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It Looks Like Apple is Killing the Physical Esc and Power Keys On New MacBook Pro
Curious minds on the internet have uncovered an image file on their Mac, which was added by Apple in the latest macOS update. The image reveals a new laptop that fully fits the description of rumored MacBook Pro, which Apple is expected to launch on October 27. The laptop in the picture has what seems like a "contextual" OLED display (some are calling it Magic Toolbar display) on the top. What's interesting from that picture is that there's no physical Escape key or Power key to be found anywhere.
Editor's note: We usually tend to avoid covering leaks and rumors, but several readers pitched the story to us, and media outlets are also covering it now, which adds some credibility to the matter.
Editor's note: We usually tend to avoid covering leaks and rumors, but several readers pitched the story to us, and media outlets are also covering it now, which adds some credibility to the matter.
Just joking. Of course we'll all just have to change our key bindings.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm imagining that the "make things better by simplifying" can only go so far. I'm not saying we've definitively reached such a point with Macs, but they keep learning that some of these "refinements" are mistakes, like not being able to right-click. Is trying to reduce vectors of interaction for their devices really their entire legacy?
Mac is definitely the "simpler" brand, and draws a lot of users from that brand. I just wonder if it's not a long-term shoot-yourself-in-the-foot to limit yourself so (both for their users and for the company itself).
This forum Sig is licensed under the LGPL.
Please try to link to a site that does not obtrusively ask for money when you want to see the story. I'm sure there are other sites that have the same coverage without ruining my experience.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Future Macs will have no user interface at all. You will get a flat gray cube with an Apple logo on it that will have no interactive capability. However, you will be firmly nestled in the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion field, fully aware that, no matter how utterly worthless the overpriced cube may be, your status as a hipster is secure.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It takes courage to not Escape.
Thanks to Apple, we will at last purge the filthy vi heathens. Let the thousand-year reign of emacs begin!
Lenovo did this with their X1 Carbon a while back too. What is the obsession with removing functionality? Sure, Mac users probably don't use the Escape key too much, let alone the function keys. However, Esc has always been the equivalent of Cancel on MacOS and Windows dialog boxes, and terminal-based applications still use it.
I don't know - I guess I feel old. Yes, hipster apps don't use control keys on luddite keyboards. Apps! But, removing a functional item for purely aesthetic purposes -- which I guarantee is the reason Apple is doing this -- seems to me like a bad precedent to set. People who use their computers for actual work like the idea of a full keyboard, and removing keys from an already-sparse MacBook Pro keyboard doesn't seem like a good way to attract this class of user. You already have to use a combination to get home, end, pgup and pgdn on Mac keyboards, for example.
Not unless Apple add Meta and Cokebottle keys to the keyboard..
(yes, I know 99.5% of this group are too young to understand that, once it would not have been true).
All 2 of them?
*ducks
Please tell me they atleast still have the PrtScn/SysRq and Pause/Break buttons!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
... but we will if we can't get enough wild speculation and laughable hyperbole to fill the front page.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The lack of an escape key reminds me of my years using DEC keyboards which, famously, didn't have Escape keys. You had to type Ctrl-[ to generate an Esc. Vi and emacs were a pain to use, but I really liked DEC TPU.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
macbooks freeze all the time. the touchpad quits clicking. the only thing that works is holding down the power key to reboot.
then don't get me started with the lock screen where it won't authenticate your password (just hangs until it presumably times out) and the only fix is to reboot the computer by holding the power key.
many things can be done in software, but a power button should never be one of them.
No. We just won't be using macbooks for development any more. Shame really. I'm waiting for someone to make the ultimate linux-based software development laptop now. And it would be nice if it had some of the design cohesion and just-works features of apple products.
Before someone rants, of course developers use many other editor tools, but proper support of the terminal and vi is essential for a serious server-software (back end software, or IT admin) development box.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Windows doesn't crash anymore. Ctrl-Alt-Del is there to provide emotional comfort for those who do not have enough courage to move on. ;)
That key needs to die an ugly death.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You never turn off your devices. You will be constantly be consuming monetized content.
Including the surf noise it plays while you're sleeping.
Someone who wants to turn it off must, obviously, be deviant and need intervention.
Computer power buttons have been software since the 90s. The difference is that it was not only controlled by the OS.
I once had a laptop with a "touchscreen" for volumn, power, etc and within a year that shit the bed. Never went back to anything that remotely looked like a touchscreen keyboard.
1. Apricot did the "Small display integrated with keyboard" thing with a bunch of their MS DOS machines in the 1980s. You could use it as a calculator, and apps could address it directly. It was a good idea, but the lack of it on the PC meant they quietly dropped the feature when they switched to making PC clones.
2. So they're losing Esc, but they're keeping the Caps Lock key? Even Google has the design sense to lose that.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Escape makes for a terrible Escape key. I encourage everyone to map their Caps Lock key to Escape, especially if you're a vim user.
For Windows, I installed AutoHotKeys to do the mapping. For Mac, the capability is built in. Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys -> Caps Lock to Escape. Linux kind of depends on your window manager. I assume you're smart enough to figure it out.
nOOOOO mAKE iT sTOP1111
Not defending Apple. Can't stand to use them myself. Can barely stand Windows most days but that's because I like knowing what's going on under the hood. I understand what those little things mean and how to use them to my advantage to make my work easier. That's not the case for everyone.
