I use a keyboard cover and it helps reduce this issue. When you do get a crumb under a key and it stops working, the solution is to keep hitting the key hard until you dislodge/break the crumb. Low tech, but it works.
Even when brand-new, and working properly, these keyboards are a disaster. IT has been rolling upgrading people to them at work, and the number of external keyboards has skyrocketed.
Yep, those are the holy grail machines at my shop. Everybody that has one is skipping their turn when they are due for an upgrade. Unfortunately I got hired too late and have a 2017 15-inch.
I still use my 2010 MBP from time to time. I recently bought a new iMac, not because I really wanted an iMac, but because I needed a newer and more capable computer for some things, was unhappy with the current MBP offerings, and did not want to buy an already borderline-obsolete Mac Pro.
So far so good with the iMac! I've been an Apple user since 2002, and while I really don't want to move to something else, some of their recent decisions have had me seriously considering it...
I have a slightly earlier MBP and I'll keep it till it dies. I have some neuropathy in my fingers, a souvenir of neck surgery, and I mostly type on mechanical keyboards (all hail Cherry MX Blue!). I have tried the new MBPs in the Apple store and I simply cannot use them. There is too little feedback for my damaged hands. I'm sad that my current MBP is probably my last Apple notebook. Their current obsession with thinness is ruining their hardware.
I can relate to what the article says, and yet find it hard to break away from the ecosystem given the tools I've come to use every day runs so well on the Mac. Muscle memory with shortcuts and all.
I've found a quick workaround to simply let the machine cool down. Eg. When running Docker previously and when the machine got heated, I found keyboard problems keep cropping up consistently. Letting it cool for about 20 minutes with a laptop cooler seemed to help.
I'm an iOS dev so have no other choice - but even if I did, I like pretty much every other aspect of the Mac (both this specific laptop, and the ecosystem) and am happy to give Apple my money, but expect a certain level of quality in return, which this generation of keyboards seems to lack.
Definitely agree with you. I feel underwhelmed with the 2017 MBPs (typing on one right now). And you're absolutely correct: if you're developing for certain app systems, you have no choice. I'm a Ruby developer and I remember years ago people switched to Mac simply so they could use Textmate. Some tools just work better on the system (for better or for worse).
I actually quite like the laptop otherwise - I walk to and from work with it every day so the reduced weight and size is great - although the touchbar is meh and the USB-C/dongle situation is still a pain!
Posting this from my six month old Macbook Pro 15" on which the spacebar has just started doing double spaces. Going to try and clean it with compressed air, but even if that works, it's unacceptable in my opinion that such a key piece of hardware on such an expensive machine should be so fragile.
The fact that at some point I'll have to take it back to Apple and probably be without it for several days due to the complexity of the repair makes this 10x worse - I am freelance so need this machine for work, so being without it (especially for such a seemingly trivial reason) is unacceptable and absolutely not what I expect when I buy Apple (previous Macbooks have worked for years without a single issue).
If they release a redesign, I'd swap it in a flash (I do actually quite like the keyboard to type on otherwise, but seems like the quest for thinness has gone too far this time!), but if this problem is as widespread as it seems who knows what it will do to resale values.
Would be great to get talk of this spreading as far and wide as possible, as judging by anecdata on Twitter and elsewhere, I am far from the only one with these kind of issues, and to me that implies a fairly major design flaw.
I think from what I've heard that for actual replacements, Apple will swap out the whole 'top case' subassembly, which could be a 4-500$ part if it's not covered under warranty.
I had a key stick within two weeks. They had to completely replace the keyboard, it took over a week (IIRC). Fairly silly for a single key to cause such a massive repair.
My wife's MBP 15" has exactly the same problem. All of my modern Macbook keyboards have stopped working, and I've completely given up on Apple laptops, switching two a Pixelbook with Crouton, which is excellent. I use browserstack for cross platform browser testing.
I try to keep spares of anything mission critical. I get that computers are expensive, but you owe it to yourself to make sure that your productivity cannot be broken by a single object's destruction or absence.
(That doesn't mean you need a spare new macbook pro. An older device that is maintained, and a good environment setup process, is sufficient.)
Any ideas on how to get Apple’s attention on this issue welcome! Was wondering if there is any value on setting up a simple site where people can comment if they’ve had issues, just to help illustrate the scale of the problem...
