As More Users Complain About Poor Keyboard in Current MacBook Pro Lineup, Critics Say Apple Should Consider Recalling the Device (theoutline.com)

Last year, a report outlining what it described as a major flaw in Apple's current MacBook Pro lineup became a talking point in the industry. The issue was that a piece of dust could render keys on the MacBook Pro lineup useless, and that Apple had no idea how to fix it. Casey Johnston, writing for The Outline: MacBook Pro's keyboard keys stopped working if a single piece of dust slipped under there, and more importantly, that neither Apple nor its Geniuses would acknowledge that this was actually a problem. Today, Best Buy announced it is having a significant sale on these computers, marking them hundreds of dollars off. Interesting. Still, I'd suggest you do not buy them. Since I wrote about my experience, many have asked me what happened with the new top half of the computer that the Apple Geniuses installed, with its pristine keyboard and maybe-different key switches. The answer is that after a couple of months, I started to get temporarily dead keys for seemingly no reason. Again. Longtime widely respected commentator Jason Snell says, "I know that we Apple-watchers sit around wondering if Apple will release new laptops with new keyboards that don't have these issues, but Apple's relative silence on this issue for existing customers is deafening. If these problems are remotely as common as they seem to be, this is an altogether defective product that should be recalled."

Comments

I don't get the hate

[berj]

I've had mine for over a year (13" touchbar MBP).. and I don't baby this keyboard. It's fucking filthy.

I love the low key travel. I don't feel any strain in my fingers or wrists. It's *by* far the best laptop keyboard I've ever used. The previous winner was the previous style of MBP keyboards.

No stuck keys, no increase in typing errors. Just love it all around.

Now this isn't to say that people aren't having problems. I'm just adding my anecdote (and a few others who I know who have this same machine and love the keyboard) to the other anecdotes.

Re:this is Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually do have an escape key, but now it's on the weird LED touch bar.

That's not a key in the sense that a key is usually equated to some sort of mechanical switch. That's a capacitive button or touchpanel.

Apparently I use it to orient my hands when finding the number keys, a habit I now have to break.

Over yet another poor choice in Apple keyboard design. An aside; I still don't know why people don't consider the human input and output portion the most important design aspect of computers. Instead function follows form, when convenient, and when it doesn't infringe on marketing bulletpoints and specifications.

I disliked the keyboard at first, but after a week it felt natural.

This is frustrating to hear. Because, with other products, people will complain and maybe admit defeat and just get "used to it." But only Apple products transform the mind so much that people can completely ignore the flaws so much that they feel "natural," or otherwise have no problems with the device. Why do Apple products get a pass like this from Apple users but nothing else so universally gets the same treatment?

Re:this is Apple

[AmiMoJo]

This has been going on for 15+ years, well back into the Jobs era.

Remember the first unibody Macbooks that weren't really unibody? They were actually two bits of metal stuck together with glue... And the glue was right where the fans vented hot air, and under a lot of strain from the hinges pulling on it. Maybe you can remember what happened.

So they made the next generation a real unibody, but the hinges were made out of really thin flat metal. Most laptop hinges are an L shape for strength, but Apple must have wanted to shave 0.25mm off. The screws holding the LCD in were also too close to the edge so the hole itself tended to break after a while.

They had endless "logic board" problems too, which referred to a number of issues mostly around power delivery. The most common failure over about a decade of models was capacitor failure, because they under-specified the part again and again.

See, that's Apple's problem. They learn extremely slowly and they don't do proper testing. Other laptop manufacturers catch things like hinge failures because they test the lid opening and closing until it breaks. Okay, on the cheap ones they don't care, but a Lenovo or NEC ultrabook probably isn't going fall apart on you.