It really does suck. I have 20 years of professional software development on keyboards, the last 2 years purely on the 2017 MBP, if that in any way “qualifies” my opinion. This is a shit keyboard. Period. Probably not the worst keyboard in existence, but definitely the worst in its price bracket. Combined with the TouchBar I don’t think they could have made my development life any more miserable. So if that was the goal, well done! You succeeded. The trackpad is amazing though.
What a rant (and yes, she is VERY late to the party).<p>Other than the dust issue which I did have once (and got a keyboard replacement for), I am in the extreme minority when I say that I absolutely love the keystroke feel of this thing (MBP 2016). It's just the right amount of "clicky-clacky" and yet just shallow enough to hit a sweet spot for me.<p>So yes - they deserve flak for the dust issue. But the key travel and clackiness is really personal taste if you ask me...
Switched from 2015 to 2018 model recently.<p>The good:<p><pre><code> - fingerprint for unlock is a nice convenience
- 32GB RAM are nice. A much needed bump, allowing me run some workload on the client that previously required an additional workstation
</code></pre>
the bad:<p><pre><code> - keyboard is noisy
- touchbar = useless gimick - I actually used the F-keys and ESC a lot, now they are effectively gone.
- touchpad much worse with it‘s fake press (i.e at drag and drop) and the increased size means more accidental inputs occur
- removal of magsafe ... „it just works“ apparently is too boring
- headphone jack moved to the right so the cable gets in the way of the mouse
- thermals ... I hear the fans spin up a lot more.
- port mono-culture. maybe usb-c is the future, but my present is now full of dongles
</code></pre>
Overall, I‘d much prefer a 2015 or 2012 MBP enclosure with updated internals. Not to mention the hefty price increase YoY.
I've been a mac user since before the "i" came along. But as my all time favorite 2015 Macbook Pro ages, I'm concerned where to turn next. The current Touchbar Macbook Pro line seems to favor weight and slimness over true "Pro" features like having a desktop grade keyboard, speed and battery stamina.<p>Apple hit near perfectionism with the 2015 keyboard/ current desktop keyboard line, please don't try to put a portable keyboard in a machine made for professionals, just to free an extra fraction of an inch in height.<p>Apple used to make the worlds fastest, yet beautiful to look at, portable workstations. Please don't forget us actual professionals who type all day and care less about fractions of inches and shiny emojis.<p>Call it the Macbook Actual Pro and charge more I don't care, I just wanna get back to work.
Meanwhile I'm over here quite enjoying it. I type on a Filco MJ2 50% of my time and my MBPr keyboard the other 50%. It's not amazing, but it ain't bad either. At least that's my opinion. And that's what this is all about really... opinion. (Except for actual key failures or issues like that)<p>Caps lock fails to properly engage on my 2015 MBP too, its not an issue solely of the new KB.<p>Sure there's issues, but I think people are kicking up WAY too much of a fuss. I too paid >$2000 for my 2017 MBP.
The keyboard isn't great, sure, but I don't hate it nearly as much as I HATE the !@#$!@#$ touchbar, which constantly picks up presses I didn't intend with all sorts of "amusing" side effects.
It seems like Apple aren't actually practicing design any more<p>instead we have the superficial appearance of design - thinner, lighter, but less useful<p>same with innovation - what is the TouchBar except a desperate attempt to innovate, achieving only the superficial appearance of innovation while actually producing something of no value
To everyone hating on the TouchBar - as you should - seriously consider the entry level MBP and just max out the specs. Voila, physical Esc and F keys. Adios idiotic touch strip.<p>Only downside is that only 13”es are sold this way.
Come on, I wanted exactly this kind of keyboard: barely visible but clicky and tactile, since the early 1990s! Now I have finally got it. It feels great.
I actually find it a great keyboard. However, I have mild RSI, and both travel and force aggravate it. I like cherry MX blue switches because I can avoid using much force, and I don't have to bottom out the keys, so I have a long habit of stopping my keypress when I get tactile feedback that the keyboard has registered the press.<p>So, I think a lot of people who don't like it could probably like it if they approached it like I do. And, in my experience, you don't need that key travel. You have to get used to stopping the keypress when it registers the press. However, the keyboard gives very clear feedback about that.<p>If you compare it to other keyboards you use and expect the same thing, it will disappoint you. Accept it as something different that you have to use and think about differently.<p>It does not hamper my speed or accuracy at all. I can type about 80 WPM with a negligible error rate (<1%. Obviously, the error rate goes up if I type faster.) I can type perhaps even more quickly and accurately on this keyboard than any I have ever used, and key travel literally just wastes your time and aggravates (perhaps even causes) RSI.
