The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

https://ifixit.org/blog/10279/apple-macbook-keyboard-cover-up/

by shritesh • 8 years ago

406 170 8 years ago

ifixit.org

tcoff91• 8 years ago

I’m curious to know if the membrane improves the feel of the keys. I hate how the butterfly switches feel.

pier25• 8 years ago

Some articles say it feels a bit softer, but I doubt it will make much of a difference.

sillysaurus32• 8 years ago

My too-expensive 2015 MBP has a nonfunctional keyboard. I have to type using external keyboards, which is quite "fun". Apple wants $500.

Dragging an old $10 USB keyboard around with you makes you look like you really like mechanical keyboards.

It's been about a year and a half now. I guess you get used to it.

princekolt• 8 years ago

There is a service program to replace these keyboards for free. They are even refunding people who paid to get their keyboards fixed before the program launched. This is almost a non-issue at this point if you can use a replacement computer while they fix yours.

protomyth2• 8 years ago

So, if I send in my computer, does the replacement keyboard have a fix to keep it from breaking again?

fzzzy• 8 years ago

Not the 2015, only the butterfly keyboards.

wild_preference• 8 years ago

They don’t fix the keyboard. They only “reset” it which means you’ll have to bring it in again once it accumulates enough issues to make it worthwhile. My first key failed within one month. Eventually seven keys came off with ny fingers as I typed.

“Non-issue” is comical word choice.

alfalfasprout• 8 years ago

They switched to the butterfly keyboard in 2016. Apple fixed my 2016 MBP Touchbar for free. If you're having issues w/ a 2015 model that's unrelated to the issue the author and most others recently have referenced.

mleiphamellis• 8 years ago

Does Apple not still offer a $310 USD mail in flat rate for any repair not related to damage?

bootlooped• 8 years ago

Have you considered buying the keyboard module on eBay and doing it yourself?

fouc• 8 years ago

Why are you trying to feed the 'too expensive' meme?

nicolas_t2• 8 years ago

There's a way to pay a lot less. Ask apple to replace the battery, it costs $219 and because they have to replace the topcase when replacing the battery, you will get a new keyboard.

I was in the same situation and Apple also quoted me $500 until I asked to replace the battery.

akvadrako• 8 years ago

He's talking about an older model.

sillysaurus32• 8 years ago

This is an awesome tip. Thanks for the ray of hope. I'll look into it.

lou1306• 8 years ago

My early 2015 13'' MBP had the same problem, which is quite well-documented online. Have you tried replacing the keyboard cable? It's a ~€10 fix (say 20, if you don't have a pentalobe screwdriver) and there are lots of tutorials floating around on the web.

I agree that too-expensive machines shouldn't fail so badly, but so it goes.

phlyingpenguin• 8 years ago

I’m confused. Are we supposed to be bandwagon mad that Apple took steps to fix their busted keyboard?

paxys• 8 years ago

No, we're supposed to be mad because they still refuse to acknowledge that it was a real problem to begin with.

zaroth• 8 years ago

They did announced a repair program, is that not acknowledging the issue?

tbrock• 8 years ago

Who cares? I don’t want to argue on the internet but either take your laptop to get the keyboard replaced for free or... don’t.

I don’t get the rage about all this. Life is too short to care about a MacBook keyboard problem this passionately. It works pretty well and feels great to type on: the end.

skygazer4• 8 years ago

It only seems reasonable to be tongue-in-cheek mad. But, we, who hoped that the early reporting that Apple had done nothing to address the contaminent ingress issue may now be quietly relieved.

murukesh_s• 8 years ago

Perhaps because they never admitted there was an issue. Whoever bought the upgraded MacBook pros with the upgraded butterfly keyboard for the last 2-3 years are probably mad that they got a mediocre product advertised as superior. At least Apple should offer a keyboard replacement/fix program at a lower rate like they did with the iPhone battery.

Edit: Apple did announce a keyboard service program for affected users.

