[rev12]

It seems like there are two camps of people:

Those who are very pleased to hear they will be backpedaling on their updated keyboard designs.

Those who "don't understand" because they actually like the new keyboards (and the TouchBar even).

No matter where you stand, the new keyboards are highly controversial and divisive, and that's not good. The old keyboards didn't put people into opposing sides, they just were there. Sure people compared them to other manufacturer keyboards, sometimes for the worse and other times for the better, but it wasn't a hate or love relationship by the user base. There was no "getting used to it," it was just a keyboard.

I look forward to a return to a non controversial, highly usable and widely accepted as "fine", keyboard. I hope that's what we get.

[Octoth0rpe]

> The old keyboards didn't put people into opposing sides, they just were there.

Have you ever spoken to a thinkpad advocate re: chiclet keyboards? The previous mac keyboards were absolutely controversial. It took years for the previous keyboard to be 'just a keyboard', which I do acknowledge happened.

> I look forward to a return to a non controversial, highly usable and widely accepted as "fine", keyboard.

Honestly, this will never happen for two reasons:

1) people's needs are diverse enough where that's simply an impossible job. I happen to _really_ like the current apple keyboards, but the reliability is bad enough for me to want a change. The consensus where I work (100ish mac laptops) is that the keyboard is awful. Someone is going to be unhappy, and it sounds like it might be me :(

2) There's some segment of the technology world (non-unix people?) that will latch onto any criticism of apple - fair/deserved or not - and shout it endlessly.

[dkarl]

> The previous mac keyboards were absolutely controversial. It took years for the previous keyboard to be 'just a keyboard', which I do acknowledge happened.

I would dispute that people stopped caring about the keyboard shortcomings. They're ergonomically bad keyboards, just not bad enough to keep complaining for this many years. If all Apple cares about is what people are currently chattering about, they're missing an opportunity to improve the product, because I still regard the MacBook keyboards as a reason to buy something else. When I think of the painful adjustment that I'll have to make if I ditch Apple laptops in favor of something else, there's a voice in my head saying, "Remember when a laptop keyboard could feel good to type on?" Banging my fingertips into a hard surface all day never became "just a keyboard."

[megablast]

> I would dispute that people stopped caring about the keyboard shortcomings.

Let me guess, you have a guy feeling about this stuff?

[lifty]

Can you please clarify, what is a guy feeling?

[mxcrossb]

Most of the technology works just hates any sort of change. Apple’s core base is different, they embrace change regardless of its utility. So that makes it hard to evaluate this kind of tech online.

I’m also noticing that the article suggests that apple’s real reason for change is poor yield and reliability. Those are objective measures, so I think we can agree that the current keyboard is bad.

[Octoth0rpe]

> Apple’s core base is different, they embrace change regardless of its utility.

I really don't know how one can come to this conclusion. Apple people bitch about _everything_ that changes. I think the one and only exception might be any time that they added retina screens to something.

Source: I am an apple user.

[parasubvert]

Yes, and no.

There's bitching but Apple's audience is always the first to absorb the change that eventually hits the whole industry.

MacOS Classic to Mac OS X? They kept Classic Mode around for 5 years for a reason. Eventually the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.

Loss of floppy drives and serial ports in the iMac? Bitching galore, but it was the right move.

Loss of built in DVD/CD drive on the Macbook Pro (circa 2012 with the retina MBP)? Bitching, but when's the last time we needed it so often?

Lots of bitching about iPhone 6 screen sizes being too big, leading to the iPhone SE. But ultimately more people liked the bigger size.

Lots of bitching about USB-C vs. Magsafe, but ultimately USB-C is proving to be the correct move.

The touchbar feels like the main misstep. I think most of the bitching would go away if they brought back haptics on the ESC key.

[TheOperator]

The mac chiclet keyboards weren't the best or the worst but these recent keyboards are awful.

[dsego]

Well, IMO it depends on what you get used to. After typing for one day on my mechanical keyboard, even the Thinkpad feels like typing on cardboard. Conversely, using the mechanical keyboard, after spending a few days on my laptop, feels like an old typewriter. I can say that I enjoyed my 2016 Macbook keyboard after getting used to it and I was even faster than on the old macbook. Also, another example, the 2014 model had shorter travel and crisper feeling than the 2011 model. I guess, after a while you get used to something and it feels ok. Until it breaks that is.

[wmeredith]

This is the real point. A keyboard IS AN INTERFACE. The point of it is to move information between two things: the computer and me. It is a means. If I notice it at all, that’s a negative.

[mattnewton]

Regardless of who likes the current keyboard, there is a large reliability issue. I don’t mind the small travel but I have had to constantly air duster my keyboard and finally completely replace it (through apple) because the e key would sometimes register nothing and sometimes register twice - that’s not a subjective keyboard taste thing, that’s just a reliability problem I have never had with any other keyboard, certainly not in under just 8 months of use.

[caconym_]

What about we who like the new keyboards (sans Touch Bar, personally) but understand (being intellectually mature adults) that people's preferences differ, probably at least in part because their typing styles also differ?

To be honest I expect this group greatly outnumbers your number 2), but being quietly satisfied with a thing is not a state of mind as conducive to jumping into an internet flame war as one of contempt for those who don't agree with your own subjective opinion of a thing or things.

The big problem I have with the new design is the reliability. I haven't personally had a key stop working, but it seems to be a real problem, and I do think the keys on my machine that has them (12" Macbook) have gotten fairly mushy after just a few years of use. That shouldn't happen—a really good keyboard will last for decades and/or tens of millions of strokes per key.

[hayksaakian]

I like the new keyboard... for the first 2 years I owned my macbbook.

But as soon as it started failing and i needed to get keys replaced it became a nuisance.

The old keyboard had much better reliability

[jillesvangurp]

I'm in the former camp and I don't really know a lot of people that own Apple products that actually have anything positive to say about either the keyboard or the touchbar. So the other camp is probably pretty small. I know a disturbingly large number of people that already had keyboard replacement (multiple in several cases) and the only reason I haven't gone in myself yet is that not having a laptop for a week plus is very inconvenient so I've been living with a flaky command key for a while now.

So, good riddance. What took them so long?

[ggregoire]

I know a lot of people who prefer the new keyboard, including people who have had technical issues with it.

[davnicwil]

> non controversial, widely accepted as "fine"

This isn't what Apple does. There are many examples of them making changes that people dislike initially, but then over time emerge as 'the way'.

It seems in this case they may have gone too far and have not managed to convert enough people over to thinking the new keyboard is actually better than the old one - though this is certainly compounded by the reliability issue and might have been true otherwise.

But what they don't do, and shouldn't do, is drive for non controversial and fine. There are plenty of laptop manufacturers that use this strategy, and we can all agree that Apple make vastly, vastly superior laptops to those brands. Mistakes might be made, but they're part and parcel of what make Apple, Apple. Without the risk of mistakes, we also wouldn't have all the other great features that the MacBook has.

[jmull]

The heat comes from the reliability issues.