It's well past time for UI to have different modes. Have one that's for ease of use. Have another for power and expert users. It's not a matter of safety. It's a matter of different use cases. I am hobbled with certain files hidden from the UI. I am hobbled when I have to constantly confirm dialogs that shouldn't have needed confirmation. I'm looking at you, Excel. Yes, I wanted that file in a comma delimited format. Yes I want to quit because I already saved and told you I didn't want to change the format last time. Yes I am certain that I want to quit my quitting and not change the format.
(sarcasm warning) You forgot to shout BENGHAZI, but nice try lol
That requires the use of an old thing they once called the 'keyboard.' The new way is to use 7 fingers and swipe across at a 76 degree angle for 11 cm to initiate the refresh gesture on your full-sized itouch pad.
Apple listened to consumer concerns that complained that escape key had negative connotations and often triggered traumatic memories of entrapment and escape and male dominance. Therefore, to show its progressive stance ESC and Power keys were permanently removed. Instead, they were replaced with a single Sympathy key that does nothing.
Well, since Apple seems insistent about removing important keys from the keyboard, why not go all the way?
http://www.theonion.com/video/...
Last year I shopped for a new dev machine (laptop). I decided to be open minded and consider the latest Macbooks as well. There were a few things that completely ruled them out for me, one of the biggest being that the keyboard did not have Home, End, PgUp and PgDn. I realize that there are chording / key combinations to do some of those things, but I already use numerous key combinations with those keys (like navigating to the end of a line vs the end of a document, selecting from the cursor to the end of the document, etc). Any laptop that does not include those 4 keys are totally out of the question for me for development use. Removing the ESC key is obviously, in my mind, yet another step in the wrong direction.
The ironic thing is Macs are pushed as productivity machines for professionals. That is one of the reasons they are supposed to fetch a premium price is because they aren't just "home" machines for the masses. Which makes the stupidity even worse because professionals use advanced tools that use keyboards for more than just typing words.
In case anyone wondered, the other primary hardware issue that eliminated the Macbook was the lack of a touchscreen (necessary for web development these days to debug and test touch interfaces to be consumed on mobile devices).
Better known as 318230.
It seems in the mad rush to monetize everything and everyone developers and designers have been forced to foreswear anything resembling common sense.
As we have seen over the decades, Microsoft slowly but surely hid basic functionality from the user through every iteration of its operating system. I have a W95 machine where I can get to things faster than I can on my W7 machine, and substantially faster than on my dad's W10 machine.
For its part Apple has liked to see itself at the vanguard of elegant computing, specifically the design of a computer. As we are all aware, nothing is let out the door of Apple which hasn't been dissected to the nth degree.
While its operating system works, its flaws and quirks are just as numerous and like Microsoft, with each iteration they further disassociate the person from the OS, thinking they are making things easier. As the decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone showed, nothing is simpler when you remove basic functionality.
Now comes their latest foray into the schizzle: no ESC key or power button. Nothing physical at least. Only some vague, wispy area to touch which one hopes will do what they want but will, as time and experience has shown, fail at every given opportunity.
As the last two stalwarts slug it out for eyeballs, Linux plods along, years behind in functionality but always with the same mantra, "This year will be the year of Linux on the desktop!", as if saying the same thing over and over will make it true. Sorry, you are not Dorothy and you do not have a pair of red shoes.
We arrive now at the beginning of the end for computing. Where once people could do what they wanted with what they purchased, where getting something done was held above what shade of font to place against a white background, now we must overcome the need to show how clever we are through our brilliance of design which lacks anything resembling ease of use.
Within the next decade we will see how our vain attempts to design the most perfect machine will thwart the progress we so ruefully wish for. As is always the case, the more complicated a machine the more easily its performance can be degraded through simple acts. As the most recent attacks on high profile web sites have shown, thanks to the very technologies we claim will make our lives easier, we are now progressing to an age where we have made it much easier for those who wish to subvert or destroy that which is built.
All because developers and designers are more interested in eye candy than functionality, reliability and simplicity.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ctrl-alt-del is really there to lock your screen, log in, change password, change user and maybe start the task manager.
Oh wait, you're not on domain-joined machine?
Even when I not use vi, I hit ESC at lesst a hundret times a day ...
Does mot really make sense to get rid of a key that is used by professionals all around the clock.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It feels like Apple just missed being able to be the king of platforms for network admins too.
Just as they got their OS truly ready for Linux and UNIX users to jump-in, they removed some of the page navigation keys. Many users put up with it anyway. Then they started downsizing on the ports. Many users put up with that too even when they had to now use a dongle to connect to a friggin' Ethernet jack.
Now they're getting rid of the vast majority of physical ports, so no more console access, and they're now cutting-bone, not merely flesh, by removing the Escape key, a key used all the damn time by a lot of us.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Media outlets covering rumors? Well it must be true then. /s
More than that. Anyone who uses their laptop to SSH to a *nix server will need ESC for vi. Yeah, it could be added to the ribbon, but muscle memory means many people will keep hitting `
Mac allows keep remapping, yeah?
You either have a hardware problem or you're installing OSes too soon after they are released. I generally avoid installing 10.x.0 and 10.x.1 for all values of x, and I can count the number of freezes I've seen in the past fifteen years on one hand.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
A leak like this would have never happened if Steve Jobs were still alive!
I mean, except for the one time he was on the cover of Time magazine with the new iMac G4 the day before it launched. But other than that... never!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I like to use Windows Key + L to lock my computer.
