7 ms·

The niche is not developers themselves; the niche is a (vocal) sample of the developer community. I'm a developer and I like the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard with

The niche is not developers themselves; the niche is a (vocal) sample of the developer community. I'm a developer and I like the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard with touchbar. In particular: What we want is a functional keyboard. This is your opinion, but it's not necessarily the majority opinion. For example, I would rather Apple focus on other parts of the computer than the keyboard. The keyboard just isn't that meaningful to me, and I'm just as productive a developer without whatever platonic ideal of a keyboard Apple could put on the thing. I think a lot of people vastly overestimate the number of Apple customers who have an opinion about this, because it's relatively easy to see complaints on HN, blogs or tech journalism.

jpmoyn 8y ago
IIRC the keyboard has hardware problems and dead keys are common
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Sure, that would be shitty. But do we have an authoritative and empirical source indicating a meaningful increase in keyboard hardware problems? When I search for information about this, I come up with articles like [1]. But none of the data is provided and the analysis isn't exactly...rigorous, to put it charitably. EDIT: Why in the world has this been downvoted to -3?! This is a reasonable comment to make complete with an example. If you disagree, blindly downvoting isn't informative of anything except that you don't like a comment. _________________ 1. https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/30/2016-macbook-pro-butterfly-keyboards-failing-twice-as-frequently-as-older-models https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/30/2016-macbook-pro-...
  - jetsnoc 8y ago
    Google apple keyboard class action lawsuit
  - untog 8y ago
    The only people that could conclusively provide that information is Apple, and they have no desire to do so. So all we have to go on is anecdata. My personal experiences suggest that the keyboard is problem is widespread, though by no means common.
    - skygazer 8y ago
      Uncommon but widespread: Sparse?
  - ecnahc515 8y ago
    The fact that Apple has made a keyboard repair program available indicates just how bad this is directly. We don't have numbers, no, but it's pretty obvious it's not just a small number of users experiencing this given their response.
  - grey-area 8y ago
    But do we have an authoritative and empirical source indicating a meaningful increase in keyboard hardware problems? Apple has that information, and they've decided it's a big enough problem to issue a repair program and adjust the keyboard in the new version: https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/ https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m... So, in answer to your question, yes we do have an authoritative source - Apple.
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      Okay, that's fair. It looks like it goes beyond the tech reporting bubble then. Thanks for being the only one to provide a cited source in response to my own. I'll concede that the hardware flaws - independent of personal taste about the touchbar or function keys - is a major problem then.
  - torstenvl 8y ago
    You can walk into any Best Buy or other non-Apple retail location that sells Apple computers and find at least one machine with keyboard issues. The most common one I've found is a left shift key that doesn't work unless you press it exactly in the center or with excessive force.
- idlewords 8y ago
  This is abslutely crrect.
swsieber 8y ago
The thing is it'd be easy to have a functional keyboard. Just give back the one they had been using. Doesn't need focus.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  I assume Apple is a rational organization equipped with a better understanding than I have of its products. I know - big assumption - but let's assume it's true. What reasons would Apple as a company have for improving the keyboard, and what reasons would Apple have for not improving the keyboard?
  - eberkund 8y ago
    Maybe a crappier keyboard is cheaper to produce?
    - baseten 8y ago
      Doesn't matter. The crappier keyboard is probably .014mm thinner, which supersedes all other considerations because producing thinner hardware is really really REALLY important to apple.
  - slantyyz 8y ago
    >> I assume Apple is a rational organization equipped with a better understanding than I have of its products. I know - big assumption - but let's assume it's true. What reasons would Apple as a company have for improving the keyboard, and what reasons would Apple have for not improving the keyboard? Your question has already been answered by Apple with the current generation of problematic keyboards. They already had a mature, reliable keyboard that felt pretty good and was not noisy. It was not "broke" and did not need "fixing". They presumably chose to "improve" it with the current one so that their computers could be a little bit thinner and that Jony Ive could brag about the new technology in a video during a keynote.
  - bodas 8y ago
    Apple doesn't care because people (including myself) will continue to throw money at them even if they make something that sucks. All of their competitors' laptops simply suck more. Freed from market pressures, Apple's hardware designers have free reign to pursue form over function, a dream situation for any designer to be in.
jetsnoc 8y ago
I think a lot of people vastly underestimate the size of the problem with the keyboard. Apple has had atleast three class action lawsuits regarding the defective keyboards. They have setup a warranty program to try and placate consumers and resolve the lawsuits. It's a real problem and just because it did not impact you does not mean that millions of others have not been impacted. So here we are, I'm a developer of 1 and have been impacted you're a developer of 1 and have not been impacted. It doesn't make yours or my experience any less real but I think the class action lawsuits speak for themselves. For me personally, it's hard to write a lot of code when keys don't hit or they endlessly repeat. So, I picked up a Lenovo and through Linux on it and ditched the MBP. I honestly don't know how any of the other market shares can put up with this failing keyboard either. For students, teachers, scientists .. any one that uses a keyboard frequently... it would have to be real hard to write a paper with keys that fail or keys that start repeating constantly.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  > It's a real problem and just because it did not impact you does not mean that millions of others have not been impacted. This is a good point, which I acknowledge. Maybe I've been lucky with my keyboard. But while you point this out, I think most folks complaining about the keyboard are not acknowledging the other side - that it may not be as important as they think it is either. Hence my original comment indicating my own opinion. > For students, teachers, scientists .. any one that uses a keyboard frequently... it would have to be real hard to write a paper with keys that fail or keys that start repeating constantly. For what it's worth, I wrote a ~170 page paper (in LaTeX) on a 2016 MacBook Pro. I cared a lot more about screen real estate than the keyboard, so I added a few monitors. All anyone seems to be able to provide is an exchange of anecdotal evidence for or against the keyboard. If there's a real issue I'm not defending it. But I am saying it might not be worth it for Apple to fix it depending on incidence rate, and it might not be as prevalent as the tech blogging/journalism sphere would have us believe.
