8 ms·
Was the old keyboard engineering so bad? I feel like Apple has been fixing what wasn't broken since about 2010, regarding the MBP at least. Literally all they
by corey_moncure 8y ago
Was the old keyboard engineering so bad? I feel like Apple has been fixing what wasn't broken since about 2010, regarding the MBP at least.
Literally all they needed to do was retina screen, upgrade the internals, and add a few USB-C ports. Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of the FN key row, and loss of serviceability.
So much so that my 2010 MBP will very likely be my last Apple purchase ever.
- designcode 8y agoAfter using my 2016 MBP for two years, going back to my 2014 MBP just feels wrong. The keyboard is so much better on the modern ones, so I’d recommend giving it a chance !
- saagarjha 8y agoWow, your comment was killed within seconds. I’d suggest expanding on your opinion.
- SirHound 8y agoThe 2016 keyboard feels, IMO, way better to type of. In comparison the old MBP feels like a much sloppier machine. It’s size was also the only thing putting me off a personal purchase. Reliability issues aside (I haven’t been affected but I assume it’s a matter of time) it is a nicer machine.
- ksec 8y agoIt felt wrong because it is not as "stable", but the depth of new keyboard is still "wrong".
- smsm42 8y agoI switched to 2016 and recently back to 2013 (due to 2016's keyboard being broken) and feel exactly the opposite. I am seriously considering whether migrating back is an option (despite them apparently being binary incompatible so I had to rebuild half of my homebrew to avoid those "illegal instruction" errors). I think Apple is fixing what's not broken, and most likely my next notebook won't be an MBP unless they get their act together quickly (which I don't think is very likely, but I keep an open mind until the time comes).
- berti 8y agoTotally agree. I mostly type on Cherry MX blues, and a 2017 MBP. I just setup some stuff on my 2012 MBP (using it as a CI slave, the only reason it's not my daily driver anymore is because the battery is down to only 2-3 hours)... the keys feel very mushy and awful compared to the 2017 model.
- saagarjha 8y agoApple sold a MacBook Pro with all of those things you wanted except Ethernet until yesterday.
- garmaine 8y agoWhat are you talking about?
- saagarjha 8y agoThe early 2015 MacBook Pro.
- SyneRyder 8y agoApple continued to sell the 15" 2015 pre-butterfly-keyboard MacBook Pro model until yesterday (it has just been discontinued). That model had a retina screen, MagSafe, an SD Card reader, HDMI & USB-A ports (as well as two Thunderbolt 2 ports), but no Ethernet. https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/12/apple-stops-selling-2015-macbook-pro/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/12/apple-stops-selling-201...
- adanto6840 8y agoI bought a refurbished one of these in January of this year -- though I see that there are none of them available in the refurb store as of right now. The refurb inventory changes pretty rapidly though, so it might be worth watching in case one does pop up -- I suspect that they'll go quickly, and I almost wish I had purchased a backup. https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macb... Oh well, hopefully my current one lasts another few years, otherwise I'll probably have to give Windows a try as my main machine again, for the first time in ~10 years.
- SyneRyder 8y agoYou can use RefurbMe to get an automatic alert when/if it returns to the Apple refurbished store: https://www.refurb.me/en-us https://www.refurb.me/en-us And refurb models are also eligible for AppleCare if you want a 3 year warranty, but you have to buy AppleCare within 60 days of the Mac purchase.
- thadk 8y agoThe area around the hinge on the 2011-2015 Era Macbook was plastic. It seems like they wanted to do away with that, a major mechanical break point, which meant removing travel distance from the keys so the screen could close more directly. (My 2011 MBP screen hinge was a bit wobbly a few years in.) You could look at the USB-C dongles in a similar way: older USB ports could fail eventually on that era MBP. The newer USB-C ports are probably "rated" for more insertions/removals.
- xvf22 8y agoEach of the USB-C ports needs a controller and if any of the four have an issue the computer will not charge.
- saagarjha 8y agoI believe MacBook Pro has two Thunderbolt controllers, one for each side.