As for the rest... yes my domain joined computers still do prefer I use the three fingered salute.
Does Windows 10 still require Ctrl-Alt-Del for domain login?
If this rumor is true, Apple will have succeeded in creating the ultimate in vendor lock-in because there will no longer be any way to escape from them once you've bought in.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Will the virtual power key still be able to power off the computer when held down if the OS is locked up? I cannot count the number of times iOS has locked up on me and I need a power off.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
On a Macbook (Pro, at least) the Esc key is on the same row as the function keys. The function key row is (ostensibly) being replaced with a touch bar and a oled display. So, it seems very clear that the Esc key will simply be part of that in the appropriate modes.
And, given it's Probably going to be right on the left hand side, it'll be easy to press by touch-typists, who just have to touch-locate the edge of that screen.
So... why all this drama?
Oh. Right.... Slashdot.
True, vi does still have it's place! :wq
Ctrl+Shift+Esc for instant task manager.
Oh wait esc keys aren't hip anymore. Never mind.
iOS ...
Android
PalmOS
Chromium
just dictate everything you want to write to Siri.
Apple could save a fortune and make truly cutting-edge laptops by eliminating the keyboard, the mouse, the screen, and do everything in the cloud. It's a virtual laptop!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
You also have to hold it there. Because no user experience is complete without a half-second delay on every possible bit of I/O.
just like other dumb shit like removing CMOS batteries in HP Stream "laptops".
police be upon them
Two funny!
Could be worse. My last job issued me a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon where the F-keys were on a touch LCD or e-ink bar. Said Lenovo had the tilde key moved under the enter key, and had no capslock key (instead, the page up/down buttons were moved to the capslock key's location.) Reach for the escape key, there go your F-keys until you tap that area again, due to it being the FN toggle.
I just hope Apple's offering isn't as bad... I really don't want to have to bring along a Bluetooth keyboard just so I can type without fumbling.
I had to do this a couple times this month so far. If the software locks up so badly that even the mouse won't work, then it's practically guaranteed that the new specialized touch enabled strip isn't going to work either. Of course, if they had user replaceable batteries you could just power the thing down that way, but no...
Mine freezes a lot. I think it's getting close to dying though as it's overheating a lot. Macbook is nice to use but really not designed for long term reliability, rather designed to be replaced often and generate profits.
I think one of the problems with Apple keyboards has been the ursurping of the function keys. I guess we don’t use function keys, but it took a little getting used to the fact that F3 doesn’t mean F3 unless you hold down the Fn key at the same time. And then every new Mac seems to change what the keys mean. If instead there were a row at the top of the keyboard that’s touch sensitive and which can change labels for all of those keys, that would actually make things a lot easier. Hold down Fn, and then all the labels change to F#. Leave Fn up, and they present whatever set of hotkeys you want to configure them to be! Sounds cool to me. Presumably, the left-most one will be Esc by default. Apple keeps adding features to Terminal.app, which I suspect is because their own developers use the terminal a lot, so that functionality doesn’t suffer bitrot but actually improves a little over time. I’m not sure what they’re going to do about the power button, but I was never bothered by the old style where there was a gray button flush with the chassis maybe they’ll bring that back.
Now, what I still think is crazy is the removal of the audio jack. That’s GOT to be getting Apple mountains of feedback from people complaining that they can’t listen and charge at the same time. We’ll see what impact that has when iPhone 8 comes out.
Ha! Why is this not modded funny?
Not exactly. They send a software signal, then after some time, they hard power off the system. Try pressing and holding it for a bit.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The ideal solution is a force sensitive keyboard. It has one key. What
character is generated depends on how hard you hit it. You could add vectors to it for unicode, too!
I'm a genius. I expect a recruiting call from Apple by tomorrow!
Oh right. Thank You. If you don't hold it there for 0.5 seconds, that gesture opens Claris Works.
Best not to get those two confused!
> Now if Linux laptops were more ubiquitous
This is the era of Google. If you're something more than a total sheep consumer, there's really no excuse for you to be unaware of where you can get more interesting products.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
CTRL-ALT-DEL is really used more in DOS than it is in Windows. The only time you use it is at login (if enforced by group policy), or maybe to bring up task manager, and there are other ways to do that too.
What's funny is that Microsoft ADDS keys to a standard keyboard, and Apple wants to take them away!
Right. And that mechanism is handled via some kind of software in a chip somewhere on the board. Rather than a physical switch yanking the power.
We could just dig up Steve and prop him up in the CEOs office. Probably will do a better job and give a big boost to the stock price at the same time.
Not sure if too soon or not. So anonymouse.
The geniuses at Apple all work in retail at the Apple Stores. They are the ones who reported back about the common problem of lint buildup in the headphone jack. Thank goodness their suggestions got through to the non-genius employees at Headquarters.
You must be a Linux guy.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Ctrl-E goes to the end of the line, Ctrl-A to the beginning. Thank you Emacs.
Shift-Command-DownArrow Selects from the current cursor position to the end of the document... Shift-DownArrow adds to the selection a line at a time.
I've never missed any of the keys you mention as a developer, because the Mac has a number of keyboard modifiers (ctrl-option-command-shift) and they almost always do an excellent and intuitive job being stacked. I cannot think of anything the four keys you mentioned do that I cannot do easily with keystroke commands, and on OS X almost any document dealing with text will have those keystrokes work the same way.
