
My Last Macbook Pro - ingve
https://theswiftdev.com/2019/07/16/my-very-last-macbook-pro/
======
vinhboy
I was gonna reply to defend the Macbook Pro, but then I realized the author is
right, I did have to replace my Macbook Pro keyboard too because the spacebar
key was stuck.

But whatever, I am not gonna leave my macbook behind just because of that. By
comparison, my Macbook is still better than my work Dell Latitude (which costs
the same) that sounds like a jet engine because the fan keeps coming on,
battery lasts for less than 5 hours, wireless keeps dropping, and I
occasionally gets the BSOD...

Nothing's perfect, that's just life.

~~~
handedness
I was the guy who read these things and thought, "these must be outliers."

And yet, here I am, three keyboards later, with no end in sight given that I
couldn't possibly baby mine more than I do without locking it up in an argon-
filled clean room.

History won't look at this era of Apple laptops favorably. It really makes one
wonder how they missed this one.

It's also an indictment of this era of both hardware and software that nobody
else produces a more compelling option.

~~~
asark
> It's also an indictment of this era of both hardware and software that
> nobody else produces a more compelling option.

They were way ahead of other laptop makers in basically every way but
upgradeability, so they could afford to screw up like 1/2 of all the things
about their laptop (all at once, which is pretty crazy), _badly_ , and still
be way ahead on the other 1/2, such that switching isn't an unequivocal win.

~~~
gamblor956
I often think that Apple fans have Stockholm syndrome. They're constantly
repairing their Apple products while simultaneously claiming that Apple stuff
is the best-built stuff in its class.

Meanwhile, I still have a Dell Latitude 10+ years old that's chugging along on
its original battery (now down to about 30 min battery life), an HP consumer
convertible laptop (early precursor to the tablet laptop era) that's almost as
old and still chugging along. Keyboards on both still work great and have
survived pizza, crumbs, and numerous spills--and both still infinitely more
comfortable than the punishingly thin keyboards on their Apple counterparts of
the time and since. My Surface Pro 3 has survived being dropped multiple times
from heights that have killed my coworkers' iWhatevers.

Oh... and the real kicker? Each of these laptops cost several hundred dollars
less than comparable Apple laptops with the same or better specs. Pretty much
the only category Apple had them beat was in (subjective) appearance.

~~~
asark
I switched relatively late (2011 or so) after about a decade of Windows and
Linux laptops. The actually-usable trackpad that didn't make me want to carry
a mouse everywhere if I actually wanted to use the computer on the go, the
battery life that didn't have me looking for outlets everywhere and carting my
power supply all over the place, the screen quality, and all the hardware
actually working the way it was supposed to (including all sleep modes, with
no fiddling and crashes- or hangs-on-wake pretty much never happening!) were
all like entering a new world. "You mean I can just close the lid, unplug, and
walk away, without taking other stuff and without babying the sleep process?
What is this madness?"

~~~
bebna
I hate to plug a Microsoft product as mainly Linux user, but do checkout the
surface line.

~~~
asark
Tried one at a previous workplace ~1.5 years ago (IE/Edge test machine,
convenient for carrying around to show people stuff rather than using a VM on
your main machine for all Windows testing). Maybe with Linux or a BSD and if
you ignore touch it's tolerable? The touch + Win10 experience was janky and
lag-tastic. Battery life so-so, can't imagine that'd improve under a *nix
unless you disable or forcibly throttle half the hardware. Maybe the high end
machines are better? I'd assume that was the entry level one. I was actually
surprised at how bad the touch interface experience (and experience generally)
was since I remember everyone raving about them when they came out.

------
noodlesUK
Anecdotal solution my friend uses when his MacBook pro needs servicing:

Takes machine into apple store “Yep, new keyboard needed” “That’ll be 3 weeks”
“Can I have a loaner laptop?” “No, we don’t do that” “Ok I’d like to buy your
latest highest spec MBP you have in stock on my credit card” “Ok here you go”

3 weeks later: “Your MBP is ready” “Cool, can I return this one please as I’m
still in the returns window” “...okay”

Loaner laptop achieved

------
guessmyname
>
> [https://theswiftdev.com/content/images/2019/07/D9BGWFIXoAA8d...](https://theswiftdev.com/content/images/2019/07/D9BGWFIXoAA8d63.jpeg)

Wow! How can someone have such a dirty keyboard? I would be more concerned
about the exaggerated amount of particles in the air that I’m breathing if my
computer looked like the one in this picture. I don’t know if the image is
accurate, but in three (3) years of typing in a MacBook Pro with the same
keyboard as the one described in this article, it has never gotten to that
point.

~~~
lone_haxx0r
No reasonably built keyboard stops working because of that amount of dirt.

I could bury my mechanical keyboard, dig it out, punch it, drop water on it
and I bet it would still work correctly after drying it.