Ok, I`ll just say it, I like this new mechanism and bigger keys much more than the keyboard before it. I like the size, clicking sound, pressure, precise movements... The only downside is that they had reliability issues, and I hope that they fixed that with 2018 version.
I think it's funny that now when Apple happened to make a truly awful keyboard, basically everyone is raging. But PC makers has been building terrible keyboards for years and no one seems to give a damn. Or is everyone just assuming that keyboards are supposed to be that way on PCs? Also, this problem goes beyond laptops, most "affordable" keyboards that I've tried has been horrible as well. I'm typing at the moment at some standard logitech keyboard my fingers cry for every key I press. It's got a cheap feeling to it, the force it takes to press beyond the "bump" is way too great and the keycaps wobble. The only thing I like about it is the profile which is rather low.
This is funny. I agree that the keyboard is awful, but end-users don't seem to think the same, at least in my anecdotal experience. Both my mother and sister are avid Mac users, and when buying a new keyboard (for the workplace) they both searched for keyboards that emulated the macbook "feel". That is to say, they searched for keyboards that had the same light, floaty (horrible in my opinion) keystroke feel.<p>I don't know if it's a personal thing, or if you just get used to a specific type of keystroke over time, but different people like different keyboards.
Credits to Sod's law, I've purchased a 13' MBP without touch bar two days before Apple announced their latest upgrade to the Pro series with an "improved" keyboard design.<p>"How bad is the keyboard anyway?" I thought, "Is it worth the hassle to change my laptop just to get the latest keyboard design?" So I decided to keep the same laptop and give it a chance.<p>Two months later and today, my previous gen MBP's keyboard's "Down" arrow key on the keyboard have 50/50 chance of responding to your presses, and it's driving me crazy
It all depends on what you want in a laptop. At work I have the largest (size, processing power, memory) MBP and I find the keyboard to be so-so; not to bad, but don’t love it. This laptop is a clunker to carry around, so optimizing for a thin keyboard doesn’t make sense to me.<p>For my personal laptop I have an 18 month old 12 inch MacBook and I love it. The keyboard is fine because I want my personal laptop to be small and light, with a good display.
FWIW I've writen about 60Kloc on a 2016 MacBook 12 (i.e. not "pro") and it turns out to have worked pretty well for me. All of my development is in Emacs, so I'm pretty keyboard-dependent.<p>That doesn't mean it's been great: I went through three of keyboards, and would be on my fourth except that the MB had an unfortunate water incident. So in two years I had almost two weeks of not having my machine available -- that's pretty bad!<p>New I've had a 2018 MBP for about three weeks and the keyboard is better (but the machine is a lot heavier) and so far no kbd failures. (The touchbar is pretty worthless to me but mostly harmless).<p>(Honestly if you're typing in a lot of code and just typing make and lldb the MB was a great ultralight machine. YEs, building our whole system took a while but mostly you're just ending and recompiling one module and it's still faster than most several-year-old machines, which in the Mac world could reasonably still be in use. It doesn't have the horsepower for those huge IDEs but I don't use them anyway. They seem to use more cycles than the compilers!)
I hated the "new" pre-2018 MBP keyboards.<p><a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dbg31415%20keyboard&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dbg31415%20keyboard&sort=byPop...</a><p>But... I think with the new 2018s they've done some nice things.<p>You still have a stupid stupid touch bar on the 15s. I have a 13 without the touch bar, and it's a billion times better.<p>You still have a silly silly large track pad (and it has some bend to it in the middle... I don't like it at all).<p>BUT... the keys have just a tad more bounce to them. I think Apple did something to help with the dust issue, and a side effect is that the keys feel just a bit more responsive as you type.<p>Not saying it's great, or better than past versions, or even good yet... but it's a step in the right direction. And honestly it's probably all we'll ever get from Apple... so I'll take it. Hooray for keyboards that aren't quite as bad as the "new" pre-2018s!
