Hey, I don't care only about the appearance, and I like the fact they are thin. They are thin and light and I really want my laptops to be very portable. And the keyboard feels simply great to me, best feeling keyboard I've ever tried. BUT, and this is a big but, it needs to be reliable and has great longevity.
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Is Apple going to change the Butterfly keyboard travel on new MBPs?
- Thread starter FuryRoad
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Hey, I don't care only about the appearance, and I like the fact they are thin. They are thin and light and I really want my laptops to be very portable. And the keyboard feels simply great to me, best feeling keyboard I've ever tried. BUT, and this is a big but, it needs to be reliable and has great longevity.
I
I got the first MacBook with the new keyboard and hated every minute of it and returned the laptop, I kept using the 2015 MacBook with the keyboard I loved..fast forward to this past weekend and I gotta good deal on a Touch Bar 13' 2017 with the new keyboard and I absolutely love it, I don't think I can go to the old style keyboard anymore.
I’m starting to suspect some people’s issues with the design and having dead keys is actually user error. In the sense that these new keyboards have low travel and feel delicate, I imagine some people are pounding on them because they’re used to using more force. That force is probably breaking the switches, I say this because you’ll see a person say they got x number of failed keyboards in a row. I have had two 2016 and 2017 neither with failed keyboards, but I’m a gentle typist. I would bet apple’s revisions have to do with this i.e. the keyboard can now take x newtons of force where as before it would break them.
That's some major ********. My n key just stopped working for no reason, not responding anymore, while all the other keys were fine. It just randomly reacted to roughly every 10th keystroke. Then I blew some air through the small gap, fixing the problem. The n key is fine again, apparently. I use my MBP since 2,5 months. So much for reliability....
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I miss Serban too!
I don't mind the travel, I mind the fact that I need to travel with canned air. When I can rely in a €150 plastic Chromebook, but not on a beautiful €1800 Mac laptop, things are definitely not right. Apparently I'm lucky, no key completely broke so far and I only had to remove a dust speck twice in nine months. As compared to never having had any problems of this sort within previous... ummm... 14 years of using laptops.
As to the OP's question, your guess is as good as ours. I think they're not going to announce a change until it happens, because it would mean admitting the current models' keyboards are sub-par, which would mean no more sales until the new model is out.
The butterfly mechanism is an engineering solution for stable, very low travel keys, for very thin very portable computers. So no the travel is unlike
Y to change hopefully reliability will get better with time. Xxx
Reliability will most likely be worked on, but I highly doubt travel will change. The main chassis is unlikely to change because tooling costs / manufacturing would have to be completely redone after only 2 years of the new models.
Here are the major generations:
2006-2008
2008 (unibody introduced) - 2012 or so
2013-2015 - retina/thinner models
2016-2017 - latest models
I guess it's possible since many models have run only 2-3 years, but some have run longer.
Here are the major generations:
2006-2008
2008 (unibody introduced) - 2012 or so
2013-2015 - retina/thinner models
2016-2017 - latest models
I guess it's possible since many models have run only 2-3 years, but some have run longer.
I'm hoping we see an improvement in the keyboard, I don't think we'll see the butterfly keyboard's replacement with a different keyboard technology but rather a refining of the existing design.
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Retina came out in 2012, and Apple also dropped the optical drive and soldered the ram beginning in 2012.
No way they return to the scissor keyboard, they’ll fix butters. That said and I know I’ll be called the devil for this, but I wouldn’t mind a hepatic touch full-size keyboard; granted, it’d take some getting use to it would still make for some futuristic clean ass designs
I wonder if they can keep the travel distance the same but somehow make a more cushioned feel to enhance feedback and comfort. Would probably require some R&D but hey, a good typing experience is worth it!
Who knows? I think it's more a thing of what they prefer in Apple then what they can do. Maybe they don't want a more cushionded feel? I like the current feel, for example, but I can understand that some people want something softer. I prefer the sharp, clicky feel and I like it this way, but this is trully just a matter of taste. I am not that picky, so I wouldn't mind it being more soft. What I think we can all agree on is that the keyboard needs to be reliable.