  - barake 8y ago
    The feel of the keyboard is certainly a matter of preference, but the reliability issues are prevalent enough Apple has a special repair program (again): https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/ https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...
PretzelPirate 8y ago
I love the new keyboard and touchbar. I haven’t had any issues with the keys not working.
- q1t 8y ago
  I loved my mbp 2017 keyboard as well until one key started "double typing", then another one, and another one... now my life is misarable..
jclardy 8y ago
So I use a lot of different keyboards - my main ones are a whitefox with blue switches and a CODE with greens. I actually like the MBP keyboard - key stability and clickiness are the parameters I like, and the MBP has both. My problem with the keyboard is just reliability - I now keep a can of compressed air at my desk just because a key is going to get screwed up at least once a month. And I have one key that is particularly bad, so I assume some piece of dust is just trapped under the key and the compressed air pushes it somewhere until it eventually falls back into place. I'm waiting a little longer to bring it in for repair in hopes that they start using this new v3 keyboard as a replacement - maybe it secretly fixes the dust issue (And they don't want to say it because that would be admitting that there was a problem.)
- fakename 8y ago
  mainly interested in this news to learn if they'll start exchanging 2016/17 mbps for this new model. Does the new keyboard require dozens of tiny screws to assemble/dissemble?
  - morganvachon 8y ago
    I may be wrong but I was under the impression the difficulty in replacing the keyboard is due to it being fused to the battery. You pretty much have to replace both when attempting to replace one or the other.
    - jclardy 8y ago
      Yeah, that is the issue. A keyboard replacement means replacing both battery and keyboard because they are glued together. But I have heard that they were replacing older keyboards (2016) with 2017 models (You could easily tell because they add new symbols above control/option.) I wonder if they'll be doing replacements with 2018 keys now. It would be really nice - the keyboard reliability is pretty much my only complaint, minus not having a physical escape key.
culot 8y ago
> The keyboard just isn't that meaningful to me That's ridiculous. The keyboard is probably the most important feature for someone who codes. You're basically saying, "Whatever Apple sells I will buy, regardless of its qualities." That strikes me as a strange stance to take.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  You act as though I said I wanted to use something outlandish as a keyboard, like a reprogrammed toaster. The MacBook Pro is a qwerty keyboard. It doesn't have the full function row or numpad, yes, but it's fundamentally a usable keyboard. I'm not "basically saying whatever Apple sells I will buy", and to think that would indicate you have an unrealistically uncharitable interpretation of my comment. In fact, I explicitly stated elsewhere in this thread that screen real estate matters to me. If you feel strongly about the keyboard, that's fine. But that's not intrinsic to your capacity as a developer, it's just your opinion about its suitability for your purpose. Reasonable people can disagree over the importance of a keyboard.
  - gknoy 8y ago
    There's a fundamental difference between a keyboard whose feel I might not like (travel distance, click feel) and a keyboard which has been reported to fail catastrophically from the smallest bits of dust. If Apple decided to go for a chiclet, or other variety of keyboard, I probably wouldn't care. I'd deal with that. In this case, though, I pretty much have to expect (based on news and class action lawsuits) that it will stop working correctly, in a matter of months, in a way which directly impacts my productivity. I'll use one at work if I have to, but there's no way I'd buy one for home while the keyboard is that unreliable.
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      To be clear, I'm talking about the design of the thing here. There are two different conversations being had - one is about a dislike of the design, the other is about the hardware reliability of the thing.
mygo 8y ago
Add me to the list of people who don't give a crap about the keyboard, so long as it's functional. The #1 thing I was looking for when I opened the page was... "how many relevant ports does it have? will I have to carry around a dongle to do the same things I can do on my 2015 MBP without a dongle? oh wait.. nope still need dongles." And then "Wait why is the 13 inch form factor not even getting discrete graphics processing, nor up to 32GB ram?" A dysfunctional keyboard is a no-no, because I need a functional keyboard. But in general I'm not bothered at all about the other things that are important to other people, such as key travel, etc. So I haven't been vocal about it.
mrgordon 8y ago
Wanting a functional keyboard on a laptop is a niche opinion? Wowwwwww. The reality distortion field is strong. I've used every MacBook model and the new ones have unacceptably bad keyboards. I am in an office with dozens of broken ones and the things have become a joke amongst the developers. The IT department got so tired of Apple's time to repair them that they started just ordering extra keys from third party websites for $20/each. I worked at Apple with Steve Jobs and I can assure you he would not say that the keyboard isn't meaningful and its fine if its broken. There is a reason all the major Apple bloggers have written piece after piece about their poor reliability and repairability. If your space bar breaks with one piece of dust you need to replace the entire top of the computer including the battery since its glued to it.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  > Wanting a functional keyboard on a laptop is a niche opinion? Wowwwwww. The reality distortion field is strong. This is a deliberate misreading of what I said. My point is that reasonable people can disagree about what a "functional keyboard" is for software development. You're free to disagree with me, but don't accuse me of being under a "reality distortion field." And for what it's worth, the comment of mine that you responded to is talking about design and aesthetic choices. You're primarily talking about hardware faults and reliability.
  - mrgordon 8y ago
    The source comment was not about design and aesthetic choices. Here is the first comment that you responded to: “What we want is a functional keyboard” We want a functional keyboard. This is not about reasonable people disagreeing. If your space bar does not work, your keyboard is broken and typing sucks.