The ironic thing is Macs are pushed as productivity machines for professionals.
Hey Alanis, thats not ironic - they are far more useful systems for professionals because between hardware and software they are more reliable and consistent.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I know you were joking but in Emacs the magic gateway to commands is M-x - which stands for meta-x. Yes Esc-x works, but you can also use Option-x in Aquamacs...
Sadly it seems like the terminal version of Emacs does rely only on Esc to get to M-x, Option-x inserts some special character. I hope they fix that default but it can be re-bound as needed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Right. And that mechanism is handled via some kind of software in a chip somewhere on the board. Rather than a physical switch yanking the power.
Well, conventionally that sort of thing is referred to as firmware. First press is all software: it notifies the OS and the OS can do what it likes. Long press is handled by some embedded mechanism and then cuts the power.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What is the obsession with removing functionality?
What is the obsession with claiming something has been removed, when a million new things in a superset have replaced them...
They are taking away the top row on function keys (and Esc) and in return giving you an INFINITE NUMBER OF POSSIBLE KEYS. How is that less???
Many apps never need Esc so why would it matter if it is gone? Presumably when the desktop is up or any key that needs esc, it would present that opinion in the standard location.
None of this is being done because of aesthetic reasons, it's for improving control of software. Being older you should appreciate this!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No... that mechanism is handled via circuitry in the power supply. No software is involved unless you suggest that the switching action of transistors is caused by software.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Alt (or Option on some keyboard) is functionally the same as Meta in the modern context (though yes I know there used to be keyboards with a real Meta key).
Even Windows keyboards still have Alt...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
'Editor's note: We usually tend to avoid covering leaks and rumors"
and yet there's a climate change article almost weekly...
Not "almost weekly" but climate change != leaks nor rumors.
le sigh
Indeed.
Remember, taking stuff away is marketed as "courage."
Courage!
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Only some vague, wispy area to touch which one hopes will do what they want but will, as time and experience has shown, fail at every given opportunity.
Actually what experience has shown is that Apple gets Touch right, every time.
For years Apple has the only laptop trackpad I could stand using.
For years now Apple has made touch the singular way people interact with mobile devices - one that work at every opportunity, not fail...
Apple has also been doing an excellent job of integrating haptic feedback with touch, on both the Apple Watch and newer trackpads along with the iPhone.
So all signs point to a haptic-feedback touch bar with great responsiveness and accuracy... certainly not the grim picture you paint.
I personally am really looking forward to having function keys I never used replaced by clean commands in most apps I certainly will use. It's like gaining an extra row of keys, not losing anything.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I wholeheartedly agree. I've been a Mac user for a decade, and I bought my first Mac (a Core Duo MacBook) because of its well-polished Unix operating system out of the box. I loved my MacBook. Its RAM and hard disk were easily accessible and upgradeable; I originally bought mine with 512 MB RAM and upgraded it to 2GB a few years later. I also upgraded its hard drive twice; once to expand its capacity, and again when that drive failed.
Unfortunately for me and many other power users, sometime after the iPhone came out and became successful, Apple started changing from a computer company to a consumer electronics company, and with this transition Apple started actively making decisions that have been frustrating to us power users. Upgrade cycles have become very lengthy, and Macs have also increasingly become difficult, if not impossible, to upgrade to the point that even the Mac Mini featured soldered components. I thought about switching back to PCs in 2013 when my MacBook was long in the tooth, but I didn't want to move to Linux or Windows 8, so I held my nose and bought a MacBook Air, making sure to max out on RAM and get more storage than the default.
Now I'm facing the same decision given that my MacBook Air's AppleCare expired recently and I'm due for another laptop upgrade. On one hand, I still believe OS X is the best desktop operating system out there. Linux, in my opinion, is still rather inconvenient at times, and I find Windows an annoying operating system to use. On the other hand, Apple has shown repeatedly over the past four years or so that it doesn't care about power users and other highly-technical users. Based on what's being leaked, this upcoming keynote appears to be my final straw with Apple. What's the point of having a wonderful desktop OS if the hardware you're forced to use is dumbed-down, compromised, and non-upgradeable?
It would be nice if either Apple offered licenses to run OS X on non-Mac hardware or if a team would work on a Linux desktop that meets the needs of disaffected Mac power users. But I'm no longer going to wait for Apple to change direction and release my dream product: an updated 2006 MacBook or MacBook Pro.
XCode uses F-Keys,
Sure but all of those F-Keys will be back as clearer named keys on the touch bar. Which even better could change between editing source code vs. using IB vs CoreData modeling tool... nothing like a key to shift bounding boxes to match constraints!
I think that will lead to more use of the function row for me. I also use Xcode for most the day, and I have to say I have never used the F keys at all because I simply have never taken the time to understand what they are mapped to - I use a lot of other key-combos with Xcode, just not those keys.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just remap the right CMD as Meta, and live happily ever after.
For anywhere Esc makes sense, it would obviously still be present, just not a "real" key (though that does not mean no feedback when pressed).
However I think it's absurd to say chording is not ergonomic, there is no twisting involved to use Shift with other keys to do selection, or to hit Ctrl-A to move to the start of the line. In fact if anything your hand benefits from mild occasional stretching.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well there goes my caps lock key. ;-)
THERE IS NO ESCAPE!!!