I'm sure if one of us creates a site and shares it here it'll gain traction. I like clever domain names, so I just registered mbp.wtf from Gandi. If you have recommendations on a lightweight commenting system, I'd love to hear it!
I can crank out a site fairly quickly but I also want it to be as low-maintenance as possible.
I had the issue with the doubling with the b key as well.
Mine was out of warranty, so I fixed it myself.
Failed: compressed air
Failed: cleaning under the key.
Success (but not recommended)
I removed the key, then pulled off the glued membrane. Cleaned all with 90% alcohol. Took a new membrane (but you might be able to use old) and used E6000 and a toothpick to glue it back. Replaced butterfly and key.
Not a good solution, but it worked.
It looked like the contacts were getting coated and not making good contact? Perhaps heat?
I am not confident in my ability to do that but it's good to know there is a solution if I get desperate enough. My mechanical keyboard is saving my life right now.
I'm using a new 2017 MBP w/o the touchbar. So far, no issues with the keyboard. But here's another thing to consider: with earlier MBPs and ThinkPads with better keyboard design, I would occasionally used compressed air to blow out the dust from under the keys. The bad thing about the new design is that I'd hesitate to do this now, because you could actually cause the keys to die by accidentally blowing dust under a key.
Apple: you need to go back to the drawing board and redesign the keyboard. Stop chasing thinner/lighter. The keyboard is the primary interface programmers use. It should be sturdy enough, and have enough key travel, to hold up for the life cycle of the laptop.
My SO and I have three MBPs between us. Two have had keyboard failures (one the "8" key, the other the space bar). Both took about a week for Apple to repair.
Any suggestions for good non-Windows laptops in the $1000 price range? I'm seriously considering just buying a refurbished MacBook Pro from 2013 at this point.
I use one of dells XPS 13 developer edition with Ubuntu on it. It works fine, there are some quirks (sometimes noisy whine when not doing a lot of CPU intensive tasks) and the camera is in a weird location. Outside of that it's worked well for my needs.
I think the dell XPS 13/15 or precision 5510 line is the successor to the MacBook Pro. I recently picked up an XPS 13 and installed Linux. I really prefer it to the MacBook Pro 2016 I have at work. The only thing missing is iMessage, which unfortunately is why I haven’t gone full Linux.
Concur. I liked the new keyboard when it worked. But after two week-long service appointments to deal with dead keys, I've given up on it. Those laptops are defective. I'm using a 2015 15" for now.
This is the hard part - it’s supposedly a pro machine, yet they expect you to not work for a week while they repair the keyboard that fails by a single speck of dust.
I do almost all of my keyboarding with kinesis. It cured severe finger pain a few years back. The only time I use the native keyboard for mac or anything else is if i am on the metra or library or customer visit.
I can't do that. For one thing, I work pretty much exclusively on couches and on my back porch, where I can't set up an external keyboard. But I also have a quirk where, if I have a nicer keyboard and monitor in one setup, I won't be able to work as effectively in other setups; I'll just be sad when I don't have the optimal setup. I know that sounds super weird but it is how my brain works. So I try to keep myself to a stable lowest-common-denominator configuration, for my own productivity, and that's the standard laptop keyboard.
Upon advice of my betters, in replacing my mid-2012 macbook pro (whose internals seem to have swelled up), i chose a new 2015 macbook pro, which is retina but old style keyboard.
I'll wait until they get this keyboard thing straightened out to get a newer one.
As an owner of a small company who buys a few macs a year and uses one almost solely, I fully agree with this. I’ve had to replace my latest mbp computer two times now based on keyboard issues (the second time was power and keyboard issues). The keyboard is a disaster. If you have kids, forget about it.
I have my MacBook Pro on a stand then use a bluetooth keyboard and external monitor. Rarely do I use the actual keyboard.
If Apple created something similar to a Mac mini with a laptop battery I would buy it immediately. I know it wouldn't work for everyone, but it would suit my needs.
what's the battery for then? Just so you can move it from one place to another without shutting it down? And if so then it would only have to be enough of a battery to power the suspend right?
This happened to my wife's macbook pro spacebar, $600 fix. It happens with mine every so often too, but fingers crossed it has 'fixed' itself each time.
Yeah, mine has fixed itself when this happened before, but the spacebar issue seems more persistent. Hoping some compressed air can fix it - having to migrate to another machine for the duration of the repair would really annoy me, but I do sometimes need to work without an external keyboard (my preferred option).