jpmoyn 8y ago

IIRC the keyboard has hardware problems and dead keys are common

throwawaymath 8y ago
Sure, that would be shitty. But do we have an authoritative and empirical source indicating a meaningful increase in keyboard hardware problems? When I search for information about this, I come up with articles like [1]. But none of the data is provided and the analysis isn't exactly...rigorous, to put it charitably. EDIT: Why in the world has this been downvoted to -3?! This is a reasonable comment to make complete with an example. If you disagree, blindly downvoting isn't informative of anything except that you don't like a comment. _________________ 1. https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/30/2016-macbook-pro-butterfly-keyboards-failing-twice-as-frequently-as-older-models https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/30/2016-macbook-pro-...
- jetsnoc 8y ago
  Google apple keyboard class action lawsuit
- untog 8y ago
  The only people that could conclusively provide that information is Apple, and they have no desire to do so. So all we have to go on is anecdata. My personal experiences suggest that the keyboard is problem is widespread, though by no means common.
  - skygazer 8y ago
    Uncommon but widespread: Sparse?
- ecnahc515 8y ago
  The fact that Apple has made a keyboard repair program available indicates just how bad this is directly. We don't have numbers, no, but it's pretty obvious it's not just a small number of users experiencing this given their response.
- grey-area 8y ago
  But do we have an authoritative and empirical source indicating a meaningful increase in keyboard hardware problems? Apple has that information, and they've decided it's a big enough problem to issue a repair program and adjust the keyboard in the new version: https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/ https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m... So, in answer to your question, yes we do have an authoritative source - Apple.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Okay, that's fair. It looks like it goes beyond the tech reporting bubble then. Thanks for being the only one to provide a cited source in response to my own. I'll concede that the hardware flaws - independent of personal taste about the touchbar or function keys - is a major problem then.
- torstenvl 8y ago
  You can walk into any Best Buy or other non-Apple retail location that sells Apple computers and find at least one machine with keyboard issues. The most common one I've found is a left shift key that doesn't work unless you press it exactly in the center or with excessive force.
idlewords 8y ago
This is abslutely crrect.