Isn't a bad keyboard part of the design, Apple has aways been removing I/O options and locking down the software. A bad keyboard is just the natural evolution of the concept.<p>Why should they give the average person the ability to type? Their buisness model is focused on passive consumption.
Too little, too late. Apple have gotten away with it.<p>Typing this on a very crappy 2018 MBP keyboard, which I absolutely hate. If it weren't for the dependency that my job has on submitting apps to the App Store, I wouldn't be using Apple for <i>anything</i> these days .. sad.
I got the first model with the new butterfly keyboard and the touchbar in April 2017 and I still hate it. I appreciate the idea of adding a touchbar for regular users. After all, it might be nicer for them to just press "Next Song" when using Spotify than fiddling around with Fn+F*.
But for power users/developers, why do the most powerful MBP models come with these useless gimmicks? I'm using Dongles on 3/4 of the USB-C ports right now and that's not going to change anytime soon.<p>I wish Apple listened to developer's voices a bit more. To me, it's not a matter of price, either. I'd gladly pay more for a MBP with more/different ports and without a touchbar than I would for this model.
I like the keyboard. Programming for 10+ years and swithching sometimes to Blue Cherry MXs. What I dont like is the touchbar. Completely worthless and in the way.<p>There is definitely a problem with the dust though, two keys already start to act weird and I keep my tech stuff clean.
So how come no senior executive has been fired for this and the overall scene of Macs languishing for years? This is certainly far from how Apple desires its products and product lines to be perceived and written about.<p>Scott Forstall was fired (IMO, for a lot less) for the Apple Maps fiasco, though he could’ve contributed a lot more to the company if he were still around.<p>Something seems to be rotten right from the top, and there’s no <i>honest</i> acknowledgement of how bad the state of affairs is on the Mac side.
I find it <i>OK</i> to type with. Not absolutely terrible like the keyboards in the high school computer labs, and not great like <insert mechanical keyboard here> (I've never used a mechanical keyboard).<p>The main annoyance I have with it is that it's incredibly loud to type on when in meeting rooms, which is the only time I really use it (I have a full size Apple m=Magic Keyboard I use at my desk). It's obnoxious, especially if you're not using an external mic.
Damn. This guy almost makes it sound like this is as bad as those puck mice from the late nineties[1]. But seriously, if you bought a laptop without trying out the keyboard first, you deserve what you get. No manufacturer has a perfect track record. Try before you buy.<p>[1]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_USB_Mouse" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_USB_Mouse</a>
Apple built its brand on beautiful design.<p>But why do people want beautifully designed objects? Just to own something beautiful? Sure.<p>But also because it makes you look cool, attractive to members of the opposite sex, and earns the jealousy of yours.<p>But a keyboard which sucks ain't cool: sure the externals are great, but wrestling with a stuck capslock is the opposite of exuding <i>je ne sais quoi</i>.<p>Not cool Apple. Not cool. And therefore not beautiful.
Meh. I've had everything from super-clicky mechanical KBs (RapidFire or something kike that) to the flat butterfly keys on the MacBook. Like learning to drive or
play guitar, it becomes muscle memory after a while. I've gotten used almost everything at this point in my life. However what I will NOT accept is a virtual keyboard. I need at least some kind of tactile feedback.
The truth is that this is hardly a unique case - most Apple laptops released in the past 10 years have had serious hardware design flaws[1]. In this case it's simply a particularly noticeable/frequent issue.<p>[1]<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8</a>
I bought my first MBP in 2017. Love the machine. Hate the keyboard. It is just very bad.<p>I only wished Apple acknowledged this and offered something as an apology. After all, this is what any car / phone / anything else company would do.<p>It's fine to make mistakes, just embrace them and send love back to your users.
Travel distance.<p>Without some decent amount of travel distance, a keyboard lacks feel. I type 130WPM and can not develop a rhythm on the new MacBook pros. To the day, I love the MacBook Air and previous MacBook Pros circa 2015. In fact, I may buy one on eBay. Apple, give us back travel distance.
I don't understand why everyone is so unhappy with it. Am I the only one absolutely loves this keyboard? I think this is the best keyboard on any laptop, and I wish I could have an external keyboard that is just like this one.
