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> It’s really hard to predict how a design will hold up after multiple years of use It's really not - predicting lifetime expectancy and failure rates is a dis

> It’s really hard to predict how a design will hold up after multiple years of use It's really not - predicting lifetime expectancy and failure rates is a discipline of industrial engineering. That is why it's possible to estimate the number of open/close cycles of hinges is possible to estimate with a great degree of accuracy. A company has to master art this for selfish reasons - so that they can minimize repair costs during the warranty period

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Sure, but how do you know if your tests match real-world use? I'm not an engineer, so you may well know much more about this, but it seems reasonable to me that real-world people, or some percentage of real-world people, aren't going to hit your keys in the exact way you tested for. If the effects don't appear for years out, what type of user test can you design to account for that?
- mschaef 7y ago
  > Sure, but how do you know if your tests match real-world use? As a product category, laptops have existed for close to 40 years, and Apple has been a successful and high end participant in that category for close to thirty. If they can't produce a reasonable keyboard reliability test or lack the willingness to do so, then they have other problems that are vastly more concerning than anything about a couple specific computer models.
ScottBurson 7y ago
But aren't the problems being caused by dirt particles? That's not the same kind of thing as cycle life. I can imagine them originally overlooking the need to test for, and indeed design for, dirt rejection. And now I think the extreme thinness of the keyboard has left them no room to fix the problem.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Someone claiming to be an ex-AASP technician made a detailed reddit post arguing against dust as the source of the breakage. I as a layperson found their argument very convincing. https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bjtyaw/macbook_pro_keyboard_failures_why_apples_dust/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bjtyaw/macbook_pro_k...
- mantap 7y ago
  They first introduced this keyboard in April 2015 on the new 12" and first added it to the MacBook Pro in October 2016. So they had 18 months to notice and resolve the issues.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    From everything I understand, the design cycles for most Apple products run 18+ months, and given that the late 2016 MBPs were the first ones with the Touch Bar (sigh), the chances are it had an even longer design-to-ship cycle. By the time reports of keyboard failures were coming in around late 2015, the MBP design was almost certainly set in stone. Also, I suspect Apple spent a more than a year after that genuinely believing they could just tweak the keyboard to resolve the problems.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      The 2016 MBP's may have been designed, but Apple did not need to ship them. More importantly, Apple did not need to also ship the 2017 MPB, the 2018 MBP(s), or the 2018 MBA. If they didn't have any alternate designs in the pipeline (why is that?), they should have reverted back to the 2015 design, with new parts.
      - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        Maybe? I don't think you're wrong, but I think all of those have reasonably easy explanations if you assume that Apple genuinely believed they had a good design that just needed some tweaking to correct, and I think they genuinely believed that. There weren't new designs in the pipeline that used fundamentally different keyboards. There weren't designs in the pipeline that went back on "all you need is USB-C." (I wouldn't be at all surprised if they stick with that, actually; it's conceivable that the 16" MBP that's rumored as their next release will add back an SD slot, but I'd be a little surprised if it adds back a USB-A port. I also expect it to continue to have a Touch Bar, although it may add back a physical escape key.)
        7y ago

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

Sure, but how do you know if your tests match real-world use? I'm not an engineer, so you may well know much more about this, but it seems reasonable to me that real-world people, or some percentage of real-world people, aren't going to hit your keys in the exact way you tested for. If the effects don't appear for years out, what type of user test can you design to account for that?

mschaef 7y ago
> Sure, but how do you know if your tests match real-world use? As a product category, laptops have existed for close to 40 years, and Apple has been a successful and high end participant in that category for close to thirty. If they can't produce a reasonable keyboard reliability test or lack the willingness to do so, then they have other problems that are vastly more concerning than anything about a couple specific computer models.

ScottBurson 7y ago

But aren't the problems being caused by dirt particles? That's not the same kind of thing as cycle life. I can imagine them originally overlooking the need to test for, and indeed design for, dirt rejection. And now I think the extreme thinness of the keyboard has left them no room to fix the problem.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Someone claiming to be an ex-AASP technician made a detailed reddit post arguing against dust as the source of the breakage. I as a layperson found their argument very convincing. https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bjtyaw/macbook_pro_keyboard_failures_why_apples_dust/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bjtyaw/macbook_pro_k...
mantap 7y ago
They first introduced this keyboard in April 2015 on the new 12" and first added it to the MacBook Pro in October 2016. So they had 18 months to notice and resolve the issues.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  From everything I understand, the design cycles for most Apple products run 18+ months, and given that the late 2016 MBPs were the first ones with the Touch Bar (sigh), the chances are it had an even longer design-to-ship cycle. By the time reports of keyboard failures were coming in around late 2015, the MBP design was almost certainly set in stone. Also, I suspect Apple spent a more than a year after that genuinely believing they could just tweak the keyboard to resolve the problems.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    The 2016 MBP's may have been designed, but Apple did not need to ship them. More importantly, Apple did not need to also ship the 2017 MPB, the 2018 MBP(s), or the 2018 MBA. If they didn't have any alternate designs in the pipeline (why is that?), they should have reverted back to the 2015 design, with new parts.
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      Maybe? I don't think you're wrong, but I think all of those have reasonably easy explanations if you assume that Apple genuinely believed they had a good design that just needed some tweaking to correct, and I think they genuinely believed that. There weren't new designs in the pipeline that used fundamentally different keyboards. There weren't designs in the pipeline that went back on "all you need is USB-C." (I wouldn't be at all surprised if they stick with that, actually; it's conceivable that the 16" MBP that's rumored as their next release will add back an SD slot, but I'd be a little surprised if it adds back a USB-A port. I also expect it to continue to have a Touch Bar, although it may add back a physical escape key.)
      - 7y ago