple designed a keyboard that isn't great - the redemption will be in how they move forward. As it always is. With a bit of luck they will improve the design and replace dud keyboards with a more reliable version as they come in for repair. 

    As for a design that 'feels' better, I am hoping they will produce a keyboard with retractible keys. The moment you open your MBP they keys pop out a fraction in order to provide extended travel. I don't think they will as it sounds over complicated, but if anyone can Apple can.
    I think this depends. Even if the failure rate were zero, I'd still say it is an inferior keyboard to other possibilities. I've gotten used to the 'chicklet' keys of my Apple Magic keyboard, but I don't think it is superior for typing to an Apple Extended II keyboard. It's smaller and quieter, a tradeoff I'm willing to make (though I've been considering one of these https://www.codekeyboards.com ).

    What is the gain here, though, besides a thinner laptop? It's possible someone might get pretty good at typing one one eventually, but I have a hard time believing it is optimal. Or, another way of saying it is that it was a design tradeoff, not an improvement. Same with the last several generations, but there is a point at where the tradeoff is worth it, and then at some point, it goes too far.
    apmiller
  • Reply 88 of 205
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    Soli said:
    And this is why an industrial design stylist, Jony Ive, should have no responsibility over functional areas of design. Yes, let him design or supervise the superficial elements of Apple products, but let engineers make the final call. Tech journalists like Andy Ihnatko said when the butterfly mechanism keyboard was announced that he didn't like it because it felt unnatural. Apple should've extensively tested their keyboards in high use simulations and with real people before moving ahead with an inferior keyboard.
    Why do people think Jony Ive is sitting around designing every component on every device? There’s an Input Design Lab at Apple, and it’s run (or at least was at the time of this article) by Kate Bergeron and John Ternus. 

    https://medium.com/backchannel/exclusive-why-apple-is-still-sweating-the-details-on-imac-531a95e50c91

    By all accounts, Ive largely has a supervisory role in overall design. Anyone who thinks he designed the butterfly key mechanisms has no idea what they’re talking about. 
    Personally, I'd like to know why the keyboard was redesigned without regard to function or durability. If done strictly to make the device thinner, it fails because form should never compromise function.
    All signs point to them moving to flat virtual control surfaces. This and the enlarged trackpad and Touch Bar and Taptic Engune are steps in that direction. I’m sure they didn’t anticipate the keyboard failing, but it’s absurd to assume they didn’t do testing. Apple makes mistakes, and I expect they’ll find a way to correct this, eventually, if the numbers are as bad as they appear to be. 
    The idea that Apple redesigned the keyboard “without regard to function or durability” is absurd. We have no idea what the cause of this issue is. Just attributing it to Apple’s obsession with thinness makes no sense because there are laptops as thin or thinner that don’t have this problem. 
    You mean that obsession with thinness that has results in several recent generations of a thicker Apple Watch, iPhone, and other products? Is that the obsession to which you speak?

    While I don't care for the new keyboard I think it's folly to assume that they designed an entirely new mechanism for the sake of thinness.
    Not referring to myself. Everyone else complaining about the keyboard seems to blame it on Apple’s obsession with thinness.
    cgWerks
  • Reply 89 of 205
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    cgWerks said:
    Soli said:
    You mean that obsession with thinness that has results in several recent generations of a thicker Apple Watch, iPhone, and other products? Is that the obsession to which you speak?

    While I don't care for the new keyboard I think it's folly to assume that they designed an entirely new mechanism for the sake of thinness.
    Thicker is a bit relative. I don't think any Apple product has gotten a lot thicker.
    The MacBook Pro has gotten considerably thinner/smaller, especially this generation. Of course they used that new keyboard to make it thinner, what could possibly be any other reason?
    And, this has also been a running theme for years now, where we've been questioning the wisdom of Apple making things thinner at the expense of other criteria (battery life, durability, etc.). It's not like Rogifan just came up with that idea, suddenly.
    No it's not. Thinner axiomatically means "to reduce (total) thickness," and thicker means "to increase (total) thickness," in this context. Adding "a lot" modifies the term, and that term is unquantifiable. Thinner and thicker are Boolean.