swsieber 8y ago

The thing is it'd be easy to have a functional keyboard. Just give back the one they had been using. Doesn't need focus.

throwawaymath 8y ago
I assume Apple is a rational organization equipped with a better understanding than I have of its products. I know - big assumption - but let's assume it's true. What reasons would Apple as a company have for improving the keyboard, and what reasons would Apple have for not improving the keyboard?
- eberkund 8y ago
  Maybe a crappier keyboard is cheaper to produce?
  - baseten 8y ago
    Doesn't matter. The crappier keyboard is probably .014mm thinner, which supersedes all other considerations because producing thinner hardware is really really REALLY important to apple.
- slantyyz 8y ago
  >> I assume Apple is a rational organization equipped with a better understanding than I have of its products. I know - big assumption - but let's assume it's true. What reasons would Apple as a company have for improving the keyboard, and what reasons would Apple have for not improving the keyboard? Your question has already been answered by Apple with the current generation of problematic keyboards. They already had a mature, reliable keyboard that felt pretty good and was not noisy. It was not "broke" and did not need "fixing". They presumably chose to "improve" it with the current one so that their computers could be a little bit thinner and that Jony Ive could brag about the new technology in a video during a keynote.
- bodas 8y ago
  Apple doesn't care because people (including myself) will continue to throw money at them even if they make something that sucks. All of their competitors' laptops simply suck more. Freed from market pressures, Apple's hardware designers have free reign to pursue form over function, a dream situation for any designer to be in.

jetsnoc 8y ago

I think a lot of people vastly underestimate the size of the problem with the keyboard. Apple has had atleast three class action lawsuits regarding the defective keyboards. They have setup a warranty program to try and placate consumers and resolve the lawsuits. It's a real problem and just because it did not impact you does not mean that millions of others have not been impacted. So here we are, I'm a developer of 1 and have been impacted you're a developer of 1 and have not been impacted. It doesn't make yours or my experience any less real but I think the class action lawsuits speak for themselves. For me personally, it's hard to write a lot of code when keys don't hit or they endlessly repeat. So, I picked up a Lenovo and through Linux on it and ditched the MBP. I honestly don't know how any of the other market shares can put up with this failing keyboard either. For students, teachers, scientists .. any one that uses a keyboard frequently... it would have to be real hard to write a paper with keys that fail or keys that start repeating constantly.

throwawaymath 8y ago
> It's a real problem and just because it did not impact you does not mean that millions of others have not been impacted. This is a good point, which I acknowledge. Maybe I've been lucky with my keyboard. But while you point this out, I think most folks complaining about the keyboard are not acknowledging the other side - that it may not be as important as they think it is either. Hence my original comment indicating my own opinion. > For students, teachers, scientists .. any one that uses a keyboard frequently... it would have to be real hard to write a paper with keys that fail or keys that start repeating constantly. For what it's worth, I wrote a ~170 page paper (in LaTeX) on a 2016 MacBook Pro. I cared a lot more about screen real estate than the keyboard, so I added a few monitors. All anyone seems to be able to provide is an exchange of anecdotal evidence for or against the keyboard. If there's a real issue I'm not defending it. But I am saying it might not be worth it for Apple to fix it depending on incidence rate, and it might not be as prevalent as the tech blogging/journalism sphere would have us believe.
- barake 8y ago
  The feel of the keyboard is certainly a matter of preference, but the reliability issues are prevalent enough Apple has a special repair program (again): https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/ https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

PretzelPirate 8y ago

I love the new keyboard and touchbar. I haven’t had any issues with the keys not working.

q1t 8y ago
I loved my mbp 2017 keyboard as well until one key started "double typing", then another one, and another one... now my life is misarable..

jclardy 8y ago

So I use a lot of different keyboards - my main ones are a whitefox with blue switches and a CODE with greens. I actually like the MBP keyboard - key stability and clickiness are the parameters I like, and the MBP has both. My problem with the keyboard is just reliability - I now keep a can of compressed air at my desk just because a key is going to get screwed up at least once a month. And I have one key that is particularly bad, so I assume some piece of dust is just trapped under the key and the compressed air pushes it somewhere until it eventually falls back into place. I'm waiting a little longer to bring it in for repair in hopes that they start using this new v3 keyboard as a replacement - maybe it secretly fixes the dust issue (And they don't want to say it because that would be admitting that there was a problem.)