~~~
jolmg
I think the concern is more hygienic than about a possible malfunction of the
keyboard.

------
mikece
I wonder just how much the Mac computer/laptop market would fall off if iOS
developers didn't need to have a macOS device to run Xcode? I have a Mac mini,
a 2013 MacBook Air, and a (way too expensive) 2019 MacBook Pro all to support
compiling Xamarin, Xcode, and Ionic applications for iOS. For the clients
asking only for Android to be targeted I grab my Lenovo P50 and don't even
bother with the Macs.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I think you drastically overestimate the number of iOS developers. Or, more
specifically, the number of developers in general.

Apple sells ~20 million Macs per year. If we assume that developers buy a new
machine every 3 years or so, and all Macs are bought by iOS developers, that
would be 60 million developers. There are on the order of 2 million iOS apps
in the store, so I expect there are far fewer than 60 million iOS developers
and the overwhelming majority of consumers buy them for other reasons. Hence
the trend for features that appeal to casual users (sleek exterior, glossy
screens, shallow keyboards) and not to actual professionals.

~~~
Haydos585x2
From my experience everyone in an agency will be given a new MacBook/MacBook
Pro when they start unless they are explicitly a Windows shop.

There are design tools like Sketch that are only available on OS X as well. I
think there's probably a coolness-factor coming in as well. No one wants to be
the agency with a bunch of crummy old Windows laptops, how uncool! They'll get
laughed out of Cannes.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Where are you? Here in the Midwest, I have seen a handful of personal Macbooks
(mostly sales guys, who also can be seen with Surfaces/iPads) but all the
engineers have Thinkpads, Latitudes, or ZBooks.

~~~
asark
Midwest here, too. It's Macbooks all the way most any place under three-digit
headcount. Or agencies, no matter the size. Larger places seem to favor
Windows laptops where possible (all but iOS dev) because they're usually using
MS collab and comm tools, plus (I assume) enterprise management with them is
easier and/or finding Windows enterprise install base managers is easier.

I think I've seen someone running Linux on their work machine, like, once,
in... 18 years? Twice if I count me, in the first half of my career.

------
trustfundbaby
I refuse to upgrade my Early MBP 2015 for this reason. Not only do I have one
right now, but I have a backup sitting in a closet just in case anything goes
wrong with this one.

I really can't understand why they went away from things that were working
like Magsafe, a useable keyboard, escape keys etc.

The general disregard, from Apple, for power users of the Macbook pro has been
really frustrating and bemusing

------
Twiebie
Sold my 2017 MacBook Pro after a month for a refurbished high end 2015 one,
best decision ever.

~~~
Apocryphon
All of these folks seeking to leave Apple indefinitely should at least
consider doing this, the mid-2015 MBP did nothing wrong (aside from the
battery explosion thing)

~~~
daslicious
Same here. Had to get a new battery after a couple years. It has thermal
issues especially when the gpu is under load

------
bravoetch
He talks about the joy of a keyboard for his iPad, but it never occurs to him
to connect it to his Macbook. I'm gonna say this blog is trying too hard to
sound wounded about a broken keyboard.

~~~
judge2020
>connect it to his Macbook

I guess I don't understand the experience of using another keyboard than the
one built-in to the device. Haven't used it, but it wouldn't seem to be a good
experience if you either had to set it on top of your existing keyboard or
needed an extra 30% or so of desk space, only for 50% of your laptop real
estate to be used for nothing.

~~~
bravoetch
I use a stand for my laptop, to improve the experience for my posture / neck.
That means the external keyboard and mouse works well for me. I get what
you're saying - but two things: the real estate under the keyboard is the
computer and battery and cooling and connectors. And his keyboard was broken
so using the external one is an assumed improvement in the moment. I'm not
suggesting my solution is right for everyone. I am just surprised he didn't
try it.

------
aleem
Similar story, 2 keyboard-only replacements and one main logic board +
keyboard replacement on a MacBook 12". A week ago it failed again and I'm
nowhere near an Apple store so gotta wait it out. It's been about 2 years.l
since I bought it for my wife who uses it for light browsing.

I bought a brand new Pro 2019 model but haven't opened it yet and hoping to
resell it since Hong Kong doesn't do returns -- where it was purchased. It's
keyboard was already listed in the replacement program, even before I bought
it. My current Air is 6 years old and chugging along (i7 1.6Ghz with 3.1Ghz
boost). The new MBP won't last beyond 4 (Apple support expiry on keyboard
replacement).