I feel I'm the only person in the universe that's never had an issue with the keyboard, and actively likes it (I don't like much key travel, but I do like clicky keyboards)
ok here's one thing almost no one mentions and is hard for me to understand: i do almost all of my development work on my desk, where i have an external keyboard of my liking connected to my macbook. i only use the macbook's keyboard when i'm travelling, and mostly for typing the first 2 letters of the website i want to open on my browser. don't understand why people fuss about so much about the keyboard: if you don't like it just use an external one. what am i missing?
Why would any developer prefer a Macbook running MacOS, over a Thinkpad running Linux? Thinkpads give you a full control hardware, and Linux gives you a full control of software.
I could have lived with all its faults if the arrow keys were remotely usable. They are not. I challenge you to blindly find the up arrow without pressing the down arrow.
Ive recently replaced mine under warranty and rep hinted that they’ve reworked it and fixed the original sticky key problems. Time will tell. My broke under a year.
Getting real tired of the Apple apologists spinning it that Apple keyboards have never been reliable and this is perfectly normal. My TiBook G4 still works at 16 years of age, my 2006 Alu iMac keyboard is still used daily, my 4 year old MBP keyboard works fine. My 8 month old USB-C MBP has key deadzones and 5 glitchy keys and a few keys significantly louder than others.<p>It’s crazy how apple managed to turn my most loved machine into my most hated with just a single design update.
absolutely agree. The new keyboard is such utter garbage. Awful, awful design. I am positive that Ive approves these designs without actually using them. In a photo they look "magical" (fk me, how pathetic), but in use they are nothing but garbage, what a shame.
The bio for Natasha Lomas states that she is a senior reporter for TechCrunch. Reporters don't generally write one-sided opinion pieces like this. TechCrunch should make it clear that this is not in any sense a news article or a product review.<p><a href="https://techcrunch.com/author/natasha-lomas/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/author/natasha-lomas/</a>
This may be a bit off topic, forgive me.<p>Last spring my laptop running linux finally gave up and I decided to give the MBP a try.<p>The pros:<p>- MUCH better hardware than anything else on the market.<p>- The keyboard is great for me. Leaving mech keys on desktop doesn't feel as bad as it used to. I haven't encountered any inconsistency this article complains about with so many words--maybe I'm an outlier.<p>- MacOS requires just about zero maintenance.<p>- Better consumer software (DRM) compatibility (audible, hbogo, etc).<p>- Better creative software compatibility.<p>- The OS is pretty well tuned for battery life (I'm sure linux can be, I just didn't expend the effort).<p>The cons:<p>- Much more difficult to customize. I do miss just how tuned I got my linux setup with a tiling WM (i3). I haven't lost significant productivity though.<p>- Brew is not a first class package manager. Pacman/AUR and apt are a dream for developers.<p>- Boot time is noticeably slower. At least it don't drop you into the OS with about 1,000 other processes in the scheduler like windows does.<p>This list is not exhaustive. But I'd not feel bad saying that the MBP is the best laptop experience. On a side note I also switched to iOS from android and am similarly satisfied.<p>For a no fuss, non free eco-system apple is still king despite any recent stumbles.
In the old days, No one are using Mac for work apart form small group of Professional Artist. Steve Jobs hated the I.T of Cooperate Enterprise because they get to decide what their employees should use, not the user themselves.<p>One of the famous quote from Steve " If we succeed, they will buy them, if we don't, they won't! It will all sort itself out" [1].<p>The problem now are Apple products are getting bought no matter what they make. Businesses are now buying more Mac than ever. Whether we like it or not. The sales figure aren't showing how we vote with our wallet. The Mac Ecosystem has morphed itself into a mini PC market where its replacement unit are sustainable for the Mac business as a whole. There should be now close to ~120M Mac users and an annual 25M Mac sales unit, healthy for a 4 years replacement cycle.<p>And it is frustrating because 3 years after this Keyboard introduction and despite many of its users best effort and cried for improvement. Nothing has been done. The 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard are still getting double click and non working keys on Reddit and twitter. ( Sorry I can no longer locate the thread ). I guess more reports will come in as time pass by. And it is not as quiet as the MacBook Air Keyboard either.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65_PmYipnpk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65_PmYipnpk</a>