    Why would they need a new keyboard to make it thinner? Why would they need to design completely new butterfly keys to make that happen? With the overall thickness of the casing far exceeding the travel and key height of the pre-2016 keyboard there's no "they had to" based on the given data; but I can absolutely point out that the Series 3 Apple Watch is thicker than Series 2 which is thicker than Series 0/1.

    That isn't to say that they didn't purposely choose the butterfly keys and shorter travel because they made the casing so thin that they needed more room for internal components, but that would just be speculation on our part. President it as a hypothesis and create an argument to support your belief, but to claim it's dogma and point a finger at Jony Ive sound 
    ridiculous.

    For example, I believe that it's not so much that the bottom casing was made thinner, but more so that the top casing was made so thin that the previous bevel around the pre-2016 MBP displays no longer allows for better travel with the keys without resting upon the glass display when the lid is closed.
    edited April 2018 SEJUfastasleep
  • Reply 90 of 205
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Soli said:
    And this is why an industrial design stylist, Jony Ive, should have no responsibility over functional areas of design. Yes, let him design or supervise the superficial elements of Apple products, but let engineers make the final call. Tech journalists like Andy Ihnatko said when the butterfly mechanism keyboard was announced that he didn't like it because it felt unnatural. Apple should've extensively tested their keyboards in high use simulations and with real people before moving ahead with an inferior keyboard.
    Why do people think Jony Ive is sitting around designing every component on every device? There’s an Input Design Lab at Apple, and it’s run (or at least was at the time of this article) by Kate Bergeron and John Ternus. 

    https://medium.com/backchannel/exclusive-why-apple-is-still-sweating-the-details-on-imac-531a95e50c91

    By all accounts, Ive largely has a supervisory role in overall design. Anyone who thinks he designed the butterfly key mechanisms has no idea what they’re talking about. 
    Personally, I'd like to know why the keyboard was redesigned without regard to function or durability. If done strictly to make the device thinner, it fails because form should never compromise function.
    All signs point to them moving to flat virtual control surfaces. This and the enlarged trackpad and Touch Bar and Taptic Engune are steps in that direction. I’m sure they didn’t anticipate the keyboard failing, but it’s absurd to assume they didn’t do testing. Apple makes mistakes, and I expect they’ll find a way to correct this, eventually, if the numbers are as bad as they appear to be. 
    The idea that Apple redesigned the keyboard “without regard to function or durability” is absurd. We have no idea what the cause of this issue is. Just attributing it to Apple’s obsession with thinness makes no sense because there are laptops as thin or thinner that don’t have this problem. 
    You mean that obsession with thinness that has results in several recent generations of a thicker Apple Watch, iPhone, and other products? Is that the obsession to which you speak?

    While I don't care for the new keyboard I think it's folly to assume that they designed an entirely new mechanism for the sake of thinness.
    Not referring to myself. Everyone else complaining about the keyboard seems to blame it on Apple’s obsession with thinness.
    Blame is easy. All I know for sure is that I don't care for the new keyboard and even after all this time as soon as I touch my old MBP it's like putting on brand new socks.
  • Reply 91 of 205
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Soli said:
    No it's not. Thinner axiomatically means "to reduce (total) thickness," and thicker means "to increase (total) thickness," in this context. Adding "a lot" modifies the term, and that term is unquantifiable. Thinner and thicker are Boolean.

    Why would they need a new keyboard to make it thinner? Why would they need to design completely new butterfly keys to make that happen? With the overall thickness of the casing far exceeding the travel and key height of the pre-2016 keyboard there's no "they had to" based on the given data; but I can absolutely point out that the Series 3 Apple Watch is thicker than Series 2 which is thicker than Series 0/1.

    That isn't to say that they didn't purposely choose the butterfly keys and shorter travel because they made the casing so thin that they needed more room for internal components, but that would just be speculation on our part. President it as a hypothesis and create an argument to support your belief, but to claim it's dogma and point a finger at Jony Ive sound ridiculous.