Perfectly timed
Every keyboard I used at university had a different layout. Whichever it was, be it a 80386 PC, Amstrad PC1640, Mac, Sun SPARC, SGI, dumb terminal, every one had the tilde key in a different place. Then I went home and my own had it somewhere different again. Drove me nuts.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Does Windows 10 still require Ctrl-Alt-Del for domain login?
No
He's just a space cadet, temporarily lost in time.
Yes, I will suggest that the switching action of transistors is caused by software. And, further, that software is caused by the switching action of transistors.
When you hold down the power key, some firmware somewhere, in a little microcontroller, starts a timer. When that timer expires, that firmware causes a transistor to be switched, which then cuts the power. It doesn't cut the power from everything, of course, since that same microcontroller is the one that causes the 'on switch' to actually turn the power back on again.
There's even a microcontroller in the charger, that's responsible for controlling current, and presumably for turning that LED orange or green, or whatever. It's an MSP430, so let's assume that they've got an MSP430 looking after the power button too. Some MSP430's have built-in touch controllers, and since they run in sleep mode on nanoamps, it's safe to keep them "on", and waiting for the power button to be touched.
Clean the fans out. The only macbook that I ever had that actually died was one of those older ones with the little catches the popped out of the screen when you closed it. Real ancient. The newer ones seem pretty damn reliable to me.
You expect a touch-based, contextual menu display bar to maintain functionality for the long haul?
Brave man, you are.
How am I going to press F5 while trying to buy Google IO tickets?
Simple. Just switch to the Magic Toolbar "set" that has the F-keys (and likely the ESC Key) and press away!
Sheesh! You people absolutely bend-over-backwards to concoct ridiculous scenarios. Of COURSE the Magic Toolbar (hey, I didn't name it!) will have ESC and F-Keys as one or more of the Default "Sets".
Absolutely nothing. You would obviously just remove and re-insert the battery. But when they start making the battery non-replaceable (they haven't stooped *that* low yet... have they?), then you'll be shit out of luck.
My PCs have real, no-nonsense power switches in addition to the soft button. When the AI takes over, I'll be ready!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Apple is just preparing people for their next generation Macbook Wheel.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Or, they might start to use nano instead....
Crazy people.
To clarify, it requires hitting enter.
Unless you hit enter first, then sometimes it requires a mouse click.
But if you click the mouse first, sometimes you have to hit enter.
Occasionally, after banging both the mouse and the enter key without result, you can fall back on Ctrl-Alt-Del to get it to snap out of it.
Am I the only one that has this problem?
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
and if no one to pick them it will be easy just bypass it.
Now let's make mac os DLC based.
What, you guys don't like nano?
I kid, I kid... I have to "apt-get purge nano" on new installs too...
Log in or piss off.
The issue is the physical escape key. The key's form and feel are important for muscle memory. You shouldn't need to look down to press any key on the keyboard but this strip is going to encourage just that. System admins tend to stay on the keyboard more using shortcuts so things like a physical escape key are important.
They have finally solved where to put the "Any" key that people new to computers look for.
I wonder how long how long it will take for the first developer to add something to their app that will require the user to press the "Any" key and they will clear the top row and have an "Any" key present.
It is irrelevant, long power press has never failed me, were software shutdown, or system hanging, so I cannot do a shutdown has, pair that with a possibly non-removable battery then your computer is useless until your battery goes flat.
It's being blamed on fewer sales of the iPhone, with iPhone sales down 5%.
I wonder how much these new hardware changes will affect sales of their computers.
It must be courage, because it's certainly not logic.
Just because it doesn't have a dedicated power button doesn't mean it relies on the OS to power off. Even smart phones have button combo's that will bypass the OS and power the device off. This is probably no different.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Is there really a key on that keyboard that says "Rubout"? Does that bind directly to youporn?
I had to do this a couple times this month so far. If the software locks up so badly that even the mouse won't work, then it's practically guaranteed that the new specialized touch enabled strip isn't going to work either. Of course, if they had user replaceable batteries you could just power the thing down that way, but no...
So either they use a key-combo to bypass the OS for power (iPhones do this, for example, if you press-hold the home and power button on the rare occasions that one locks up) or the touch strip isn't run by the OS, but is running it's own mini-os and dedicated hardware.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I find Esc too difficult to type frequently as a vim user. I remapped jk to Esc a while ago now. http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoi...
It's just a physical manifestation of Apple's driving philosophy: users should have no power, and no means of escape.
Someone had to do it.
the ultimate linux-based software development laptop now
I run Debian Jessie on a Thinkpad T440p, it works great. I think Thinkpads are good for Linux in general.
I'm writing this from my Macbook Pro, and it is one of the best machines in my home for lightweight work, remote terminal, and web browsing. The keyboard was not perfect, but the trackpad is years ahead of competition. The screen resolution was nice, and it hooked up to my desktop display for longer work session. I was expecting a new refresh with a better processor, larger SSD, and keeping everything else the same. But Apple seems to forget the good parts, and tries to bring in unnecessary "improvements".
It looks like I'm no longer the target customer for the new device. If rumors are true, it will remove full size USB ports, along with the headset jack, replace the physical keyboard with a touch abomination, and turn it into a "not so tablet" experience. If I wanted to use a tablet, we also have a Surface Pro, and it works well. However writing code, editing documents require a simple device, which happened to be my current MBP.
The issue is the physical escape key. The key's form and feel are important for muscle memory. You shouldn't need to look down to press any key on the keyboard but this strip is going to encourage just that. System admins tend to stay on the keyboard more using shortcuts so things like a physical escape key are important.
