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

dead keys here too

[umafuckit]

I'd noticed this happening from time to time on my MBP but hadn't searched to see if the problem was widespread. Typically a key becomes dead for few strikes before coming back to life. Happens once every few weeks.

Re:Dust is the least problem

[berj]

Agreed completely. I didn't think I'd like this keyboard at all. I *loved* the previous generation. Then my wife bought one of the new Macbooks. I tried the keyboard and was surprised at how much I liked it. I went to the store to try one of the MBP keyboards since it's a little different (more key travel mainly). Typed on it for 10 or 15 minutes. Completely converted. I didn't buy one for a while after that but I was confident in my choice when the time came.

Now when I type on an old style keyboard I'm the same as you. I find it squishy and messy by comparison. Though it's still miles better than any other keyboard I've tried.

Apple Keyboards

[JediJorgie]

They still call the *Backspace* key *Delete* so they obviously don't care about keyboards. :)

Re:this is Apple

[slashingweapon]

You actually do have an escape key, but now it's on the weird LED touch bar. I never realized how often I touched the esc key without actually pressing it until I got a new MacBook. Apparently I use it to orient my hands when finding the number keys, a habit I now have to break.

I disliked the keyboard at first, but after a week it felt natural. I hated the new track pad because it gave me a lot of trouble not detecting "right clicks", but it loosened up and now we're friends again.

I'm still not fond of the touch bar. I'm a touch typist, and as far as I'm concerned that space is supposed to be part of the keyboard and it shouldn't change or move around when I'm not looking (which is always). I also want those darn kids to turn down their music and stay off my grass.

This is bullshit

[joh]

Only the MBP with the touchbar has no "real" escape key, but a touchscreen one. If you don't like it go the the keyboard preferences and set your capslock key to be the escape key. Or buy the other which has a real escape key.

The problem with this keyboard is the fact that it is utterly unreliable. Otherwise it's totally fine and people would long have stopped talking about it at all just as they stopped talking about the chiclet keyboard in the older Macbooks. But you can't start to love a keyboard that stops working every three months and has to repaired by exchanging the upper half of the case for $400 (once it is out of warranty). In the contrary you will start to fear and hate every little bit of it.

Apple just screwed up here and then didn't notice or didn't want to double down and fix it. And this is not just a "you're holding it wrong" thing, it's a real, hard, ugly screw-up and it will come to haunt them. Nobody in his right mind should buy a $2000 laptop that is a write-off after the warranty runs out.

Re:Apple Still Has The Culture Of Steve Jobs

[BronsCon]

You can spellcheck code? You see, I am a developer, and I happen to know that the dictionary doesn't contain even a small percentage off the identiffiers, ffunction names, and variables I use on a regular basis, so a spellchecker would be utterly ffucking useless. More to the point, I shouldn't have to rely on a spell checker to ffix hardware design fflaw in a $2000 computer.

It sickens me that people deffend this as though it's the user's ffault. I can't tell you how dust got under my ff key; I don't eat at this computer and I have a silicone membrane over the keyboard; iff anything, I'd expect dust to have worked its way under one of the outer keys, but not one in the middle row. And yes, I normally correct the double ff's myselff, but I'm not doing it here to make a point: when I can buy a $5 keyboard and not have to correct ffor its fflawed design, I sure as ffuck shouldn't have to correct ffor the design of the keyboard in my $2000 laptop. Period.

That said, going back through my posting history, I'm noticing a pattern. Most of my posts with typos were typed on Apple keyboards; I can easily pick out posts made ffrom one off my PCs, or using a non-Apple external keyboard on one off my Macs, because those posts will have no typos. Now I'm wondering how long Apple's keyboards have actually been the problem.