
Unshaky – Tries to address double key press issue on Apple's butterfly keyboard - tmlee
https://github.com/aahung/Unshaky
======
crazygringo
Apple replaced my keyboard for free (two week turnaround)... but the Apple
tech also suggested I purchase the $13 Ghostcover keyboard cover [1] for the
new one to prevent future problems. I did and... it's actually amazing and
doesn't get in the way of typing _at all_. Seriously can't even notice it's
there in terms of touch, and its texture feels the same as the original keys.

Should Apple make a keyboard less prone to problems from debris? Yes, of
course. But in the meantime, is a $13 keyboard cover a good idea to fix a
$1,300+ machine? Also Yes. A minor inconvenience to have to buy, but at least
it fixes it for good... and I've never seen it mentioned on HN before so
thought I'd share in case it helps others.

[1]
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N20RZXB](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N20RZXB)

~~~
dylan604
Sounds like Apple should be providing this $13 magical fix to anyone that
brings in a defective product for free.

~~~
vonseel
I doubt it’s company policy to go around recommending a dustcover. Probably
just something that the helpful support person tells people.

Can you imagine a process where Apple takes that recommendation and walks it
up the chain internally to get it offered alongside the repair for free? Not a
good look.

~~~
kalleboo
In fact Apples official support documentation tells you to not use keyboard
covers [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT203671](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203671)

~~~
vonseel
Leaving any material on the top case (keyboard and palm rest area) could
result in damage to the display when you close it.

That is an interesting twist. I hadn't thought of that, and display is surely
an expensive repair.. which reminds me, I need to repair the bezel on my
macbook pro..

------
Canada
I'll just refrain from purchasing Apple hardware with this keyboard design.
Hopefully they release the new laptops without it, I'm overdue for an upgrade.

~~~
jordanthoms
Rumours are pointing towards September for a 16" MBP with a new design and new
keyboard. Hopefully that does happen, my 2013 MBP could use an upgrade also

~~~
lostgame
I'm still on a 2011 17" with 16GB of RAM and two 1TB internal SSD's (one went
where the optical drive would have) - until they release a similarly-sized
model without the God-awful experience of the Butterly keyboard. I have to use
a 2017 15" Touch Bar MacBook Pro at work and I want to hurl it across the wall
when I'm not using my external keyboard, and I don't see many people in the
office not using external keyboards for them.

~~~
GordonS
I have a 2016 13" MBP with touchbar. No idea what the keyboard mechanism is,
but it's absolutely _horrible_ \- there is hardly any key travel, it
frequently misses key presses, and there is one key in particular that I
occasionally have to press 4-5 times before it registers.

It's been like this since I got it. I took it to an Apple Store not long after
that, but they said it was OK, and all this was perfectly normal..

The touchbar is also just _unbelievably_ bad - just give me my Escape and
function keys back, dammit!

What am absolutely loathsome device!

I'm mainly a Windows user, and this was my first ever Mac. It's also the last,
unless I need one for work, in which case I'll still do everything I can on
Windows.

------
throwaway3627
_Louis Rossmann - "Apple users have no one to blame but themselves."_
[https://youtu.be/gi9en4I-tjA](https://youtu.be/gi9en4I-tjA)

^ Actual title of a recently posted video

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analognoise
This is disgusting.

We've been able to successfully make keyboards for... 60 years? Typewriters
are 140 years old.

Now we have a $1300 machine where the form dictates that the functionality
will be so hampered that we're using what would have been a supercomputer 30
years ago to... debounce keys?

Seriously? And people think this whole charade is acceptable and worth
patching around?

Jesus wept.

~~~
b34r
More like $3000

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mdesq
Macbook Computer Augmentation Software (MCAS)?

~~~
ChicagoBoy11
Let's just hope this doesn't spurriously cause that same sticky key to all of
a sudden fire uncontrollably, hanging your machine.

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userbinator
Amusingly enough, Windows has a similar accessibility-related feature:

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

~~~
ehsankia
So that's what filter keys is! That I keep accidentally turning out playing
games and have to disable whenever I format.

~~~
Marsymars
One of my personal favourite upsides of syncing Windows settings with an MS
account is that it syncs those accessibility features to be disabled.

------
dylan604
Makes me think of having to debounce button input reads on Arduino.

Also, can't you do the same thing in System Preferences->Keyboard->Delay Until
Repeat?

