
Apple to include new keyboard in 2019 MacBook Air and 2020 MacBook Pro - nailer
https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/04/kuo-new-keyboard-macbook-air-pro/
======
jbverschoor
>> The MacBook Pro is also getting the new scissor switch keyboard, but not
until 2020.

I guess my 2013 macbook pro will have to stay alive yet another year. Plus
half a year of seeing if these keys are reliable

>> Apple is apparently set to ditch the butterfly mechanism used in MacBooks
since 2015, which has been the root of reliability issues and its low-travel
design has also not been popular with many Mac users.

Profitability issues due to replacements

>> Kuo says that Apple’s butterfly design was expensive to manufacture due to
low yields. The new keyboard is still expected to cost more than an average
laptop keyboard, but it should be cheaper than the butterfly components.

Do they count low yields at the factory, or do they include replacements due
to defects?

~~~
jacknews
Indeed, why not just switch back to the old design instead of yet another
"new" design that will need to be proven - even if the old design is
expensive, this is a premium laptop, for professionals, and I'd argue the
keyboard is one area you should not be compromising too heavily for cost.

~~~
sjwright
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
> _chocolate crumbs followed by a spilt latte._

Bring back the Atari 400 keyboard!

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Atari_40...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Atari_400_keyboard.jpg)

~~~
_ph_
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
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_
That is bad news indeed.

------
jakobegger
I'd love to know more about the development timeline of this. When did Apple
realise the butterfly switches were not salvagable?

My assumption is that Apple has a two year lead time for new models, so that
they would have started working on this rumored 2019 Macbook Air in late 2017.
At that point they must have realised that their updated butterfly switches
from the July 2017 Macbook Pros still had reliability issues, so they started
working on Macbooks with scissor switches. But since that would take 2 years,
they had to do something in the mean time, and tried the silicone barrier to
improve the situation with the 2018 models. When that still didn't help, they
introduced their keyboard service program to avoid further hits to Macbook Pro
sales.

Of course, that's all speculation, but I'd love to hear what the decisions
were really like -- those must have been some very stressful meetings...

~~~
sjwright
> When did Apple realise the butterfly switches were not salvagable?

Probably about five minutes after Jony Ive left. Somehow I doubt the timing is
a coincidence.

~~~
close04
It’s probably one of the reasons for his departure. According to Ive, Apple is
no longer pursuing design for the sake of design and it’s instead going for
products that work but in a more “mundane” form. And this somehow is a bad
thing.

~~~
_ph_
I don't think Apple has pursued design for the sake of design until very
recently. Apple devices traditionally combined great design with good
functionality. The G5 iMac was not only beautiful but you could open it up in
a minute with a simple screwdriver. Only the current generation of iMacs hat
the whole device literally glued together, so that any access to internals
turned into an expensive repair bill.

My late 2008 Unibody MacBook hat a door which opened with a latch and gave
access to the battery and hard disk. In a body that looks very much like my
2015 MB Pro. For quite a while, MB Pros might have been difficult to open, but
you still could access battery, memory and SSD.

~~~
close04
> I don't think Apple has pursued design for the sake of design until very
> recently.

Most likely. But Ive saw that the senior layers being stacked against him and
his vision over the past few years. I think this was best for everyone.
Consumers included.

------
jbverschoor
I sometimes feel that many people and companies need to take a lesson in the
art of doing nothing.

Change for change’s sake is pretty shitty. The feeling of needing to do or
change something is sometimes wrong.

Like this app which used to work pretty damn good... Scanbot. Every single
release they mess it up even more, simply because the developers need to be
doing something.

~~~
vbezhenar
Nah. Developers learned to do something without producing anything:
Refactoring! We can do it all the day as long as you want, there's no end at
perfection. That's managers who feel that they need to do something.

------
no1youknowz
> Keyboard ergonomics and feel is dependent on many factors, but it is a
> promising sign that Apple is reverting to the same key switch mechanism used
> in every MacBook before 2015, which was widely praised.

