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Unshaky – Tries to address double key press issue on Apple's butterfly keyboard
- joshbetz 7y agoApple will fix this for free https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n...
- statictype 7y agoIf you’re lucky. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508393
- aiddun 7y agoJust did this, space bar was double pressing. It took them two weeks including having to order the parts after they said they would be faster in changing them and would hold parts in stock— at at Apple store in the middle of NYC. If I knew it would take this long I would probably just go with this if I really needed my laptop.
- auslander 7y agoDo you know what generation of butterfly KB they installed? My 2016 MBP is in repair and I'm curios what would they put in.
- aiddun 7y agoI believe the newest, 'more resilient' one. Don't know how to check for sure though. I have a 2018 model.
- crazygringo 7y agoMy MBP is late 2016, and just a few weeks ago they replaced my butterfly "second-gen v1" keyboard with the "second-gen v2" keyboard. The tactile touch is noticeably different (more "rubbery") and some of the modifier keys (ctrl/opt) look different. It definitely feels like a welcome upgrade.
- auslander 7y agoAFAIK there are 3 generations [0]. Can you find the new KB part number from the repair quote? Mine is S6800LL/A [0] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2019+Teardown/123653#s239152 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Ba...
- abalos 7y agoMy experience was different: had my top case replaced in < 24 hours and zero issues getting them to do it.
- eknkc 7y agoIt took 2 weeks for me, without a laptop. I had to do it 2 times, 2 weeks both times. They fought me on the first one saying that I broke the keyboard. I lost 1 more week on the phone with Apple support to force them do the repairs free.. No. Fuck that free replacement program.
- tamaharbor 7y agoMy TRS-80 Model 1 had a keyboard fix similar to this. But it had scissor switches as I recall.
- Canada 7y agoI'll just refrain from purchasing Apple hardware with this keyboard design. Hopefully they release the new laptops without it, I'm overdue for an upgrade.
- jordanthoms 7y agoRumours are pointing towards September for a 16" MBP with a new design and new keyboard. Hopefully that does happen, my 2013 MBP could use an upgrade also
- lostgame 7y agoI'm still on a 2011 17" with 16GB of RAM and two 1TB internal SSD's (one went where the optical drive would have) - until they release a similarly-sized model without the God-awful experience of the Butterly keyboard. I have to use a 2017 15" Touch Bar MacBook Pro at work and I want to hurl it across the wall when I'm not using my external keyboard, and I don't see many people in the office not using external keyboards for them.
- GordonS 7y agoI have a 2016 13" MBP with touchbar. No idea what the keyboard mechanism is, but it's absolutely horrible - there is hardly any key travel, it frequently misses key presses, and there is one key in particular that I occasionally have to press 4-5 times before it registers. It's been like this since I got it. I took it to an Apple Store not long after that, but they said it was OK, and all this was perfectly normal.. The touchbar is also just unbelievably bad - just give me my Escape and function keys back, dammit! What am absolutely loathsome device! I'm mainly a Windows user, and this was my first ever Mac. It's also the last, unless I need one for work, in which case I'll still do everything I can on Windows.
- asdff 7y agoRumours also point towards a new macbook air with scissor keys this fall.
- nextos 7y ago
- blattimwind 7y agotl;dr a software debouncer for Apple's obviously defective hardware.
- userbinator 7y agoTo be precise, it's a second layer of debouncing; no doubt the KBC already has its own debouncing, but apparently sometimes not enough.
- dylan604 7y agoMakes me think of having to debounce button input reads on Arduino. Also, can't you do the same thing in System Preferences->Keyboard->Delay Until Repeat?
- Skunkleton 7y agoDelay until repeat is how long it waits before it starts repeating a key _while the key remains pressed_. Debounce is about turning multiple presses into a single press.
- wlesieutre 7y agoThe opposite - you can avoid the key repeat delay to type double characters faster by letting go and pressing again, rather than holding it down and waiting. That's what this is preventing, because the bad keyboards will register multiple key press events for a single press.
