
Apple’s butterfly keyboard failed by prioritizing form over function - fortran77
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2020/5/27/21270299/apple-butterfly-keyboard-hardware-design-macbook-pro-physical-key-button
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threatofrain
This would be more of a discussion if we were given an inside perspective on
the processes which led to this, whether there were countervoices, why they
weren't heard, etc.

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awill
That would be fascinating. But Apple is so secretive, and punishes leakers, so
that's pretty unlikely.

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fanatic2pope
There's only one butterfly keyboard worth talking about.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboard)

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laurentdc
ThinkPads are an underappreciated marvel of industrial design, along with
Siemens LOGO PLCs and IBM line matrix printers

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entropicdrifter
Considering they're still one of the most popular lines of notebook PCs on the
planet, I'd say they're about the right level of appreciated.

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zozin
Jony Ive retires and all of a sudden Apple hardware starts making more
"sense". I don't think that was a coincidence. The engineers are more
influential than the designers at the moment.

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hackingthenews
Read a rumor somewhere that he made the edges of the MacBook in his prototype
design so sharp to the point of serious discomfort to users, but he only
changed it after Steve Jobs had to ask him about it.

edit: [1] Turns out it was the first iPhone.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20437041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20437041)

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core-questions
There are still lines on my wrists from a previous aluminum Macbook of some
variety I had.

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kabdib
The day that the new keyboard was released, I walked over to the Apple store
and tried it out.

I physically recoiled from it. It reminded me of the Atari 400 keyboard, a
cheap membrane keyboard from the 1970s . . . not quite that bad, but still
awful.

The Apple store employee who was watching me remarked on my reaction. "This
keyboard feels terrible," I said, "Apple is going to lose a lot of money over
it." Naturally the employee didn't care about my opinion.

Software engineers, always Cassandras.

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uoaei
Early on it seemed like Apple took a Bauhaus-like approach to design, where
the motivating principle can be summarized as "form _follows_ function". From
an outsider's perspective, there's so much time spent discussing Apple's
design on aesthetic merits that the focus shifted over time from making
supremely functional devices to ones that signal high class and taste at the
expense of more mundane concerns. Let's try to re-center the discussion on
device/product design as driven first by function, and then by form.

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softwaredoug
I must be in a silent minority that likes quieter keyboards with less travel.
So more butterfly keyboard please...

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p1necone
Wasn't the problem the high failure rate though, not the actual UX?

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snazz
It was controversial for the very low travel even before the reliability
issues started to crop up.

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kirstenbirgit
I don't actually mind the butterfly keyboard. Back in 2016 I got one of the
first laptops with the it, the 12" MacBook, and I'm still using it daily. Also
had a 2017 15" which I just upgraded to the new 16". Zero issues with both,
and I haven't babied them at all.

While there's not a lot of key travel, it is very clicky and feels satisfying
for me to type on. Individual keys are also very stable.

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yankcrime
Not sure why you're being downvoted - my experience mirrors yours. I've just
swapped from a 2018 MBP with the last (final?) iteration of the butterfly
mechanism to a 2020 13" MBP with the new keyboard and in all honesty I
preferred the butterfly.

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josefrichter
Nonsense. The article makes several unfounded assumptions _why_ apple designed
such a keyboard. The keyboard is amazing! When it works.. I myself am a victim
of its astonishing unreliability, would even join a class-action lawsuit
against apple. But it's purely failed implementation.

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mercer
Reliability was one problem. The other was that for many of us it was
uncomfortable to use. I would actually feel some pain in my hands/wrists after
using this keyboard for a while. Both the older keyboard and the newer
keyboard are fine for some reason.

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diehunde
I always thought people were just exaggerating about this keyboard until I got
a laptop that has one. I have a MacBook Air with a keyboard I love and use for
personal stuff and my current client sent me a MacBook Pro. I was excited
because the specs were crazy. Until I started typing. It was so bad and weird
compared to my MacBook Air. So I assume it has that hated keyboard.

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munchbunny
I had one at work. Thankfully it wasn't my main dev machine or main laptop.
Whenever I used it my typing precision took a huge hit. The lack of key travel
really messed me up in terms of "did I actually activate that key?" I was
perpetually missing A's in my typing.

Maybe other people were able to get used to it, but I couldn't.

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ncmncm
The level of contempt for paying customers on display is nothing short of
stunning. With the price premium they get, they could afford to deliver superb
quality and outstanding service. Instead they pocket the difference, every
time.

What is most remarkable is that the customers keep coming back anyway.

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prvc
Penetrating analysis. I am grateful that the journalists at The Verge have
graced us with the singular insight that can only be borne from their evident
engineering genius.

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TurbineSeaplane
I just want everything about the Butterly keyboard and that era of Apple to be
relegated to the past.

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mprev
A lot of words to say nothing.

Yes it’s a bad keyboard. But the interesting story is in how a company that
once prioritised quality of user experience came to make that choice.

The article is a set of maybes without any new insights.

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harpratap
Tech journalism in a nutshell.

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vuln
Pretty sure this is a dead horse. Must be a slow news day.

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creddit
Why are we rehashing this for the 1000th time??

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zxcb1
Because it is almost unbelievable that it happened; I can barely type on mine.
I have all my hardware from 10+ years ago until now to compare with. Would
return this one in an instant, if possible.

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zorbash
My first mac computer is the 2018 MBP which features the butterfly keyboard,
it started failing after about 6 months of use. My previous laptop, a dell
e6230 which runs Linux, feels almost as fast, especially for Docker stuff, has
a fantastic keyboard and way better battery life. Can't see myself buying any
Apple product after that.

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mercer
I bought a 2017 MBP and figured that surely it can't be that bad in practice.

It was, to the point where I could barely type sentences without having to
correct double-letter inputs. And that's without anything failing.

Thankfully the laptop was insured and I got the 2019 16 inch model now (with
the escape key and a working keyboard). Touchbar with BetterTouchTool has
proven to be much more useful than I expected.

But man was this a massive fuck-up. There's no way a 2000+ product should be
able to malfunction in such a fundamental way!

EDIT: also, pain. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to getting used to changes
in input, so I expected to be okay with less key travel and whatnot. But a day
of using the new keyboards /felt/ different. My hands/wrists would hurt. This
was only with the MBP with the new keyboard. Whenever I used my old MacBook
Air or even the new Magic Keyboard I had no issues.

I can't tell for sure, but while it feels a lot better, even the new 16 inch
MBP leaves my fingers a bit more sore than the mushier 2013-era Air.

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blueboo
They failed because the testing process failed. Apple sells mass-market
consumer devices: they don't set out to sell failing hardware.

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bengale
I think this is overstated. The butterfly keyboards were better day to day
than the old style imho, and I say that as someone who had to have one
replaced multiple times. It was the robustness that was an issue rather than
the keyboard itself.

Apple can be accused of moving too slowly to when issues arose perhaps, but
they did iterate trying to fix it and they’ve been very good in my experience
with replacements.

Happily the new one is fantastic as far as I can tell so far.