Muscle memory is more about everything OTHER than feeling a physical key top. It's much more about arm reach, wrist rotation and finger-spread. Sure, a concave key top kind of helps your fingertip kind of " settle-into" the key-center; but as far as getting your hand and fingers OVER that key top has NOTHING to do with said key top (unless you look).
Think about another kind of "keyboarding" skill: Musical keyboards. I don't know if you know how to play any keyboarded instruments, but I do. And I can tell you that if what I am saying wasn't true, it would be significantly harder, if not impossible, to attain any reasonable proficiency at playing same, especially when having your vision otherwise occupied reading musical notation.
Does it help that the key depresses when you strike it? Undoubtedly; but if that was all there was to "muscle memory", how would that help your arms, hands, and fingers get to the right keys to strike them in the first place? This is especially true of something like an 88-key piano. The angles of your arms, rotation of your hands, and "presentation" of your fingers varies drastically from one end of the keyboard to the other, and yet a good pianist can strike any key blindfolded. And remember, when playing live music, ther ISN'T a handy Backspace key or Undo!!! But I submit that level if positional accuracy would likely still be true even if the keys were painted on a piece of glass; so long as the "key top" images were the standard size and shape, and the overall dimensions were also per AGO standards.
And so it will be with a touch-screen ESC key: So long as it stays in one place, your brain will soon map the "servo positions" necessary to hut the target, with or without a key. Otherwise, you wouldn't see legions of vaccuous teenagers being able to text on touchscreen keyboards at their typical 50 WPM.
How many customers asked for keys to be deleted? My guess is ZERO. And then we have the one port USB-C debacle of this year's MacBook. Soldered memory? No thanks.
I am the customer, and the customer is always right. If you don't want to offer me the products I want, I'll find someone who does.
Apple is going back to the bad-old-days, repeating the mistakes that got Steve Jobs fired.
Don't need any keys if you cannot turn it on.
It was a great success! The father went to jail and they threatened to deport the mom; last I heard, the kids are in some pop-metal band still trying to get on TV. And all of that was a better conceived plan than removing the ESC key...
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
No. no firmware is involved any more than firmware is involved in making current conduct in only one direction in a diode. Yes pressing the power button sends a signal but this signal is connected via raw transistor logic. No firmware is involved at all
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
the ESC key still exists. one can keep using vim (and if you real vim, you can remap your keys).
in the way that i use my macbook, i have a main larger monitor + cherry keyswitch keyboard — with real spring keyswitches. waaay better for typing then any laptop keyboard (although typing on the new mac butterfly keyboard is quite good, as far as laptop keyboards go).
when im at home and coding — i'm on my main screen + good keyboard all the time, and the macbook is off to the side.
when i'm on the road — i still have an ESC key that works. i've lost nothing.
your usage patterns may vary — if you're a heavy vi user that is never at home/office and only work and only use vim, then it may not be the machine for you.
2cents
hey guys, move over..
Oh... I forgot to mention... the delay could actually caused by a capacitor, the controlled time it takes to charge being determined by the value of a resistor in series with it. There are any number of resistor-capacitor combinations that you could use to achieve a three second delay, and I would expect that it might vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, or be determined by product availability. Once the capacitor has a sufficient charge, it exceeds the ttl threshold of a "high" signal. which is then relayed through a pair of transistors with a secondary RC network that actually turn the power supply off. I've built one of these in my electronics class that I took in university in the 1990's, and although the one that I built was not specifically for PC's, there's no reason that PC's would use something any different. It's cheap, easy, and has virtually zero possibility of failure.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
They've kill Esc and power keys along with F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11 AND F12.
Courage at its maximum.
How? Just blow into those really tiny slots on the side?
*Campy Russian voice* Da! A good KGB keyboard!
Do you mean Cmd-C/Cmd-V? (copy / paste)
For me I use my thumb on Cmd, and the same finger (pointer) for C and V. But then I don't really adhere to home row positioning when typing either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now you might be implying that abruptly powering off Windows would corrupt the file system, but that kind of wrong thinking belongs in another decade. Windows has used self-repairing journaled file systems for 15 years. Journaled file systems for Linux entered common use in the same year, and you don't think twice about what happens to the file system on your Linux box or Android phone when it loses power.
Well, yes, I do. Every day. For a living.
File system journals (and fsck) help maintain file system integrity, not file integrity nor medium integrity. It's only the middle layer.
If a program has only written half the data to the OS drivers by the time power goes, and those writes are replayed from the journal upon boot, you have a working file system but a corrupt file. I much prefer to be able to signal the apps to complete their output and shut down gracefully.
Likewise, cutting the power during a physical write can cause all sorts of problems, especially on media where the controller lies about whether a write is finished in order to improve write speeds. That includes most consumer hard drives and removable media. The OS removes the write from the journal as committed, while in reality it's still being handled by the hardware. Unless you have a hardware disk controller with battery backup, and turn write caching off on the physical media, this is a very real cause of corruption for power outages, and one a journal can do nothing about.
You mention Android phones. With microSD cards, where there generally is no way to disable caching, the problem is so bad that most phones make it incredibly hard to not do a controlled shutdown. But find that hidden reset switch in your phone, and hit it a few times during operation, and you will likely have corruptions, despite journaled file systems.