- crazygringo 7y agoApple replaced my keyboard for free (two week turnaround)... but the Apple tech also suggested I purchase the $13 Ghostcover keyboard cover [1] for the new one to prevent future problems. I did and... it's actually amazing and doesn't get in the way of typing at all. Seriously can't even notice it's there in terms of touch, and its texture feels the same as the original keys. Should Apple make a keyboard less prone to problems from debris? Yes, of course. But in the meantime, is a $13 keyboard cover a good idea to fix a $1,300+ machine? Also Yes. A minor inconvenience to have to buy, but at least it fixes it for good... and I've never seen it mentioned on HN before so thought I'd share in case it helps others. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N20RZXB https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N20RZXB
- millstone 7y agoI bought the MBP the day it came out, and had to have the keyboard replaced (pre keyboard-service-program, Apple "generously" comped the repair). Afterwards I used a Ghostcover and recommend it strongly. It slightly degrades the feel of an already bad-feeling keyboard, but not hard to get used to, and it completely solves the reliability issue. A band-aid for an absurd problem.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoI find it highly amusing that Apple puts so much engineering into making their products light and thin and pretty, that people have to cover the products in rubber cases. Basically the only time you experience the actual design is during unboxing.
- dylan604 7y agoSounds like Apple should be providing this $13 magical fix to anyone that brings in a defective product for free.
- crazygringo 7y agoCompletely agree. MacBooks should just come with one in the first place. What's even crazier is they don't even sell it in their stores... the tech gave me the name of it so I could buy it online.
- userbinator 7y agoAmusingly enough, Windows has a similar accessibility-related feature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FilterKeys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FilterKeys
- analognoise 7y agoThis is disgusting. We've been able to successfully make keyboards for... 60 years? Typewriters are 140 years old. Now we have a $1300 machine where the form dictates that the functionality will be so hampered that we're using what would have been a supercomputer 30 years ago to... debounce keys? Seriously? And people think this whole charade is acceptable and worth patching around? Jesus wept.
- b34r 7y agoMore like $3000
- throwaway3627 7y agoLouis Rossmann - "Apple users have no one to blame but themselves." https://youtu.be/gi9en4I-tjA https://youtu.be/gi9en4I-tjA ^ Actual title of a recently posted video
- mdesq 7y agoMacbook Computer Augmentation Software (MCAS)?
- ChicagoBoy11 7y agoLet's just hope this doesn't spurriously cause that same sticky key to all of a sudden fire uncontrollably, hanging your machine.
- 83457 7y agoJust ran across this article about another computer with the same issue... the TRS-80 https://www.fastcompany.com/90326271/in-macbook-keyboard-woes-a-weird-echo-of-the-trs-80-circa-1978 https://www.fastcompany.com/90326271/in-macbook-keyboard-woe...
- bitwize 7y agoThat's exactly what I thought of: an assembly language routine I saw to debounce the TRS-80 keyboard in software.
- throw03172019 7y agoSoftware to fix hardware issues. Was this also developed by Boeing engineers?
- rstevens333 7y agoI think there is something to this. I also suspect Apple is doing something similar behind the scenes. Since going to the Catalina betas, I've had fewer keystrokes go wonky.
- y_molodtsov 7y agoCurrently is saves my “A” and I get almost no double presses. It says it fixed almost 1500 of them in two months.
- GrumpyNl 7y agoSo, you need a piece of third party software to work with the keyboard?
- hmhhcycbtsc557 7y agoThis is a much more primitive/bare bones one I have used with some success: https://github.com/toothbrush/debounce-mac https://github.com/toothbrush/debounce-mac
- bluedino 7y agoKind of a silly fix. This only addresses part of the issue. If your keyboard is repeating keys, then it is likely not registering keypresses as well. There's no software fix for that.
- anomaloustho 7y agoI don’t recall having this issue on my butterfly keyboard. Is it due to a ‘faulty/lemon’ state that these keyboards get into? I guess it could also be related to typing style? I’m not a home row user and I don’t do any gaming.
- fossuser 7y agoI think it’s due to people eating over their keyboards and getting crumbs lodged in the keys.
- mschuster91 7y agoA high class laptop should not break because people are eating near them.
- fossuser 7y agoI like the keyboards with the butterfly switches - I don’t think it’s unreasonable to not eat over expensive electronics, but from the state of computers I’ve seen I think I’m probably in the minority.
- wittjeff 7y agoI am really surprised to find that Apple does not include a Bounce Keys implementation (which is what this is) as an accessibility feature in MacOS as Windows has since forever. My guess is that this is due to the fact that many users find the difference between Bounce Keys, Repeat Keys, and Slow Keys confusing.
- beaugunderson 7y agoI have many complaints about the terrible keyboard in the last few revs of the MBP, but Unshaky has allowed me to ignore them until it's more convenient to deal with them (and thus put off having to replace my laptop/be without it/spend a bunch of time and money dealing with that).