Had a similar problem (faulty key) with my dell precision laptop. $30 new keyboard, few screws out, replace and back up and running.
The laptop is big, heavy and ugly. But I cannot have it out of action so every part being replaceable was a huge plus. In fact it is so big heavy and ugly that when I drop it on the floor, the floor dents :)
You can easy switch out any thinkpad keyboard, and they're not big or heavy. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, that being said, it's a laptop, not a purse.
My plan is to wait until there's a new model out, and then take it in for AppleCare warranty repairs once a month until I hit their lemon limit and they give me a new machine.
The durability of this keyboard is a joke. I even bought one of those rubber keyboard condoms that makes the keyboard suck to type on and the H key still got dust under it somehow and started typing hh.
Apple doesn't seem to have an official lemon limit but they replaced the top-case 5 times on my 2016 and then gave me a 2017 with the same specs (slightly faster processor), and it's already crapped out already although this time they managed to replace the key and fix it.
You’re right that there’s no official “lemon limit”, but hey do have a process for it - it’s called ‘CRU’ (Customer Replacement Unit). It’s unlikely that they’ll offer it unprompted, but really after three repairs I find it difficult they would deny your request to have the laptop replaced.
It does require approval by a manager/“Lead Genius”, but you can get there by being reasonable.
(I disagree with the level of his vitriol against Apple, but I appreciate his deep teardowns and clear explanations. He just doesn't seem to understand how valuable the Apple software is vs. Windows to those who need or appreciate osx.)
>> (I disagree with the level of his vitriol against Apple, but I appreciate his deep teardowns and clear explanations. He just doesn't seem to understand how valuable the Apple software is vs. Windows to those who need or appreciate osx.)
IIRC, he said in one of his videos that he's a basically Windows guy who repairs Apple products because that's where the money is.
Because his channel is on YouTube, it's quite possible he's amping up his vitriol a little to get views. On the other hand - I watch a lot of his videos (I discovered his channel when I had one of those overheating 2011 MBPs and was looking for a fix), and his vitriol for the most part is all related to repairability and how Apple prefers to replace entire logic boards instead of fixing what's wrong.
It does seem like a lot of his customers come to him after talking to a Genius and being told that their Mac can't be fixed.
So in general, while he does take a strong stance, I would not say that he's not hating on Apple simply for the sake of hating on Apple.
As someone who has torn down and rebuilt a thinkpad or two, I was appalled when I started looking into his and other videos on MBP repair since I've never owned a MBP. They're clearly designed with entirely different priorities; form over function has been pushed way too far thus sacrificing durability and serviceability. I guess that is okay with some people, but given the cost of the machine, I think its ridiculous. Apple can, and should, do better than this.
It's not Apple's great software. Most of Apple's software is shit (as opposed to 3rd parties who write OSX apps).
It's the fact that it's mostly-decent hardware running a mostly-compliant POSIX OS that looks enough like GNU to make it usable (and compatible with web servers).
If someone, ffs anyone, made a decent, reliable Linux laptop, Apple would lose the dev market in a month.
I'm running Debian on a Thinkpad at work, this work great... except for a few points.
It's always a bit harder to integrate with the rest of the internal infrastructure:
* AD integration in your favorite email client to have auto-completion on emails is a bit tedious
* Exchange calendars are also annoying
* Mounting (and, first, finding) the windows shares can a bit tedious
* Password renewal is not integrated that well
It works, but it takes a few hours to figure out and configure.
And sometimes you are just stuck with Windows/OS X because of a specific piece of software (for example in my case, the video conferencing tool we are using). I never used a truly Linux only environment in professional context, I always had a Windows VM also.
The latter point is not really true. There are plenty in web dev that need Adobe tools to open files. There are plenty in corporate environments that need Office to edit docs (Open/Libre doesn't really cut it for heavier stuff).
I share the frustration, mainly because both OS X and Windows are getting progressively worse over time as opposed to better, and the lack of a decent alternative is hugely frustrating.
Thing is, this is actually dust. It's just a single speck of dust is enough to mess up these mechanisms because they're so delicate.
This would be less of an issue if you could pop the keys off, but again the mechanism is so delicate popping a key off is enough to irreparably destroy the mechanism in most cases.
Then why did you buy a new one?!? Excess consumerism drives the tech ahead, sure, but I can only have so much sympathy for your buyer’s remorse.