Not sure how a minor membrane change can help alleviate the keyboard issues.
CPU throttling is another known issue. Best to wait it out for the new Air
with scissor keys due up later this year.

------
_ph_
I am an Apple user since 2003. I have always been a very happy user and kept
recommending Apple computers to anyone asking. In the last weeks, for the
first time and with a heavy heart, I had to tell two colleagues, that I would
recommend against buying an Apple laptop at the current time.

The new keyboards keep failing, the repair times are far too long, and after 4
years, the limit to the repair program, the laptop has to be written off as
soon as the keyboard needs another repair.

Apple urgently needs to go back to their previous keyboard designs which
worked just fine. And they need to go back to a hardware design, where a
keyboard or battery exchange can be done for a resonable price in a reasonable
time. This should require only a few minutes in the shop instead of leaving
your device at Apple for weeks.

------
Zak
Something interesting about the author's choice of the iPad Pro as a
replacement productivity machine I don't think gets enough mention is that the
iPad is one of the only modern computers of any sort with a 4:3 screen.

Closer to square maximizes screen area for a given maximum or diagonal
dimension, 4:3 is close to the human field of view, and in general, I find it
to be a more suitable aspect ratio for most tasks than 16:9 or 16:10.

I'm pretty frustrated and a bit confused by the dominance of 16:9. The fact
that it's the standard for TV shouldn't imply that it becomes the standard for
laptops.

~~~
yegle
Unless you don't consider a lot of touchscreen Windows laptops as modern
computers. Most touchscreen laptops with Windows/ChromeOS are 4:3 screens.

~~~
Zak
Please link to some models with 4:3 screens. I've seen 3:2, but not 4:3.

------
cpr
We get it. People hate the broken keyboard design. I do.

But can we stop posting random blog posts about it? Unless the person has some
unique insight into the problem, or ideas for homegrown solutions, let it be.

~~~
PopePompus
I think there is some value in having more people chime in on this issue.
Apple needs to know that there is great dissatisfaction among loyal customers
about many of their recent product design choices. Maybe with Ives gone,
they'll start valuing functionality, rather than style, on their products
aimed towards professionals.

~~~
EForEndeavour
I really hope Apple runs social listening and picks up on sustained signals
that, for what it's worth, so many professional customers are deeply
disappointed in what they've done with their laptops.

Dear Apple laptop designers, I would pay a premium for a mid-2015 15-inch
Macbook Pro with updated specs. Drop that touchbar bullshit. Bring back the
true innovation that was MagSafe. Maybe replace one of the Thunderbolt ports
with USB-C if you must. And please bring back that keyboard.

------
connorcodes
WSJ tech columnist Joanna Stern wrote about this, too. But Stern got an
apology from apple about it. They said "a small percentage is having issues
with the new butterfly line"

------
jseliger
_We need Final Cut Pro, Logic and many more on the iPad too. The hardware is
already there_

I'm not sure this is true: the highest-end iPads can approach the lowest-end
MacBook (Pros?) on some synthetic benchmarks, but the performance delta
between the mid- and high-spec MBPs against the iPads still seems to be quite
high. Let alone some of the higher end desktop Macs (some people, though not
me, still need them).

~~~
jsjohnst
The CPU is literally there, but the CPU isn’t the biggest factor for most of
the apps the author mentioned. The GPU is the biggest factor there. While the
iPad is extremely respectable on a performance per watt basis, even crappy
discrete GPUs blow it out of the water due to much higher power availability
(hence significantly higher top end performance).

------
wataruspeedo
Windows is a great operating system to for software developers.

~~~
timw4mail
Having to install a compatibility layer to use common *nix tools isn't a great
first step.

Unless you actually need to use Windows-only tools, in what way is Windows
better than Linux for software development?

------
samstave
Get a system 76.

More guts for your bucks.

Although, the casing was cheesy feeling - its a perfect linux box - can dual
boot windows or even run windows as a virtual machine - but the machine is
really good...

------
lupinglade
Apple needs to replace all of these keyboards with an actual fixed version
free of charge to everyone.

------
jonnismash
at that point - get a cheap windows machine that can remote-into your mac, why
deal with the nightmare, over and over again?

~~~
nosequel
Or, you know, use an external USB keyboard like a normal person.

~~~
muh_gradle
Using an external keyboard for a laptop is silly to me unless I have it docked
on a workstation. I do it, but I hate it.

~~~
jordache
why? you hate to develop on a 34" WQHD+ monitor?

YOu'd rather sit at a desk and squint at a 15" screen and hands on a non ergo
keyboard?