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

lancewiggs• 8 years ago

They fixed the keyboard, increased the max memory to 32GB and stuck to their guns on the touch bar - and that all seems reasonable to me. (I’m far more annoyed by Microsoft removing ESC as the dbox cancel key for errors in Excel than the disappearance of the ESC key)

handbanana4• 8 years ago

They didn't really fix it though, did they?

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

That’s the question raised here: Apple has said that they’ve made the keyboard “quieter”. The jury’s out on whether that was codewords for fixing the issue.

skygazer4• 8 years ago

This [0] from this morning was interesting. Apparently AppleInsider has been monitoring a number of Genius Bar and authorized service centers for warranty repairs of 2014 thru 2017 laptops. It seems 2016 MBPs had the most keyboard issues, and the 2017 version brought the claims back down to (and below) 2014/15 levels.

So, it might be reasonable to say they fixed it last year, in terms of prevalence of issues, although absurd cost to repair issue remains; combined with PR, probably explains this year's mod.

[0] https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/07/13/the-2018-macbook-...

npunt6• 8 years ago

That's literally the point of the article - the design was changed in a significant way to incorporate a fix to reduce dust, which is spelled out in the patent.

threeseed• 8 years ago

The escape key never disappeared.

It’s just a soft key rather than a physical one. I use it hundreds of times a day with vim and have never had problems.

EpicEng• 8 years ago

You use vim all day and you don't re-map escape? Really?

__blockcipher__2• 8 years ago

Are you talking about the touchbar esc? Serious question, how the fuck do you use it without tactile feedback?

My approach was to remap caps lock to escape as a press and ctrl as a hold, and then disable the touchbar as much as possible (whoever put unmute and siri next to each other should be taken out and shot btw, that caused me so much annoyance)

tedivm• 8 years ago

Remapping the "caps lock" key to ESC has worked out really well for me.

procinct2• 8 years ago

I don’t have a touch bar but I do this too. I have it mapped to escape when pressed on its own and Ctrl when pressed with another key and that works great.

sjwright2• 8 years ago

And to be fair to Apple, they make this remapping super-easy to do. No hacks, weirdness or third party tools are required.

zumu• 8 years ago

Me too. I really hope this catches on.

copperx2• 8 years ago

It makes no sense to remap a home row key to such an infrequently used key. It's much better to remap Caps Lock to Control (by the way, how do you press Control A and Control E and Control L and Control R hundreds of times a day in bash? By reaching to the far away corner located Control? That's absolute madness).

Traditional UNIX keyboards had the control key in the position of where the caps lock key is now. If you remap your keyboard like that, bash and the Emacs shortcuts enabled throughout macOS will suddenly make A LOT of sense. After a few days it will seem be impossible to work in any other keyboard, which is further proof that the remapping is essential for working efficiently in a Unix environment.

I would personally remap the far away control key to act like an Escape key instead.

Sure, if you're a vi user, the caps lock as ESC will seem rational at first, but outside of vi, all other Unix tools work with control key combinations.

cma• 8 years ago

The article mentions:

After all, Apple told The Verge that “this new third-generation keyboard wasn’t designed to solve those [dust] issues.”

garmaine4• 8 years ago

The patent contradicts that.

djhworld• 8 years ago

increased the max memory to 32GB

For the 15" model only, which costs £2,709 ($3,580)

dingo_bat• 8 years ago

Reading the comment under TFA it seems macbook keyboards have no water resistance? Seems a bit weird for such an expensive device.

1996• 8 years ago

This reminds me about the drain conduits (aqueducts?) in the thinkpads: liquids poured on the keyboard are diverted away from the electronics

jcloud_dev• 8 years ago

Spill drains? I once spilled an entire cup of tea on my T440 - almost half a liter. Didn't even need to power down the laptop to continue working.

BugsJustFindMe2• 8 years ago

Oh god. Forget about keyboards. I once watched a droplet of water so small that it had to have been affected more by subtle air currents than by gravity hit the edge of the trackpad on a pre-force-touch model and then vanish inside the gap, say around 2011, at which point the trackpad promptly stopped working properly for several days (phantom touches, cursor jumping, dead zones). Be careful out there with the expensive toys, eh?

stefanfisk• 8 years ago

OMG, this reminds me of when I wrecked my MBA after getting out of the shower!