If Apple builds an MBPr with the 2015 keyboard with newer materials and calls
this a new and improved keyboard. They will have a purchase from me.

I will also hope that it's essentially a 2015 chassis and comes with magsafe
and an improved cord so it doesn't wear out as quick. With the extra thickness
they shouldn't have the screen issues with the cord wearing out either,
solving that problem as well.

The only two wishes that I have are a micro-oled screen and arm processor.
Maybe in 2022 I get delivered these, but I can wait.

edit: i meant micro-oled, not mini

~~~
skocznymroczny
Isn't the touchbar what you're asking for? Mini-oled screen and arm processor.
Unless it was ironic and I am oblivious.

~~~
boredishBoi
I think they mean MicroLED rather than mini oled. MicroLEDs are meant to look
and act the same as oleds but since they’re non organic, which means they
don’t burn out like oleds do.

------
vbezhenar
First good signs after Ive departure. I hope that new blood will improve their
product line.

------
skocznymroczny
Unfortunate. I really love the new keyboard. I am typing it right now on a
2017 Macbook Pro butterfly keyboard. I have a 2015 Macbook Pro too but I don't
like its keys that much.

~~~
lookingsideways
I'm in the same boat, I much prefer the feel of the butterfly keys to the
older mushy-feeling MacBook pro keyboards. Currently I'm still using the first
Touch Bar MBP from 2016 and have had zero keyboard (or other hardware)
problems.

------
sjwright
That's good news—for the people who are buying laptops next year.

Hopefully the return to scissor switches is combined with some improvements to
the touch bar. My suggestion to Apple would be: put a small physical ESC key
on the far left of the touch bar on 13 inch models, and include both physical
F-keys AND a touch bar on the larger models.

Bonus points: allow people to choose classic F-keys on the 13 inch models as a
BTO option.

~~~
szggzs27
I suggest ditching that piece of shit of an invention.

4 years on, the TouchBar:

\- Adds zero value in terms of functionality nor user experience for 95%+ of
the user base

\- Fails to better the classic buttons to change volume

\- Fails to better the classic buttons to change screen brightness

\- Leaves users deadlocked when they change screen displays

\- Is incompatible with bootcamp, oftentimes blanking out

\- Needs the user to be very cautious to not rest their hand anywhere near the
touchbar, or ESC/F1/F2 will be pressed accidentally

\- Needs the user to make sure that ESC was pressed when they wanted it
pressed. No haptic feedback is terrible.

\- Consumes more battery

\- Adds a few hundred bucks to the price of the laptop, and there's lack of
choice for 2018 MBP which forces the TouchBar on the user

If still alive, Jobs would have ripped someone's head off for letting the
marketing idiots drive product development.