~~~
muh_gradle
I had a broken keyboard for my macbook air. The fix for it was a new logic
board, and this was past warranty. So the only way around was an external
keyboard. But this just defeats the portability of a laptop.

~~~
EForEndeavour
> I had a broken keyboard

> The fix for it was a new logic board

This was saddening to read.

------
throwaway3627
Sorry but tablets will never replace laptops because laptop OSes are
infinitely more flexible than tablet OSes. You just can't (at this point)
squeeze out the same productivity doing any type of real engineering,
development, 3D-modeling, quant office work or one of many thousands of tasks
from a tablet. Tablets have their places... for quick and simple things,
niches and some detailed apps that are self-contained.

------
qaq
after Apple added 8 core and dropped SSD prices (and added 2019 MBP to
keyboard program) things don't look too bad. Was going to switch to gen2
Lenovo X1 Extreme but now actually gonna stick with Apple. Plus if you can
hold off 16" with updated keyboard looks to be right around the corner.

------
komali2
What's the point of tossing this up on HN? We've dogpiled the macbook pro to
death. What new things could we possibly talk about? This blog post says
nothing really new: the keyboards suck and they break a lot. Also, add
productivity apps to ipad.

"What alternative is there to the mac???"

I mean.... _literally any other laptop_. Google Search:
site:news.ycombinator.com "alternatives to macbook pro" or something.

I don't like being so brash but it's taking a spot on the front page that
could be something more interesting...

~~~
asdkhadsj
I appreciate the alternative discussion.

Though, unfortunately I don't hear great things about alternatives. I plan on
moving to Linux, but I'm unsure what to do about laptops. Nothing seems
quality, even counting Macbook Pro's recent downtrend.

Best I've heard of is the various Thinkpad lines, but even those are a mixed
bag. I see some people defend them, and others trash them.. tough market out
there for people who simply want quality unix laptops.

~~~
chaostheory
Just do Windows. Windows 10 has really tight integration with Linux as a
development enviroment now
[https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-
wsl-2/](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/)

~~~
asdkhadsj
To be clear I'm talking about hardware quality, not compatibility with Linux.
Though I still disqualify any laptop that can only run windows.

~~~
chaostheory
That's why I mentioned it. It's easier to find quality hardware for Windows vs
something that is fully compatible with Linux. I wouldn't have mentioned it if
Linux wasn't as closely integrated into Windows as it is now. Also,
Microsoft's Surface Pro line is the closest in quality to the Macbook Pros,
even more so than the ThinkPad line. Even though I use Ubuntu regularly, its
GUI still isn't on par with Mac or Windows, which is another reason that I
mentioned it. This said, I'm still mainly using Apple for now.

------
cschep
The Apple store broke your screen and didn't do anything about it? No chance
in hell that is true.

Sorry about your keyboard, it does suck, but I think it will be changed soon.

~~~
cschep
So.. is it true? or just the downvotes? :D

------
pcr910303
While it’s fair that the author is angry at the keyboard, it isn’t fair to:

* Expect Apple’s Butterfly keyboard to be perfect in the first iteration (2016 models were the first ones to get them).

* Argue that the butterflies in '18/'19 notebooks are the same as the '16 one.

The '18 MBP’s keyboards have fixed the issues, Apple nailed it. While the
'16/'17 MBP’s keybord issues are a real problem, the fuzz about the '18 MBP’s
keyboard reliance is just noise from some of the common anti-Apple people. (I
have used all three models, and the difference coming from the silicone cover
is real. I have yet to see any semi-failing or stiff keys in the '18 model,
after one full (dirty) use of them.)

(Aside from the fact that this blog post adds no value about the MBPs,) People
really shouldn’t be assuming things about the butterfly keyboards.

~~~
undecisive
_it isn’t fair to: Expect Apple’s Butterfly keyboard to be perfect in the
first iteration (2016 models were the first ones to get them)._

We're not talking the first iteration of the concept of a keyboard on the
first iteration of the concept of a laptop. This is nobody's first iteration.
This is the final iteration of an essential component of an ultra-high-end
product. You can expect them to be perfect, you should expect them to be
perfect, and if they are not perfect you should expect them to fix them -
quickly, and once.

~~~
pcr910303
How can Apple find the issue when people itself started to get the keyboard
issues by using 1+ years in exceptionally dirty environments?

It’s not something like Apple is a company with time machines :-)

One point that most people just don’t seem to consider is that the problem is
greatly exaggerated. Negative reviews usually get much more tractions than the
positive ones, mostly because the people who are positive about the MBPs don’t
feel any needs to write a review about them (while negative people do).