A drop of water managed to break the power button such that is was constantly being pressed if no other key was pressed, causing hard shutdowns. BUT - if I used a tooth pick to stick one of the unused F-keys I could continue using the computer, with the downside that certain key combinations stopped working (mostly shift combos).

Until I figured out the toothpick fix coding was like a Lost episode in high speed, where all was lost if I forgot to press the button within the allotted timespan.

madeofpalk• 8 years ago

This is in-line with the the 'under promise and over deliver" mantra I was taught at Apple Retail. Don't make any promises you can't keep, and silently start to fix issues like this.

Apple having a hardware fix for their keyboard disasters in this revision is also inline with their repair program they just issued.

NeedMoreTea• 8 years ago

Don't make any promises you can't keep

What, like delivering a keyboard that actually works reliably?

It seems very much the opposite of under-promise, over-deliver in that they promised it and the touch bar would be better. The most that can be said is both are proving hugely subjective and controversial.

Now, had they managed to get Thinkpad feel in 2mm travel...

coldtea5• 8 years ago

What, like delivering a keyboard that actually works reliably?

Under all other constraints you have. Which is not just simple "put any old working keyboard in there and call it a day".

garmaine4• 8 years ago

Apple having a hardware fix for their keyboard disasters in this revision is also inline with their repair program they just issued.

Yes, they just issued a repair program. Until precisely 3 weeks ago Apple refused to acknowledge the issue and forced customers to pay for costly repairs on their own dime. This patent was filed in September 2016. Apple was fucking lying through their teeth for a full 22 months and have been caught in that lie.

Frankly I'm amazed there isn't more outrage at this. How could anyone trust them going forward?

coldtea5• 8 years ago

Yes, they just issued a repair program. Until precisely 3 weeks ago Apple refused to acknowledge the issue and forced customers to pay for costly repairs on their own dime. This patent was filed in September 2016. Apple was fucking lying through their teeth for a full 22 months and have been caught in that lie.

Do you expect companies to immediately jump to full repair programs the minute the first few users complain?

Especially when people will complain about anything.

Of course they'd wait to see if it's a widespread issue.

briandear2• 8 years ago

Because the vast majority of people didn’t have keyboard problems. And the vast majority of people that bought Apple Care wouldn’t be paying out of pocket for any of this assuming they bought their machine in 2015 or later.

Not everything is some conspiracy. Filing patents on improved designs doesn’t mean the old design was flawed and terrible. They are always filing patents on the next thing and hopefully everything is an improvement on what came before it.

Claiming they are lying is unfounded nonsense.

ulfw• 8 years ago

You mean like showing off AirPower wireless charger almost a year ago and never releasing it since. Totally didn’t overpromise anything there?

phil248• 8 years ago

I'm sorry, but are people actually more concerned with the sound of the keyboard than the arrow keys?

It took me a week to get used to the sound. Six months in and I still can't reliably hit the arrow keys. It's as if they're designed to be as difficult as possible.

BugsJustFindMe2• 8 years ago

I guess one kinda important difference is that you can see how bad the up/down arrows are going to be before you buy it.

Nobody predicted the failure rate.

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

Ooh, yes, I hate the new arrow keys. The inverted-T arrangement was great for positioning your fingers without looking down, since you could use the empty space to orient yourself.

bsimpson• 8 years ago

I haven't used the new keyboard. Can't you still detect the arrow keys by feeling for the split between up/down?

skygazer4• 8 years ago

I still have inverted-T arrows on my keyboard, but, I'm curious if you think it's more the new reality vs muscle memory mismatch, or a fundamental design flaw? Would children growing up only with flush full size r/l & half size u/d arrow keys find them vexing? Would they prefer inverted-T?

The types of keyboards I've cycled through in my life between various VAX, DEC, C64, Apple 2e, PC, ergonomic keyboards, laptops, I seem to adapt without really noticing. I look forward to seeing if I am flummoxed by the new arrow key layout, as much as I am by the constantly shrinking iOS onscreen shift keys.