    For example, I believe that it's not so much that the bottom casing was made thinner, but more so that the top casing was made so thin that the previous bevel around
    the pre-2016 MBP displays no longer allows for better travel with the keys without resting upon the glass display when the lid is closed.
    My point was that when you say products have gotten thicker, you're talking about a super-small amount, as opposed to the thinning down of products.

    The watch is an exception, as every bit of battery is needed in an attempt to make it useful, as was expanding it's capability. Even the first version was too thick - for a watch - but they also had to deal with reality. That isn't the case for phones, iMacs, laptops, etc. While thinner *might* be desired in some of those cases, the outcry has been loud that we'd rather have functionality, as most of this stuff is quite thin enough.

    Again, why would anyone consider such a keyboard if thickness wasn't a consideration?
  • Reply 92 of 205
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    cgWerks said:
    Soli said:
    No it's not. Thinner axiomatically means "to reduce (total) thickness," and thicker means "to increase (total) thickness," in this context. Adding "a lot" modifies the term, and that term is unquantifiable. Thinner and thicker are Boolean.

    Why would they need a new keyboard to make it thinner? Why would they need to design completely new butterfly keys to make that happen? With the overall thickness of the casing far exceeding the travel and key height of the pre-2016 keyboard there's no "they had to" based on the given data; but I can absolutely point out that the Series 3 Apple Watch is thicker than Series 2 which is thicker than Series 0/1.

    That isn't to say that they didn't purposely choose the butterfly keys and shorter travel because they made the casing so thin that they needed more room for internal components, but that would just be speculation on our part. President it as a hypothesis and create an argument to support your belief, but to claim it's dogma and point a finger at Jony Ive sound ridiculous.

    For example, I believe that it's not so much that the bottom casing was made thinner, but more so that the top casing was made so thin that the previous bevel around
    the pre-2016 MBP displays no longer allows for better travel with the keys without resting upon the glass display when the lid is closed.
    My point was that when you say products have gotten thicker, you're talking about a super-small amount, as opposed to the thinning down of products.
    And? It's either thicker, thinner, or the same thickness as the previous generation? Why is that so hard to understand? You saying that Apple is obsessed with thinness while there are many examples of not only not making products thinner or staying the same thickness, but making them thicker, disproves the assertion that thinness is the primary motivator. If it was the Apple Watch, for example, which was already deemed by countless detractors from day one as "too thick" would've gotten thinner and all those advancements that required it to become a little thicker (and heavier) wouldn't have occurred.

    The watch is an exception, as every bit of battery is needed in an attempt to make it useful, as was expanding it's capability.
    So now you're saying that battery life and capability are important factors for Apple. Interesting 180° turn.

  • Reply 93 of 205
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    If you are going to parse service call data, at minimum you should have started with service call data starting with the 2012 rMBP, continue on with the 2013 and 2014 model years. This would have eliminated production ramp issues from the data, and you could more logically conclude that the new keyboard is failing more often, maybe. That’s a maybe.

    If the 2012 and 2013 model years had higher keyboard call service incidents than the 2014 and 2015 model years, that would be an indication that what you are seeing with the 4th gen model are production ramp issues, where Apple is slowly improving production yields. In this case, all you are doing is saying that mature products are more reliable than new products. That’s not a big conclusion. This is supported by the data you have presented though. The 2017 models appear to be more reliable than the 2016 model years. If the 2018 model year is as reliable as the 2015 MBP, yeah, it’s just your straightforward refinement of product design and production processes.