At the moment the mechaism gets flattened when pressing the key till the middle plastic pivots and hits the underside of the plastic key. Having superior dampening on the underside of the key (or on the middle part of the mechanism that hits the key) could potentially improve comfort without losing too much from the quick/sharp feel. Will lose the clicky sound I guess, but maybe having a silent keyboard is a good thing (subjective - feedback related).
I must say when I took the key off (because it kept getting stuck), it did feel poorly made the whole construction of it all compared to some of the more premium keyboards I've used (I accidentlally broke part of the mechanism as a result - do'h!), so there is room for improvement - which is good news.
Agreed, if they mention reference an update to the keyboard (or even go back to the old version), I'll probably order the new MBP that day.
Not me. No matter what they do I will not be a day one buyer. I will wait a few months and see how the first guinea pigs, that is owners, do.
From the Apple School who said of iPhone IV antennagate fame: "You're holding it wrong."
Has Apple lost a huge amount of sales due to word of mouth on the butterfly keyboard or has there been little impact on that I wonder?
Oh yeah that's one of the main reasons I wanna upgrade to the 16" but also because of the 15"... Turns out 13" is not enough screen real estate for 2 VMs and additional apps. lol
I'd rather ask how much money are they losing per keyboard that gets repaired and what are the % of computers repaired so far when compared to the ones sold.
There are many people who aren't aware of the repair program.. Obviously casual folk.
Hard to say I guess... I don't think many people are ready to give up yet, but I imagine there was a significant loss of trust, that MAY lead to people transitioning to other ecosystems in the future. That's at least what I extrapolate from the experience of people I talked to and myself.
people complaining about the low travel, or just this keyboard in general are stupid or insane, maybe both.
these keys are the best keys (2019 macbook pro) i've ever typed on. i absolutely love the feel, love the sound, love everything about it. blast typing on this is a breeze, and my keystrokes have increased in speed by significantly, especially with auto-correct working well my god i flyyyyy.
my only concern is longevity, and dust being making the keys get stuck. I also tend to 'pound' on the keys a bit. So, yeah outside of wear and tare concerns this is the best keyboard ever created for a laptop and i hope they don't change it.
oh, and the touchbar has grown on me. i've come around to it after initially writing it off as a terrible gimmick... i was wrong on that one apple, sorry.
these keys are the best keys (2019 macbook pro) i've ever typed on. i absolutely love the feel, love the sound, love everything about it. blast typing on this is a breeze, and my keystrokes have increased in speed by significantly, especially with auto-correct working well my god i flyyyyy.
my only concern is longevity, and dust being making the keys get stuck. I also tend to 'pound' on the keys a bit. So, yeah outside of wear and tare concerns this is the best keyboard ever created for a laptop and i hope they don't change it.
oh, and the touchbar has grown on me. i've come around to it after initially writing it off as a terrible gimmick... i was wrong on that one apple, sorry.
Most keyboards can take a beating. I would wager that a lot of office typists are banging away on the cheapest rubber dome keyboards and they just keep going strong. My 2016 MBP keyboard still works but my coworkers have experienced broken keys on 2016-2018 models. I should not have change the way I type to accommodate a keyboard.
To me the biggest issue on the current keyboard is that it is one step away from a touch screen keyboard with poor feel for key activation due to the low travel. The number of mistakes I made typing went significantly up when I got the 2016 MBP, coming from a 2013 model.
I sincerely hope they improve the feel of the keys because otherwise my next machine is probably a Surface Pro since I already carry a mechanical 60% keyboard with me.
That's a personal preference issue as i feel i've made less mistakes or at least the same amount of mistakes as my typing has gone up in speed and ease.
Apple designed these keys for 'laptop' use more optimized for the type of quick typing people do these days (short emailes, text meessages, blog posts, twitter posts, etc)
Anything beyond that most people get an external keyboard anyways with a monitor going.