Incidentally, the use of non-enterprise journaled file systems is an exploit vector for intruders. If they can find a way to reset the system, and the journal replay helpfully makes valid files out of half-written temporary files, there can be a wealth of information there that shouldn't have been accessible. Good enterprise file systems like JFS and XFS will err on the side of caution and zero files that were read locked and partially written (causing a lot of complaints from those who don't understand why), while more commonly used file systems err on the side of retaining data over security.
My god, it's coming true...soon there will be just One Big Button on Macs that you'll press repeatedly to cycle through the alphabet. All hail the Apple Keywheel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Next up- they'll remove the power jack so you have to send it in once a week for a $99 "AppleCharge" service to refresh the battery.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Somebody told me it's next the headphone jack.
That's one way to boost the sales of the previous generation MBPs. :-) I, personally, won't buy a computer which doesn't have an Esc key. I find that key useful.
Tilde: "Yay more space for us!"
Accent Grave: "Now that they evicted that deadbeat ESC, we can build that second story and get a nice view of the speakers."
Caps Lock: "Both of you useless characters will do my bidding, or you're next for the 'OLED' graveyard"
Tilde: "Says who? You don't manage the keyboard layout."
Caps Lock: "Yeah, but I got incriminating photos of Tim Cook. How do you think I managed to stick around so long?
Am I the only one that has this problem?
Yes.
As somebody who actually uses ESC in the way it was defined on most GUIs from the 1990-2010, namely "stop this input without commiting the change", I find that sad.
However I came to recognize that the current UI designers seems to like "forwards" and "backwards" pre-defined sequences of things to endure by the user. And so they killed the meanding of the ESC Key in the same way as they already started to make UIs which do not use system/framework element just to look a little better (supposedly) and drop the meaning of the PGUP and PGDOWN key.
The solution is very simple: use a keymapper. I map my Caps Lock to Escape. I use Karabiner for macOS. And better yet, recently the Japanese developer Takayama Fumihiko open sourced it: https://github.com/tekezo/Kara...
For many years, he has been maintaining Karabiner, and with every update to OS X/macOS, he was ready with a new version to support the new OS. It's astounding, really. Every year, I donate because it's worth it to me: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner...
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
That's exactly how I added a hard reset to my RF key fob controlled Arduino light controller. One of the buttons was used to charge a capacitor which then pulled down the reset pin.
No software needed (or at least no software I wrote). The PT2272 did the hard RF work.
so no more blind typing, this adjustable key-bar at the top will have keys displayed depending on the app, so you will have to look each time what it's displaying now, instead of just knowing where the key will be (because it has always been there).
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Geez... WTF is Apple up to these days?
As much sense as some changes have made, there's been a consistent movement toward a bland homogenized, minimalistic product line.
First they take the Mac Pro and turn it into a weird little trash can that can't be expanded internally. No more jamming the bays full of big, fast drives, no more expansion or video card upgrades. The result? I either keep using my aging 2009 Mac Pro or build a hackintosh.
Then they take the MacBook Pro and take away the ability to upgrade RAM/Hard drive or do your own maintenance. The iMac is going the same way now.
Then they take away the freaking headphone jack from their phone, which many people still need. Yes, I can spend more money to work around that issue, but I shouldn't have to.
Now, the brainiacs at Apple are talking about nuking the escape key? I'm a Unix admin. I use a Mac to access my Linux server farm and pretty much live on the command line. All of my scripting is done with vi and the escape key is essential.
As much as I love using Macs, I'm getting fed up with their "have it our way" attitude. They're following in the footsteps of AOL and Blackberry with their idiotic hubris.
Ever since Jobs died, Apple has been coasting. There have been no positive innovations, just variations on a theme that ended when Steve died.
No one's come up with anything good, so they decide to shake things up by making user unfriendly changes "just because".
Hint to Apple: There will be NO third coming of Steve to drag your asses out of trouble. I've already dumped 90% of my Apple stock. It's grossly overvalued and when the current asset bubble burst, the value will be in the toilet.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Of course, this change makes using vi damn near impossible
And what is the downside? ;-)
When I coded a lot for a living, I rigged up a a foot pedal for esc.
It was bad-ass.
Probably much easier now with Bluetooth.
..don't panic
Let me preface this saying that I can't stand macs and find them abysmal to use...
This is clickbait journalism. They may be killing the physical key, but it's fairly obvious that they have a touch-bar above the number row. Chances are the ESC key is that e-ink looking 'cancel' button above the 1 key in the picture. If not, it'll be mappable and forceable to that bar.
Now, if this was the full keyboard I'd be up in arms because tactile feedback is extremely important when typing on a computer, but its the topmost corner position on the keyboard that's isolated from other keys. If they reserve 2 inches on the top left of the touchbar for it, it wouldn't heavily effect the ability handle the muscle memory aspect.
So, is holding the button down for more than one second implemented by charging a capacitor until it reaches a certain voltage, and triggering the shutdown that way? That seems extremely unlikely.
Possibly this might entail removing some screws.
Actually, that is almost certainly how it is done... it is by far the cheapest and most reliable way to implement a switch when you want to have a timer on how long it is held.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Just out of curiosity because I've never had a Mac and I've been using Linux for many years. I understand from a consumer point of view that a Mac is simply more integrated and beautiful so it attracts more standard users than Linux might but for a power user which uses Mac, what are those needs that any Linux desktop should meet for you and that they don't right now?
I'm waiting for someone to make the ultimate linux-based software development laptop now.