The problem must be environmental or physiological (he presses the keys harder than average, or something) because keyboard malfunction isn’t some recall-level dysfunction as he wants to make it out to be.
I moved on to an HP Spectre and Windows 10 from my 2009 MBP...I'm mostly happy with it, but VERY SAD that the MBP era seems to have ended rather than getting better and better. It's a damn shame.
And the worst part about it is that it's incredibly hard to replace the keyboard on the MBP. For most other laptops it's just a screw or two, a few plastic clips, and a ribbon cable to replace it. They're also super cheap for just about every manufacturer out there other than Apple and you can get a new keyboard delivery included for ~$15-$25. For the MBP you pretty much need to get the whole top case as one assembly because instead of just a few clips Apple rivets the keyboard to the case! And it's not just a couple of rivets either, try a couple dozen.
Absolutely insane how not only does Apple make the keyboard just about impossible to replace, but they also make a keyboard that's simultaneously much much more failure prone than any other keyboard that I know of. Here's a great video of a madman actually replacing the keyboard instead of just replacing the whole assembly.
I just switched back to Thinkpad X1 w/ Windows. With Linux Subsystem for Windows, it's been roughly working out. though I am currently maintaining two copies of things - one for Linux and one for Windows for lots of tooling. Not sure how to optimize here. Only been a few days. Re-learning keyboard shortcuts.
The Board Of Directors has structured Tim Cook's pay so his pay is dependent on shipping specific amounts of iPhones. This would be a good plan if the goal was to boost the stock price for the few years that iPhone seems innovative, compared to anything that Samsung can come up with. This strategy did work for several years, look at 2013 and 2014 and 2015 and 2016. But the same strategy amounts to a plan for allowing the company to collapse in the long-term. Where are the new products? Where are the new ideas? Some people point to the vast cash reserve that Apple has and they view this as a source of strength: "Apple must be doing something right to have that much cash on hand!" But a large pile of cash can also be read as a weakness; in particular, it can be seen as a lack of ideas. For comparison, consider the last time Apple had super fat margins and a product that was light-years ahead of the competition: the 1980s. Apple did not pile up cash at that time, because it was still investing in the future. Profits were reinvested in new products. The leadership could see where the future was going, and they chased after it aggressively. The difference between then and now is obvious. Apple has a huge amount of cash, but they have no ideas about how to invest it. Tim Cook is a good operations guy, he has some talent for optimizing the supply lines between China and the West. But he has no ideas. And nowadays, given the growing number of problems, I think we have to wonder if he fully deserves his reputation for being a good operations guy.
I have one of these provided by my employer - spacebar broke within a couple of months.
Also, I kid you not, the 'H' key was not functioning on one in the Regent Street Apple store I was using while waiting for an iPhone battery replacement.
Essentially, you have to avoid getting any detritus on the keyboard of any kind. I no longer eat any snacks or sandwiches at the computer, which is probably a good thing anyway.
This isn't a "build quality" problem, it's a design quality problem. The quest for thinness has taken precedence over reliable functioning. If they added a millimeter or two they could put in a proper keyboard, but I fear they never will. We see a similar problem with the "trashcan" Mac Pro, where they backed themselves into a corner with a design that could not be upgraded. This is just bad engineering. Form follows function, not vice versa.
> neither Apple nor its Geniuses would acknowledge that this was actually a problem [...] 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.
This is the exact same behaviour that drove me away from Apple 10 years ago: First deny existance of issue, second place blame on customer, third force customer into a generic replacement script of parts in accending order of price. Repeat until customer does not return out of frustration, accepts the broken product or is pushed out of warrantee.
I think this strategy worked for them on average when hardware design flaws were less frequent, it maintained their facade of absolute perfection at the cost of a few lucid customers... but it leaves a particularly sour taste for those whom it does affect, and I think they are fast approaching the threshold where it will backfire and destroy their image.
At this stage denying the existence of these types of problems is an insult to anyones intelligence, deep technical literacy is not required - Anyone who buys Apple products for more than beholding their aesthetic beauty can see the simple truth in this case: that it is broken.
I am a Apple
supporter and shareholder, but will admit that I loathe the butterfly keyboard on my MPB with Touchbar. The amount of typos I make (mostly missed key strokes) rivals my iPhone which is impressive. I have also experienced the "dead" key issue when dust or hair get's under a key.