    The numbers you have presented could also be caused by other things unrelated to the keyboard as well. No data has been shown for the MB12 which has rev 1 of this keyboard, the same one as the 2016 MBP, right. Not sure if the 2017 model MB12 uses the same 2nd gen keyboard as the MBP15, but the complaints of the MB seem to be much less? Not enough media folks own it, so we don’t here about the complaints? Or if it is better, it could be the keyboard is fine, and it’s due to the battery or higher thermal environment in the Pros. If so, this could simply be adding slight more clearance between the keyboard and using better batteries and better cooling, and the keyboard would remain unchanged. 
    Solifastasleep
  • Reply 94 of 205
    SEJUSEJU Posts: 46member
    cgWerks said:
    No, an industrial designer is more like an architect or a UI designer, as opposed to an engineer or graphic designer. It is a blended discipline where they have a good handle on both (or multiple) disciplines, but don't necessarily go as deep as the specialist. But, this experience allows them to better blend the disciplines and they *should* be going to those experts whenever they run into something that goes beyond their depth.
    Precicely, that is what I was referring to.
    cgWerks
  • Reply 95 of 205
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Soli said:
    cgWerks said:
    My point was that when you say products have gotten thicker, you're talking about a super-small amount, as opposed to the thinning down of products.
    And? It's either thicker, thinner, or the same thickness as the previous generation? Why is that so hard to understand? You saying that Apple is obsessed with thinness while there are many examples of not only not making products thinner or staying the same thickness, but making them thicker, disproves the assertion that thinness is the primary motivator. If it was the Apple Watch, for example, which was already deemed by countless detractors from day one as "too thick" would've gotten thinner and all those advancements that required it to become a little thicker (and heavier) wouldn't have occurred.

    The watch is an exception, as every bit of battery is needed in an attempt to make it useful, as was expanding it's capability.
    So now you're saying that battery life and capability are important factors for Apple. Interesting 180° turn.
    I'll try to make this simple for ya... ;)
    Overall, the products Apple makes have gotten substantially thinner over time. This is, in part, due to technology advances. However, in a number of cases, Apple has prioritized being thin over other factors, such as battery life (presumably, because they thought what they delivered was enough for most), or structural integrity (remember bend-gate?), pulling features (hello 3.5mm jack!), or stuff like we're debating over the keyboard, where functionality takes a compromise.

    In a few cases, such as the Watch, they had to back-track a bit or compromise on thickness/size, as gaining functionality/features was critical to survival of the product line. The initial Apple Watch was mostly useless, and even the current iteration is barely usable due to battery-life constraints. I'm sure they'd ***LOVE*** to make it much thinner.

    There was no 180° turn involved... you just weren't keeping up. :) (or, were purposely being obtuse)

    The argument is that Apple is often *prioritizing* thinness, and that we users are saying, 'hey, we like thin too, but...' with other priorities in mind. This general argument has been around the Apple news and forums environment for like half a decade at least. So have you, so please stop pretending it is some kind of odd opinion.

    tht said:
    If you are going to parse service call data, at minimum you should have started with service call data starting with the 2012 rMBP, continue on with the 2013 and 2014 model years. This would have eliminated production ramp issues from the data, and you could more logically conclude that the new keyboard is failing more often, maybe. That’s a maybe.

    If the 2012 and 2013 model years had higher keyboard call service incidents than the 2014 and 2015 model years, that would be an indication that what you are seeing with the 4th gen model are production ramp issues, where Apple is slowly improving production yields. In this case, all you are doing is saying that mature products are more reliable than new products. That’s not a big conclusion. This is supported by the data you have presented though. The 2017 models appear to be more reliable than the 2016 model years. If the 2018 model year is as reliable as the 2015 MBP, yeah, it’s just your straightforward refinement of product design and production processes.

    The numbers you have presented could also be caused by other things unrelated to the keyboard as well. No data has been shown for the MB12 which has rev 1 of this keyboard, the same one as the 2016 MBP, right. Not sure if the 2017 model MB12 uses the same 2nd gen keyboard as the MBP15, but the complaints of the MB seem to be much less? Not enough media folks own it, so we don’t here about the complaints? Or if it is better, it could be the keyboard is fine, and it’s due to the battery or higher thermal environment in the Pros. If so, this could simply be adding slight more clearance between the keyboard and using better batteries and better cooling, and the keyboard would remain unchanged. 
    Or, it's just a really poor and problematic key design. :smiley: 
    Failure rates aside, this is evidence by the whole 'hold it at x angle, and spray the air can...' thing.

    avon b7apmiller
  • Reply 96 of 205
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,273member
    bsimpsen said:
    You've got your numbers all wrong.
    I can't speak for Mike, but I think you've misinterpreted. FTA: "All data has been collected from assorted Apple Genius Bars in the U.S. that we have been working with for several years, as well as Apple-authorized third-party repair shops."