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

I "grew up with" both styles, and I prefer inverted T much more. I used to consider full height left/right arrow keys one of the little things that would annoy me on the laptops that had them.

npunt6• 8 years ago

Put a bit of tape on the bottom half of the left and right keys if you need some tactile guidance and have old muscle memory. I do this on all my keyboards (my daily driver is a Microsoft sculpt) and it helps immensely with finding the correct key. Arrow keys in particular are just distant enough from default position to need that extra bit of tactile feedback.

jtbayly• 8 years ago

Thank you for this tip! Will try it tomorrow.

wingspar• 8 years ago

On other keyboards, I’ve used a drop of CA glue (superglue) to add tactile feedback. Much like some keyboards have a bump on two of the home row keys

doitLP• 8 years ago

You can also try these tactile dots. They are the absolute best. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NEUIQFO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_...

qrbLPHiKpiux• 8 years ago

That MFing up arrow key on mine is an asshole.

iamshs• 8 years ago

Arrow keys and Keys getting stuck are biggest problems with the MBP. First time I used the keyboard, I had trouble inputting password and had to start using an extension instead. Now I have trouble inputting the long char master password. And still can’t hit arrow keys reliably after six months with this thing.

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

Hopefully Touch ID fixes the issue with having to enter a long password?

thought_alarm2• 8 years ago

I tried using Sugru to fix the arrow keys on the Magic Keyboard, which is otherwise a surprisingly great keyboard: https://imgur.com/a/ntHf1xJ

I just hate that in 2018 I have to do such a stupid thing to a new computer from what's supposed to be a premium computer hardware company.

Apple users have enjoyed the perfect keyboard layout for 15+ years, only for some idiot manager to come along and change the layout for brainless aesthetic reasons. It's infuriating because the change is so unnecessary.

I won't buy or accept another Apple laptop until they go back to the old layout.

FPGAhacker• 8 years ago

My wife's keyboard drives me nuts. Mine is silent. Her keyboard is like stampeding cattle.

I haven't used arrow keys on my Mac that I can recall.

jeswin• 8 years ago

YMMV, but many people get used to the arrow keys when they spend enough time on it. Personally I dislike it.

But the keyboard is just horrible, compared to any ThinkPad X/T. There's no reason a $900B company can't make a great keyboard, except a culture of letting designers get away with sacrificing function for thinness and form.

jillesvangurp• 8 years ago

I'm used to it now but they are quite loud when you sit in a quiet space. I've noticed a few stares my way when hammering away on the keyboard.

Totally with you on the arrow keys. I absolutely hate those and I still hit the down arrow around 50% of the times I aim for the up arrow.

userbinator2• 8 years ago

The fact that the membrane is still vented (labeled 321 in the diagram) suggests that this will only delay, and not fix the dust ingress problem. Indeed, it could make things worse by creating a tiny pump[1] that draws particles in on each keystroke.

I don't know why they didn't vent from the bottom instead, but that's how completely sealed (i.e. waterproof) keypads are vented.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaphragm_pump

Edit: wow, downvotes? Care to explain...?

npunt6• 8 years ago

Interesting point! Patent is suggesting its a pump but won't cause ingress due to small size. Per the full patent:

[0058] For example, FIG. 3D depicts a third alternative example of the key assembly of FIG. 3A. In this example, the membrane 213 or gasket defines a vent 320, aperture, or other hole in one of the sides 318A. When the key cap 103 is moved towards a depressed position, the membrane 213 compresses gas inside the internal area 319, forcing the gas through the vent 320. This allows the embossed area of the membrane 213 to act as a bellows mechanism, forcing gas in a direction 321. This may force contaminants away from the internal area 319 and/or out of the aperture 210. This may also reduce compression of the membrane 213, reduc- ing how much the membrane 213 affects the force curve response.

The specific point about sizing is this next section:

In various implementations, the vent 320 may be configured with sufficiently small dimensions that gas can be forced through the vent 320 without easily allowing liquids, dust, and/or other particles to enter the internal area 319 from the aperture 210.