- adrianN 8y agoOne of the USB-C ports on my work laptop recently failed but the machine still charged from the other one.
- Jdam 8y agoThe USB controller is unrelated to USB power supply.
- xvf22 8y agoWas going by this [1] which seems to show that if one of the charging ICs goes bad it can cause the rest not to work. This is probably one of many failure mechanisms. [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=MY8LlHfK9ZA https://youtube.com/watch?v=MY8LlHfK9ZA
- blackguardx 8y agoYou are correct. USB A ports are usually only rated to 1500 insertion cycles because that is what the standard specifies. Micro USB and USB C ports are specced at 10,000 insertion cycles.
- achompas 8y ago> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs. Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.
- berti 8y agoDo they pack them into the final boxes/packaging somewhere close to the end destination? Because those boxes haven't changed in size AFAIK. My 2017 MBP came in a 70 mm tall box, same as my 2012 one.
- Operyl 8y agoEven so, the difference in weight is still definitely a cost saving measure.
- matthewowen 8y agoI would guess that they are dense enough that their volumetric cost is weight constrained rather than volume constrained, so this may be less of a factor than you think.
- coldtea 8y ago>Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? Sure. Here's a certain Linus Torvalds: "I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things. (...) I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light. (...) Btw, even when it comes to Apple, it’s really just the Air that I think is special. The other apple laptops may be good-looking, but they are still the same old clunky hardware (...)"
- cmplxconjugate 8y agoI absolutely adore the Air. I do a lot of remote HPC coding and typically just connect to the cluster via SSH. I have a monstrous desktop at home for when I'm back. To me the Air is magical because it has a balance of my exact needs: portability, toughness and, battery life. I would give anything for an updated model.
- davnn 8y agoI switched from a MBP to a Lenovo X1 Carbon and the keyboard is so much better on the X1, it’s on another level. Lost macOS though, which, in the end, didn’t matter as much as I thought it would.
- riffraff 8y agohow does the touchpad compare? I feel I've been spolied by apple's touchpads, when I had to use another laptop I wanted to cry.
- davnn 8y agoIt’s definitely worse but not as bad as non-MB touchpads used to be. Plus, it’s motivating to use more keyboard shortcuts.
- pimeys 8y agoAnd when you learn to use the Lenovo TrackPoint, there is no going back. Having a T25, X1C5 and X1C6 in the family and the keyboard+mouse experience is so much ahead of everybody else.
- hultner 8y agoUsed a Thinkpad (T550-something, retina screen) for a couple of years and can’t say I ever got used to or liked the track point, the touchpad had “palm detection“ but it was horrible and I ended up using a toggle key for the touchpad instead. The nipple fell of constantly which was incredibly annoying. The keyboard had crammed print screen next to space causing numberous misclicks and annoying shifts between laptop and external keyboard, the official dock didn’t even work oob and had to be patched via a bootable dos-usb, half the times I docked and undocked the picture stopped working completely forcing me to reboot via ssh from my phone if it was alive at all, the picture quality and workability in sunlight was horrible on the badly lit matte display. Yet it’s still the best non Apple laptop I’ve used, however after a few years I went back to the new MBP with TB and it’s been a true pleasure in comparison.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago> Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of the FN key row, and loss of serviceability. For an alternative perspective, http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2016/10/29/the-new-macbooks-are-here/ http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2016/10/29/the-new-macbooks-ar... > Battery life is not great. But you can't use it outside anyhow because it'll blow away. > We want to make a laptop so thin you'll close it and never find it again.
- laythea 8y agoYes but think about the people at the top of Apple who need to be seen to "innovating". Even if its misguided innovation. Change is good! Embrace!
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoI prefer the new keyboard (and I like that it's louder), but I have been affected by numerous failures in different machines. I also know many people who have experienced this exact same issue, often within a year of purchase. Two laptops I purchased in 2016 from the same store both had the issue, brand new. But I've had 2017 models with the same issue. I don't believe this problem is really a limited as Apple has been saying, but they never seem to admit the true scale of problems.