    This means that the data we're seeing has been aggregated from only those repair shops and Genius Bars (a tiny subset of the total number of Genius Bars and AASPs). It's very much like where pollsters sample 1,000 or 10,000 people at random, and from that extrapolate conclusions that apply to everyone in the country -- statistics show that you don't need to ask everyone to get an accurate answer, just a representative sample. And that's exactly what Mike has done, he's gathered a representative sample.

    Personally, I think the big takeaway from this (very valuable) research is to stop eating and drinking things over your 2016 and later MacBook Pro, or at the very least (as I do) use a keyboard cover for it. Crumbs have always been the bane of keyboard repairs, and it sounds like this latest keyboard design didn't really factor that in as much as perhaps they should have. I'm perfectly fine with the new keyboard style in terms of performance, but this data does tell me two things I couldn't previously say with certainty:

    1. The new keyboard design seems less tolerant of contaminants.
    2. While your odds of having a keyboard problem are still low (and even lower if you take the same precautions you should have always taken with scissor-based keyboard designs), they are in fact higher than they were with the previous design. Probably not an insurmountable problem, but a factor in buying decisions.
    SEJUfastasleep
  • Reply 97 of 205
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Soli said:
    And this is why an industrial design stylist, Jony Ive, should have no responsibility over functional areas of design. Yes, let him design or supervise the superficial elements of Apple products, but let engineers make the final call. Tech journalists like Andy Ihnatko said when the butterfly mechanism keyboard was announced that he didn't like it because it felt unnatural. Apple should've extensively tested their keyboards in high use simulations and with real people before moving ahead with an inferior keyboard.
    Why do people think Jony Ive is sitting around designing every component on every device? There’s an Input Design Lab at Apple, and it’s run (or at least was at the time of this article) by Kate Bergeron and John Ternus. 

    https://medium.com/backchannel/exclusive-why-apple-is-still-sweating-the-details-on-imac-531a95e50c91

    By all accounts, Ive largely has a supervisory role in overall design. Anyone who thinks he designed the butterfly key mechanisms has no idea what they’re talking about. 
    Personally, I'd like to know why the keyboard was redesigned without regard to function or durability. If done strictly to make the device thinner, it fails because form should never compromise function.
    All signs point to them moving to flat virtual control surfaces. This and the enlarged trackpad and Touch Bar and Taptic Engune are steps in that direction. I’m sure they didn’t anticipate the keyboard failing, but it’s absurd to assume they didn’t do testing. Apple makes mistakes, and I expect they’ll find a way to correct this, eventually, if the numbers are as bad as they appear to be. 
    The idea that Apple redesigned the keyboard “without regard to function or durability” is absurd. We have no idea what the cause of this issue is. Just attributing it to Apple’s obsession with thinness makes no sense because there are laptops as thin or thinner that don’t have this problem. 
    You mean that obsession with thinness that has results in several recent generations of a thicker Apple Watch, iPhone, and other products? Is that the obsession to which you speak?

    Yup, that'll be the one.

    Soli said:

    While I don't care for the new keyboard I think it's folly to assume that they designed an entirely new mechanism for the sake of thinness.
    Actually I think they designed it with their core demographic in mind. The customers they're seeing now have grown up using keyboards with no travel at all, so I'm not all that surprised that they've decreased it in the new models.

    Myself, I actually prefer it; once I trained myself not to hit the keys at though I'm trying to punch the laptop through the desk, I found that typing was far more comfortable and produced no strain on the wrists and fingers. The size of the Return and the up/down cursor keys are the only problems I have with it. 