Fuck you Apple.

~~~
ashildr
I avoided the Touchbar MBP for having no physical feedback and no escape key.

Yet I know multiple developers who consider it „quite nice, actually“.

So I’m wondering: do you really own a Touchbar MbP or do you just have an
opinion.

------
jankotek
Is it going to improve repairability?

Failing keyboard is just part of the problem. It is exposed part and sometimes
fails.

The main issue is that its not possible to replace keyboard in easy and non
destructive way. One has to ripout rivets, drill new holes and cut new
threads.

Glu, SSD soldered on motherboard, non availability of replacement parts, bad
repair service centers...

------
nl
It's a pity they can't get them reliable enough.

My son has a 13" 2017 MPB and really likes the keys. I have a 15" 2015 MPB and
need to replace it, and have quite enjoyed the butterfly keyboard when I use
his.

I'm really looking forward to getting one with the touchbar, although I'd like
a physical escape key.

------
matthewmacleod
I love the low travel and the feel of the keyboard on the 2018 model, but I’m
not overjoyed that I had to hand my machine over for repair. Still, at least I
got a brand new battery out of it too, thanks to the sketchy design choices…

------
pcr910303
As I mentioned
[here]([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20322875](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20322875)),
negative reviews (especially to brand new tech) tend to get much much more
traction, because the ones that are currently satisfied to the machine have no
reason to 'whine'.

Read and compare the comments of this article and other news about the
butterfly switches/keyboards. There are practically none comments about the
butterfly's advantages. In this page, I see 4~5 comments about how butterflies
are better (out of 27) even though this was submitted to 1 hour ago. [0]
Considering this is HN (which likes bashing Apple) and that this is an issue
more about reliability than the butterfly keyboard itself, and that the title
really doesn't indicate the loss of the butterfly switches, it's a pretty high
value (IMHO). I have yet to found anyone to complain while using the butterfly
keyboards so IMO the criticism given to Apple with the butterfly switches are
exaggerated.

The butterflies are innovative brand new switches, it's pretty reasonable for
Apple to fail to predict these long-term failures. I was expecting 2018-style
fixes where the fixes don't reduce the advantages of the switches; however I'm
suspicious if the scissor based switches can retain low-pitch & stable keys.

When SJ did things, SJ wasn't worried about how others would say about new
things. (To be fair, there were less people complaining as the market was much
smaller before.) As a result, the (iterated and polished) end-results were
pretty good, and people got to use the polished result.

I get to get worried about Apple when seeing these articles lately, as it
looks like Apple has no more ideas and merely applying feedback to products.

I hope, (as a customer that prefers butterfly switches vastly over to more
traditional switches or mechanical switches) 2019 & 2020 MBPs get a
permanently fixed, better quality butterfly switches that can mitigate all
customer dissatisfaction.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353336](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353336)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353528](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353528)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353685)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353617](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353617)

------
theblackcat1002
Hope they update the non touchbar Macbook Pro as well. Which has been sitting
dust from all the upgrades(new keyboard, 8th gen CPU).

------
baybal2
And at the same time, while Apple is moving away from butterfly switches, Dell
is moving to them with new business laptop lines and XPS

~~~
dsego
Aren't those maglev though?

~~~
baybal2
Yes, they are. Just a fancy branding with some minor technical differences,
but the mechanical scheme is the same

------
prvc
They're going to come up with some putatively face-saving alibi for this if
true, but beats me what that may turn out to be.

------
randomsearch
Excellent. Where does that leave those of us stuck with keyboards that don't
work?

~~~
garg
They have a free keyboard replacement plan for keyboards that don't work.
[https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-
mac-n...](https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-
notebooks)

~~~
tomxor
Yeah, so they can defer the problem until out of warantee... like they have
done with every single other defect in the past.

Some people catch on to this fact and kick up a fuss in store when there is a
newer model available without the defect, if you are lucky they will cave and
replace it with a new model instead of a new old broken model. At least, this
used to work about 10 years ago with the first significant defect on intel
based models (GPU failures), I haven't bothered with Apple since, not worth
it.

~~~
timwis
For what it's worth I waited until they supposedly fixed the sticky keys
issue, and got the new model last year. And within a few weeks my keys were
stickingi anyway. Just going to leave that extra i in the last sentence for
effect...

~~~
randomsearch
Nnice work!

------
iliaznk
Why don't they offer both options? I really like the 2018 butterfly.

~~~
skrause
Because it's about realiability, they just can't get the butterfly mechanism
to work without failing eventually and don't want to replace keyboards
constantly. It's irrelavant that some people like the feel of the butterfly
keyboard more if it breaks far too often.

~~~
iliaznk
Makes sense, thanks.

~~~
randomsearch
Agree the mechanism is really very good. Just keeps breaking, unfortunately.

~~~
iliaznk
I've had the first butterfly model (wast it 2016?), and indeed the keys would
get stuck easily and I had to clean the keyboard with compressed air every
other day, but even then I didn't have a single key broken down completely to
stop functioning. And the 2018 model is much better, I will blow it with air
occasionally, more as a precaution measure, and it works just fine.

~~~
randomsearch
Compressed air doesn't fix it, sadly. Going in for repair.

------
forgone
And I will be stuck with my £3000 macbook

~~~
jackvalentine
Yeah I'm stuck with my 1977 Datsun 120Y too.