Ah, a MBP complaint thread. Here are mine (Maxed out 15):
1. New keyboard is painful to type on. I use it 99% of the time with external trackpad / keyboard / monitors but that other 1% pisses me off.
2. Battery life is mediocre. I don't keep track but I'm always surprised how quickly it goes when I'm unplugged. How about stop trying to make them thinner?
3. The touchbar is f*cking horrible. It's a bad solution to a nonexistent problem. My fingers touch it by mistake often, finding ESC is awful, and worst of all, it sleeps! Give me back my ESC and media keys.
4. A computer with two GPUs SHOULD NOT CRASH when plugging in external monitors. It should also wake from sleep properly in clamshell mode. A lot of the time I actually have to unplug one monitor to get either to turn on.
5. Support for external retina monitors is terrible. I spent the better part of a day getting two Dells to be readable / look good.
6. Xcode. A medium sized project compiling now hits all 8 cores so hard music will actually stop playing (I use Roon with a pretty heavy CPU load).
Unless things turn around, this will definitely be my last MBP, maybe leaving the dev ecosystem altogether.
155 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadSo has the number of new lenovos.
> MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
The new models are subpar in build quality imho and the touch bar is completely useless tech.
So far so good with the iMac! I've been an Apple user since 2002, and while I really don't want to move to something else, some of their recent decisions have had me seriously considering it...
I've found a quick workaround to simply let the machine cool down. Eg. When running Docker previously and when the machine got heated, I found keyboard problems keep cropping up consistently. Letting it cool for about 20 minutes with a laptop cooler seemed to help.
The fact that at some point I'll have to take it back to Apple and probably be without it for several days due to the complexity of the repair makes this 10x worse - I am freelance so need this machine for work, so being without it (especially for such a seemingly trivial reason) is unacceptable and absolutely not what I expect when I buy Apple (previous Macbooks have worked for years without a single issue).
If they release a redesign, I'd swap it in a flash (I do actually quite like the keyboard to type on otherwise, but seems like the quest for thinness has gone too far this time!), but if this problem is as widespread as it seems who knows what it will do to resale values.
Would be great to get talk of this spreading as far and wide as possible, as judging by anecdata on Twitter and elsewhere, I am far from the only one with these kind of issues, and to me that implies a fairly major design flaw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KuVvb9DTaU (from about 5:20) talks a bit about what's involved in an actual keyboard replacement, if you ignore some of the histrionics.
I think from what I've heard that for actual replacements, Apple will swap out the whole 'top case' subassembly, which could be a 4-500$ part if it's not covered under warranty.
(That doesn't mean you need a spare new macbook pro. An older device that is maintained, and a good environment setup process, is sufficient.)
I can crank out a site fairly quickly but I also want it to be as low-maintenance as possible.
Mine was out of warranty, so I fixed it myself.
Failed: compressed air Failed: cleaning under the key.
Success (but not recommended) I removed the key, then pulled off the glued membrane. Cleaned all with 90% alcohol. Took a new membrane (but you might be able to use old) and used E6000 and a toothpick to glue it back. Replaced butterfly and key.
Not a good solution, but it worked.
It looked like the contacts were getting coated and not making good contact? Perhaps heat?
Best of luck.
Apple: you need to go back to the drawing board and redesign the keyboard. Stop chasing thinner/lighter. The keyboard is the primary interface programmers use. It should be sturdy enough, and have enough key travel, to hold up for the life cycle of the laptop.
I highly recommend it.
I'll wait until they get this keyboard thing straightened out to get a newer one.
If Apple created something similar to a Mac mini with a laptop battery I would buy it immediately. I know it wouldn't work for everyone, but it would suit my needs.
Had a similar problem (faulty key) with my dell precision laptop. $30 new keyboard, few screws out, replace and back up and running.
The laptop is big, heavy and ugly. But I cannot have it out of action so every part being replaceable was a huge plus. In fact it is so big heavy and ugly that when I drop it on the floor, the floor dents :)
The durability of this keyboard is a joke. I even bought one of those rubber keyboard condoms that makes the keyboard suck to type on and the H key still got dust under it somehow and started typing hh.
It does require approval by a manager/“Lead Genius”, but you can get there by being reasonable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KuVvb9DTaU
(I disagree with the level of his vitriol against Apple, but I appreciate his deep teardowns and clear explanations. He just doesn't seem to understand how valuable the Apple software is vs. Windows to those who need or appreciate osx.)