fakename 8y ago
mainly interested in this news to learn if they'll start exchanging 2016/17 mbps for this new model. Does the new keyboard require dozens of tiny screws to assemble/dissemble?
- morganvachon 8y ago
  I may be wrong but I was under the impression the difficulty in replacing the keyboard is due to it being fused to the battery. You pretty much have to replace both when attempting to replace one or the other.
  - jclardy 8y ago
    Yeah, that is the issue. A keyboard replacement means replacing both battery and keyboard because they are glued together. But I have heard that they were replacing older keyboards (2016) with 2017 models (You could easily tell because they add new symbols above control/option.) I wonder if they'll be doing replacements with 2018 keys now. It would be really nice - the keyboard reliability is pretty much my only complaint, minus not having a physical escape key.

culot 8y ago

> The keyboard just isn't that meaningful to me That's ridiculous. The keyboard is probably the most important feature for someone who codes. You're basically saying, "Whatever Apple sells I will buy, regardless of its qualities." That strikes me as a strange stance to take.

throwawaymath 8y ago
You act as though I said I wanted to use something outlandish as a keyboard, like a reprogrammed toaster. The MacBook Pro is a qwerty keyboard. It doesn't have the full function row or numpad, yes, but it's fundamentally a usable keyboard. I'm not "basically saying whatever Apple sells I will buy", and to think that would indicate you have an unrealistically uncharitable interpretation of my comment. In fact, I explicitly stated elsewhere in this thread that screen real estate matters to me. If you feel strongly about the keyboard, that's fine. But that's not intrinsic to your capacity as a developer, it's just your opinion about its suitability for your purpose. Reasonable people can disagree over the importance of a keyboard.
- gknoy 8y ago
  There's a fundamental difference between a keyboard whose feel I might not like (travel distance, click feel) and a keyboard which has been reported to fail catastrophically from the smallest bits of dust. If Apple decided to go for a chiclet, or other variety of keyboard, I probably wouldn't care. I'd deal with that. In this case, though, I pretty much have to expect (based on news and class action lawsuits) that it will stop working correctly, in a matter of months, in a way which directly impacts my productivity. I'll use one at work if I have to, but there's no way I'd buy one for home while the keyboard is that unreliable.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    To be clear, I'm talking about the design of the thing here. There are two different conversations being had - one is about a dislike of the design, the other is about the hardware reliability of the thing.

mygo 8y ago

Add me to the list of people who don't give a crap about the keyboard, so long as it's functional. The #1 thing I was looking for when I opened the page was... "how many relevant ports does it have? will I have to carry around a dongle to do the same things I can do on my 2015 MBP without a dongle? oh wait.. nope still need dongles." And then "Wait why is the 13 inch form factor not even getting discrete graphics processing, nor up to 32GB ram?" A dysfunctional keyboard is a no-no, because I need a functional keyboard. But in general I'm not bothered at all about the other things that are important to other people, such as key travel, etc. So I haven't been vocal about it.

mrgordon 8y ago

Wanting a functional keyboard on a laptop is a niche opinion? Wowwwwww. The reality distortion field is strong. I've used every MacBook model and the new ones have unacceptably bad keyboards. I am in an office with dozens of broken ones and the things have become a joke amongst the developers. The IT department got so tired of Apple's time to repair them that they started just ordering extra keys from third party websites for $20/each. I worked at Apple with Steve Jobs and I can assure you he would not say that the keyboard isn't meaningful and its fine if its broken. There is a reason all the major Apple bloggers have written piece after piece about their poor reliability and repairability. If your space bar breaks with one piece of dust you need to replace the entire top of the computer including the battery since its glued to it.

throwawaymath 8y ago
> Wanting a functional keyboard on a laptop is a niche opinion? Wowwwwww. The reality distortion field is strong. This is a deliberate misreading of what I said. My point is that reasonable people can disagree about what a "functional keyboard" is for software development. You're free to disagree with me, but don't accuse me of being under a "reality distortion field." And for what it's worth, the comment of mine that you responded to is talking about design and aesthetic choices. You're primarily talking about hardware faults and reliability.
- mrgordon 8y ago
  The source comment was not about design and aesthetic choices. Here is the first comment that you responded to: “What we want is a functional keyboard” We want a functional keyboard. This is not about reasonable people disagreeing. If your space bar does not work, your keyboard is broken and typing sucks.