Also here's the Patently Apple analysis [0], which points out that this patent covers three different designs (the vented one being the third). I'm not sure the third design we're discussing is the one implemented in the 2018 models though.

[0] http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/03/a-new-ap...

tinus_hn• 8 years ago

> Edit: wow, downvotes? Care to explain...?
Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Don’t worry about downvotes, even if you care about the karma points you can at most get to -4 anyway.

drewmol• 8 years ago

Concerning points, here's what works for me: I act on the assumtion that I can't take the points with me when (I'm || HM) is dead. So... while I need enough to enable free speech, accumulating internet points is not the reason I participate in this forum.

basicplus2• 8 years ago

This is a pretty sad day that sonething like this can be patented..

Anything wrapped in a cover can “prevent and/or alleviate contaminant ingress”

Does any patent office in the world really think nobody has thought of this before?

skygazer4• 8 years ago

The patent [0] does seem a bit more extensive than just wrap it in a membrane. It discusses using venting/gas pressure (from depressing the key) to expel debris, for instance.

[0] http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20180068808&IDK...

JustSomeNobody3• 8 years ago

Sad because the patent wouldn't have been needed in the first place if they didn't feel the need to go so thin.

corey_moncure• 8 years ago

Was the old keyboard engineering so bad? I feel like Apple has been fixing what wasn't broken since about 2010, regarding the MBP at least.

Literally all they needed to do was retina screen, upgrade the internals, and add a few USB-C ports. Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of the FN key row, and loss of serviceability.

So much so that my 2010 MBP will very likely be my last Apple purchase ever.

designcode• 8 years ago

After using my 2016 MBP for two years, going back to my 2014 MBP just feels wrong.

The keyboard is so much better on the modern ones, so I’d recommend giving it a chance !

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

Wow, your comment was killed within seconds. I’d suggest expanding on your opinion.

ksec• 8 years ago

It felt wrong because it is not as "stable", but the depth of new keyboard is still "wrong".

smsm423• 8 years ago

I switched to 2016 and recently back to 2013 (due to 2016's keyboard being broken) and feel exactly the opposite. I am seriously considering whether migrating back is an option (despite them apparently being binary incompatible so I had to rebuild half of my homebrew to avoid those "illegal instruction" errors). I think Apple is fixing what's not broken, and most likely my next notebook won't be an MBP unless they get their act together quickly (which I don't think is very likely, but I keep an open mind until the time comes).

berti2• 8 years ago

Totally agree. I mostly type on Cherry MX blues, and a 2017 MBP. I just setup some stuff on my 2012 MBP (using it as a CI slave, the only reason it's not my daily driver anymore is because the battery is down to only 2-3 hours)... the keys feel very mushy and awful compared to the 2017 model.

saagarjha10• 8 years ago

Apple sold a MacBook Pro with all of those things you wanted except Ethernet until yesterday.

garmaine4• 8 years ago

What are you talking about?

thadk• 8 years ago

The area around the hinge on the 2011-2015 Era Macbook was plastic. It seems like they wanted to do away with that, a major mechanical break point, which meant removing travel distance from the keys so the screen could close more directly. (My 2011 MBP screen hinge was a bit wobbly a few years in.) You could look at the USB-C dongles in a similar way: older USB ports could fail eventually on that era MBP. The newer USB-C ports are probably "rated" for more insertions/removals.

xvf222• 8 years ago

Each of the USB-C ports needs a controller and if any of the four have an issue the computer will not charge.

blackguardx• 8 years ago

You are correct. USB A ports are usually only rated to 1500 insertion cycles because that is what the standard specifies. Micro USB and USB C ports are specced at 10,000 insertion cycles.

dzhiurgis2• 8 years ago

The way that usb-c wobbles and how easily it unplugs proves its not designed for proffesional use.

achompas• 8 years ago

Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP?

My tinfoil hat theory is yes - Apple's supply chain folks. Thinner and lighter laptops means more fit on a cargo airplane, which means lower shipping costs.