    I can't really comment on the reliability. Mine is fine, but then I don't really hit the keys that hard. I certainly wouldn't take AI's view as proving anything one way or the other obviously, but as is often the case, I wonder if we're just listening to echoes in the chamber again. Hard to tell.

    chasmSEJUfastasleep
  • Reply 98 of 205
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    chasm said:
    This means that the data we're seeing has been aggregated from only those repair shops and Genius Bars (a tiny subset of the total number of Genius Bars and AASPs). It's very much like where pollsters sample 1,000 or 10,000 people at random, and from that extrapolate conclusions that apply to everyone in the country -- statistics show that you don't need to ask everyone to get an accurate answer, just a representative sample. And that's exactly what Mike has done, he's gathered a representative sample. 
    Yep, that's how I read it to. I think that commenter didn't understand the numbers. :)

    chasm said:
    Personally, I think the big takeaway from this (very valuable) research is to stop eating and drinking things over your 2016 and later MacBook Pro, or at the very least (as I do) use a keyboard cover for it.
    I don't think I'd like a cover, but from my understanding, it isn't crumbs we're typically talking about, but literally dust. Like, as in, it's working, it's working, now it's not working. No crumbs involved. Get out compressed air.

    Since I've been unfortunate enough to live next to construction a number of times over the last decade or so, that would be a huge problem. (We've only lived at our new place for a few weeks and I'm already wiping a significant coating of dust off of things.) None of my keyboards (which aren't that type) have any issues, nor have they typically in the past. I think I've only had one key get a bit flaky (like a decade or more ago) on any Apple product in the past 30+ years, and I was able to take it apart and fix it.

    A $700 repair that is this likely is a pretty big deal, IMO. Couple that with other design decisions like the too-big trackpad, Touch Bar, higher prices, and need for hubs/dongles (adding extra cost) and it isn't something I want to get into. My son wants to buy one and I'm trying to talk him out of it. Unless Apple gives us something better in June, I'll probably soon have first-hand experience, though.
    SEJU
  • Reply 99 of 205
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Rayz2016 said:
    Actually I think they designed it with their core demographic in mind. The customers they're seeing now have grown up using keyboards with no travel at all, so I'm not all that surprised that they've decreased it in the new models.
    That is effectively the same thing an Apple Store Genius told me today. He basically said that people that use/used the iPad a lot seem to have no issues with the new keyboard.
    fastasleepRayz2016
  • Reply 100 of 205
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Rayz2016 said:
    Actually I think they designed it with their core demographic in mind. The customers they're seeing now have grown up using keyboards with no travel at all, so I'm not all that surprised that they've decreased it in the new models.

    Myself, I actually prefer it; once I trained myself not to hit the keys at though I'm trying to punch the laptop through the desk, I found that typing was far more comfortable and produced no strain on the wrists and fingers.
    Interesting take on it, but do you really think many MacBook Pro owners transitioned from iPad->MacBook Pro? Maybe in another decade or two when the kiddos who are now using iPads graduate to the 'real world' ... if there are MacBook Pros by then.

    I have one friend who really, really likes the keyboard on his MacBook. Everyone else I know more tolerates it. I haven't spent enough time on it, but totally hate it the bits of time I have spent. I'm sure I'd eventually get used to it, but I have to question if there is some point where the curve gets steep.

    I also wonder (as mentioned earlier) if noise aside, if these reductions in key-throw have really been improvements in terms of typing efficiency. While I've adapted pretty well over the years, I'm thinking if all things being equal, I'd be fastest on the old Apple Extended II or something like that.

    So, Apple shortens the throw... I adjust. They shorten it again, I adjust. Maybe I'm losing some small speed percentage each time, but it's worth it for other reasons. But, I know I can't type as fast on an iPad (I spent a couple years at it quite a bit.) So, where, between my current Magic Keyboard and the iPad does the loss in speed/accuracy become dramatic?
    edited May 2018
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