5 ms·

I get the sense that their new new design will be little more than an incremental improvement on the tried-and-true scissor switch, with a fun story about break

I get the sense that their new new design will be little more than an incremental improvement on the tried-and-true scissor switch, with a fun story about breakthrough materials design. And I also get the sense that whatever Apple does here will be tested within an inch of its life. Hopefully that includes chocolate crumbs followed by a spilt latte.

rectang 7y ago
> chocolate crumbs followed by a spilt latte. Bring back the Atari 400 keyboard! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Atari_400_keyboard.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Atari_40...
- _ph_ 7y ago
  Interestingly, the one version of the butterfly keyboard, that seems to be reliable, is the smart keyboard for the iPad pro, which to no surprise is covered with a thin sheet. It is completely resistant to any dirt of liquid and even feels better than the MB Air keyboard.
  - Terretta 7y ago
    The keyboard part of it is reliable for a while. But both the prior and current models have a keystroke correlated life. The more you type, the sooner some part of the system (maybe the smart connector apparatus?) becomes unreliable. You increasingly have to uncouple and recouple the keyboard for keys to register correctly. Eventually, you throw it away and buy a new one. Thankfully a new one fixes it. For me, Apple has been ok with giving me the new one even though of course it generally doesn’t act up while in the store, only while trying to take real time notes during a critical retro ... For me, the failure point ranges somewhere between 6 and 9 months, correlated with amount of notes and emails. To be fair, the electronic failure comes well after the physical failure where the fabric printed with key caps has the key caps wear off then itself wears through — for me usually where the right thumb hits the space bar goes first. Long story short, a superficial study would say it’s fantastic. In real world, I don’t know anyone using the iPad as a real genuine daily driver (to the exclusion of laptops and desktops) that has the Apple keyboard last a year. Every one that’s tried this with me for the past two models has had to replace them multiple times.
    - _ph_ 7y ago
      That is bad news indeed.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Hopefully with drain holes like Thinkpad keyboards.

rectang 7y ago

> chocolate crumbs followed by a spilt latte. Bring back the Atari 400 keyboard! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Atari_400_keyboard.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Atari_40...

_ph_ 7y ago
Interestingly, the one version of the butterfly keyboard, that seems to be reliable, is the smart keyboard for the iPad pro, which to no surprise is covered with a thin sheet. It is completely resistant to any dirt of liquid and even feels better than the MB Air keyboard.
- Terretta 7y ago
  The keyboard part of it is reliable for a while. But both the prior and current models have a keystroke correlated life. The more you type, the sooner some part of the system (maybe the smart connector apparatus?) becomes unreliable. You increasingly have to uncouple and recouple the keyboard for keys to register correctly. Eventually, you throw it away and buy a new one. Thankfully a new one fixes it. For me, Apple has been ok with giving me the new one even though of course it generally doesn’t act up while in the store, only while trying to take real time notes during a critical retro ... For me, the failure point ranges somewhere between 6 and 9 months, correlated with amount of notes and emails. To be fair, the electronic failure comes well after the physical failure where the fabric printed with key caps has the key caps wear off then itself wears through — for me usually where the right thumb hits the space bar goes first. Long story short, a superficial study would say it’s fantastic. In real world, I don’t know anyone using the iPad as a real genuine daily driver (to the exclusion of laptops and desktops) that has the Apple keyboard last a year. Every one that’s tried this with me for the past two models has had to replace them multiple times.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    That is bad news indeed.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Hopefully with drain holes like Thinkpad keyboards.