I have a Dell XPS 13 with a 4k (close but not really) screen. It runs Linux flawlessly without any need for proprietary drivers. The screen resolution is claimed to be 4k but it is actually not quite 4k. Still, it is a fairly high resolution screen, MUCH better than 1920x1080.
What more do you need? Pure open source software stack from top to bottom, high resolution screen, reasonable keyboard for a laptop, lightweight, great battery life etc etc etc.
The 15 inch screen version may be more your style but short of playing games (intel graphics), it should be everything you need in a development laptop. I am currently running Linux Mint Cinnamon on it but you can use your distro of choice. CentOS, Slackware, and Arch have all been on the laptop.
Oh. They also offer a Linux developers version of the laptop that comes with Ubuntu shipped on it.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
The Apple event shows a touch bar that, by default, has a button labeled "esc" on the left-hand edge, although, as I commented elsewhere, it's a little bit to the right of where the "esc" key is now - i.e., not directly above the {~ `} key - which, as I said, could interfere with muscle memory.
For real?
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the power button on a macbook pro is managed by this chip. In actual fact, the power button is part of the keyboard itself, on the macbook air it's not even a separate-looking button, it's just another key. Since the microcontroller part is on the board already, and in addition to the capacitor you'd also need a voltage reference, a comparator, a discharge circuit (for when the power button is released), etcetera, do you really believe that a hardware designer is going to bother with any of those parts when it can be done in firmware for zero board cost?
Reliability-wise, if the SMSC chip dies, or contains broken firmware, there would be little point in being able to "turn the laptop off" - which as we know doesn't really mean 'off', since power will still be being provided to that chip, but anyway - since the laptop would be completely dead.
No, no, and no.
TTL logic is high or low. There is no in-between, so you do not need a voltage reference or comparator to know when the appropriate charging point is reached. Using known values of resistance and capacitance, you can manually calculate how long it will take for a given capacitor in series with a given resistance to charge enough to get to what would be recognized as a TTL high signal. Quantum fluctuations may result in changes to this value on the order of picoseconds to the actual timing, but this is an on-off switch we are talking about, so such tiny variances will not generally affect any real-world use case. Further, being a few picoseconds off is still better than the nanosecond or worse granularity that you'd typically achieve doing it in firmware.
Discharging the capacitor after power is cut can be accomplished via a pull-down resistor to ground... so unless you consider one resistor a "circuit", no discharge circuit is required.
Even without buying the parts in bulk, the parts for this are ridiculously and ubiquitous.
The microcontroller on the main board has plenty of other things to do, and tying it up dealing with some firmware logic for powering down would be wasteful in terms of power usage, at least. The most sane thing for it to do would be to send a signal to the power off circuitry built into the power supply.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I feel like I must have been only semi-conscious when I typed "quantum fluctuations"... Too much star trek or something.
While the variances in exactly what levels are taken as TTL high vs low (and indeed the function of all semiconductors) are indeed caused by quantum-level effects, "quantum fluctuations" is a specific term in physics that is not really directly connected to why those variations occur. The term that I meant to type was quantum-level effects, not quantum fluctuations.
Also, I meant that the parts for this are ubiquitously *CHEAP* and ubiquitous.
Hmmm.... I thought I saw one other thing there that made me grossly ashamed to have posted it (oh, for a delete post or edit post button), but I don't see it right now.
My point remains... while doing this with a microcontroller executing firmware instructions or even microcode is certainly possible, it would not generally be very practical. While I've described the circuitry involved in terms of simple TTL components, this could easily be printed onto silicon as part of an IC package that may do many other things (and could even be a part of a microntroller IC), but even then, it would still not be firmware managing the power off button.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Too much star trek or something.
I disagree. This is not possible.
I don't know man, it just seems to me that doing it in firmware costs zero (yes, yes, I know software isn't free, but you know what I mean). Whereas doing it with parts, costs non-zero. I happen to work with hardware designers and firmware engineers, and they argue over cents, and square mm of board area. There is simply no way that they would waste parts and board space when the same job can be done with a few lines of code in a microcontroller that's already on the board. Have you seen the size of the board in the latest macbooks? How about in the iphone, or the ipod touch? It's bonkers. Square millimeters count. And, of course, there is no reliability issue. If that microcontroller crashes (!!) or isn't working in some other way, then your entire PC is dead, and being unable to use the power button to turn it off (or on) is a moot point. Nothing's ever actually off these days anyway, it just doesn't need to be. My most recent project used a single pushbutton to turn on and off, and of course, I did that in software. A timer when you hold the button down, driven by interrupts, and a sleep mode that waits for a falling edge on the button, with an internal pullup. Parts count, one, the button itself. Debouncing in software. I even got the pullup resistor for free, since it's just a matter of setting a register inside the chip. When the chip wakes up, it turns on a step-up DC converter in order to power the rest of the board, which would be much harder to achieve with discrete logic, and a timing capacitor, and so-on. Power usage when "off", 9 nanoamps. That's less than the internal leakage of the batteries. You just can't get that with discrete components.
Added to which is the fact that you can fiddle around with the software right up until you ship (well.... ish...), but if you decide that you need a different timing for your power switch, or different behaviour altogether, you're probably looking at a board revision. And no-one likes those.
this could easily be printed onto silicon as part of an IC package that may do many other things
Capacitors on ICs are of the order of picofarads, and cost quite alot of package space. No-one is using them for timing.