~~~
wlesieutre
The opposite - you can avoid the key repeat delay to type double characters
faster by letting go and pressing again, rather than holding it down and
waiting.

That's what this is preventing, because the bad keyboards will register
multiple key press events for a single press.

------
GrumpyNl
So, you need a piece of third party software to work with the keyboard?

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joshbetz
Apple will fix this for free

[https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-
mac-n...](https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-
notebooks)

~~~
aiddun
Just did this, space bar was double pressing. It took them two weeks including
having to order the parts after they said they would be faster in changing
them and would hold parts in stock— at at Apple store in the middle of NYC.

If I knew it would take this long I would probably just go with this if I
really needed my laptop.

~~~
auslander
Do you know what generation of butterfly KB they installed? My 2016 MBP is in
repair and I'm curios what would they put in.

~~~
crazygringo
My MBP is late 2016, and just a few weeks ago they replaced my butterfly
"second-gen v1" keyboard with the "second-gen v2" keyboard.

The tactile touch is noticeably different (more "rubbery") and some of the
modifier keys (ctrl/opt) look different. It definitely feels like a welcome
upgrade.

~~~
auslander
AFAIK there are 3 generations [0]. Can you find the new KB part number from
the repair quote? Mine is S6800LL/A

[0]
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Ba...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2019+Teardown/123653#s239152)

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bluedino
Kind of a silly fix.

This only addresses part of the issue. If your keyboard is repeating keys,
then it is likely not registering keypresses as well.

There's no software fix for that.

------
wittjeff
I am really surprised to find that Apple does not include a Bounce Keys
implementation (which is what this is) as an accessibility feature in MacOS as
Windows has since forever. My guess is that this is due to the fact that many
users find the difference between Bounce Keys, Repeat Keys, and Slow Keys
confusing.

------
beaugunderson
I have many complaints about the terrible keyboard in the last few revs of the
MBP, but Unshaky has allowed me to ignore them until it's more convenient to
deal with them (and thus put off having to replace my laptop/be without
it/spend a bunch of time and money dealing with that).

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y_molodtsov
Currently is saves my “A” and I get almost no double presses. It says it fixed
almost 1500 of them in two months.

------
83457
Just ran across this article about another computer with the same issue... the
TRS-80

[https://www.fastcompany.com/90326271/in-macbook-keyboard-
woe...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90326271/in-macbook-keyboard-woes-a-weird-
echo-of-the-trs-80-circa-1978)

~~~
bitwize
That's exactly what I thought of: an assembly language routine I saw to
debounce the TRS-80 keyboard in software.

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hmhhcycbtsc557
This is a much more primitive/bare bones one I have used with some success:
[https://github.com/toothbrush/debounce-
mac](https://github.com/toothbrush/debounce-mac)

------
anomaloustho
I don’t recall having this issue on my butterfly keyboard.

Is it due to a ‘faulty/lemon’ state that these keyboards get into?

I guess it could also be related to typing style? I’m not a home row user and
I don’t do any gaming.

~~~
fossuser
I think it’s due to people eating over their keyboards and getting crumbs
lodged in the keys.

~~~
mschuster91
A high class laptop should not break because people are _eating_ near them.

~~~
fossuser
I like the keyboards with the butterfly switches - I don’t think it’s
unreasonable to not eat over expensive electronics, but from the state of
computers I’ve seen I think I’m probably in the minority.

------
rstevens333
I think there is something to this. I also suspect Apple is doing something
similar behind the scenes. Since going to the Catalina betas, I've had fewer
keystrokes go wonky.

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throw03172019
Software to fix hardware issues. Was this also developed by Boeing engineers?

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blattimwind
tl;dr a software debouncer for Apple's obviously defective hardware.

~~~
userbinator
To be precise, it's a second layer of debouncing; no doubt the KBC already has
its own debouncing, but apparently sometimes not enough.