Tim Cook cut his teeth on Apple's supply chain as COO before becoming CEO, after all.

berti2• 8 years ago

Do they pack them into the final boxes/packaging somewhere close to the end destination? Because those boxes haven't changed in size AFAIK. My 2017 MBP came in a 70 mm tall box, same as my 2012 one.

matthewowen• 8 years ago

I would guess that they are dense enough that their volumetric cost is weight constrained rather than volume constrained, so this may be less of a factor than you think.

coldtea5• 8 years ago

Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP?

Sure. Here's a certain Linus Torvalds:

"I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things. (...) I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light. (...) Btw, even when it comes to Apple, it’s really just the Air that I think is special. The other apple laptops may be good-looking, but they are still the same old clunky hardware (...)"

runeks• 8 years ago

My tinfoil hat theory is yes [...]

We don't need to speculate. How many MBPs fit in a cubic meter, and how much does it cost to ship a cubic meter of goods on a cargo plane?

According to this[1], flying a 40-foot container from Shenzen to London is around $2000. A 40-foot container has a capacity of 76 cubic meters.

The MBP fits in a 17” x 13” x 5” shipping box[2], which leaves some room for bubble wrap. That's 0.02 cubic meters, so 50 MBPs per cubic meter. So for $2000, 50*76 = 3800 MBPs can be shipped.

That's around 50 cents shipping cost, for something that sells for $1000, which means Tim Cook would have to be quite irrational to reduce the size of the MBP in order to reduce the (50-cent-per-MBP) freight expenditure.

[1] https://www.freightos.com/freight-resources/air-freight-rate...

[2] https://swappa.com/blog/the-best-way-to-ship-your-macbook/

davnn2• 8 years ago

I switched from a MBP to a Lenovo X1 Carbon and the keyboard is so much better on the X1, it’s on another level.

Lost macOS though, which, in the end, didn’t matter as much as I thought it would.

riffraff• 8 years ago

how does the touchpad compare? I feel I've been spolied by apple's touchpads, when I had to use another laptop I wanted to cry.

userbinator2• 8 years ago

Lost macOS though, which, in the end, didn’t matter as much as I thought it would.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/99-perfect-sierra-10-12-6...

Or you could run it in a VM. I had to test something with macOS not long ago (not a regular Mac user) and was pleasantly surprised when, after doing a small amount of configuration, VirtualBox booted up from the ISO and installed a macOS VM that ran pretty much perfectly.

thaumasiotes• 8 years ago

Was anyone ever legitimately inconvenienced by the thickness of the 2010 MBP? I know I was directly inconvenienced by the loss of MagSafe, ethernet, SD card and USB-A, the loss of the FN key row, and loss of serviceability.

For an alternative perspective, http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2016/10/29/the-new-macbooks-ar...

Battery life is not great. But you can't use it outside anyhow because it'll blow away.
We want to make a laptop so thin you'll close it and never find it again.

laythea• 8 years ago

Yes but think about the people at the top of Apple who need to be seen to "innovating". Even if its misguided innovation. Change is good! Embrace!

eeeeeeeeeeeee• 8 years ago

I prefer the new keyboard (and I like that it's louder), but I have been affected by numerous failures in different machines. I also know many people who have experienced this exact same issue, often within a year of purchase. Two laptops I purchased in 2016 from the same store both had the issue, brand new. But I've had 2017 models with the same issue.

I don't believe this problem is really a limited as Apple has been saying, but they never seem to admit the true scale of problems.

bogomipz• 8 years ago

I wonder if the keyboard replacement program Apple announced recently[1] for affected keyboards is replacing them with this newer design?

[1] https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

darth_mastah• 8 years ago

Apple cast away Steve Jobs and then came begging for him to come back. He did and steered the company from the verge of collapse to a massive worldwide success. Since SJ passed away, Apple is getting worse each year. I guess this might be Jobs' spirit fading away and people thinking they could do better than him. Clearly, they fall short.

smsm423• 8 years ago

I am not sure what they did, but not only on my new 2016 laptop keyboard felt worse, it also broke around half a year in service (shift key just refused to work. Good think there's two of them, but majorly annoying still). I temporarily went back to a 2013 one and my first thought was "man, the old keyboard feels so much nicer"...

The Great Apple Keyboard Cover-Up

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