IIRC, he said in one of his videos that he's a basically Windows guy who repairs Apple products because that's where the money is.
Because his channel is on YouTube, it's quite possible he's amping up his vitriol a little to get views. On the other hand - I watch a lot of his videos (I discovered his channel when I had one of those overheating 2011 MBPs and was looking for a fix), and his vitriol for the most part is all related to repairability and how Apple prefers to replace entire logic boards instead of fixing what's wrong.
It does seem like a lot of his customers come to him after talking to a Genius and being told that their Mac can't be fixed.
So in general, while he does take a strong stance, I would not say that he's not hating on Apple simply for the sake of hating on Apple.
It's the fact that it's mostly-decent hardware running a mostly-compliant POSIX OS that looks enough like GNU to make it usable (and compatible with web servers).
If someone, ffs anyone, made a decent, reliable Linux laptop, Apple would lose the dev market in a month.
I'm running Debian on a Thinkpad at work, this work great... except for a few points.
It's always a bit harder to integrate with the rest of the internal infrastructure: * AD integration in your favorite email client to have auto-completion on emails is a bit tedious * Exchange calendars are also annoying * Mounting (and, first, finding) the windows shares can a bit tedious * Password renewal is not integrated that well
It works, but it takes a few hours to figure out and configure.
And sometimes you are just stuck with Windows/OS X because of a specific piece of software (for example in my case, the video conferencing tool we are using). I never used a truly Linux only environment in professional context, I always had a Windows VM also.
Indeed! The keyboard is amazing. The latest thinkpad x1 carbon is pure bliss, and Linux works out of the box for everything without any problems.
I share the frustration, mainly because both OS X and Windows are getting progressively worse over time as opposed to better, and the lack of a decent alternative is hugely frustrating.
I can understand this guy's hate for Apple though. They're violently hostile to anyone with a screwdriver or a compiler.
Aside from hating the feel of the new keyboard in my 6 months ownership of the new Macbook Pro it went back for warranty keyboard repair twice.
I sold it and bought a second hand 2015
This would be less of an issue if you could pop the keys off, but again the mechanism is so delicate popping a key off is enough to irreparably destroy the mechanism in most cases.
Then why did you buy a new one?!? Excess consumerism drives the tech ahead, sure, but I can only have so much sympathy for your buyer’s remorse.
The problem must be environmental or physiological (he presses the keys harder than average, or something) because keyboard malfunction isn’t some recall-level dysfunction as he wants to make it out to be.
That said, the new keyboard is indeed a travesty.
Absolutely insane how not only does Apple make the keyboard just about impossible to replace, but they also make a keyboard that's simultaneously much much more failure prone than any other keyboard that I know of. Here's a great video of a madman actually replacing the keyboard instead of just replacing the whole assembly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMueATtTcQg
Only pain: not having iMessage on laptop.
Also, I kid you not, the 'H' key was not functioning on one in the Regent Street Apple store I was using while waiting for an iPhone battery replacement.
Essentially, you have to avoid getting any detritus on the keyboard of any kind. I no longer eat any snacks or sandwiches at the computer, which is probably a good thing anyway.
No one was bold enough to call BS on this poorly designed keyboard. Everyone just went along with it.
This is the exact same behaviour that drove me away from Apple 10 years ago: First deny existance of issue, second place blame on customer, third force customer into a generic replacement script of parts in accending order of price. Repeat until customer does not return out of frustration, accepts the broken product or is pushed out of warrantee.
I think this strategy worked for them on average when hardware design flaws were less frequent, it maintained their facade of absolute perfection at the cost of a few lucid customers... but it leaves a particularly sour taste for those whom it does affect, and I think they are fast approaching the threshold where it will backfire and destroy their image.
At this stage denying the existence of these types of problems is an insult to anyones intelligence, deep technical literacy is not required - Anyone who buys Apple products for more than beholding their aesthetic beauty can see the simple truth in this case: that it is broken.
1. New keyboard is painful to type on. I use it 99% of the time with external trackpad / keyboard / monitors but that other 1% pisses me off.
2. Battery life is mediocre. I don't keep track but I'm always surprised how quickly it goes when I'm unplugged. How about stop trying to make them thinner?
3. The touchbar is f*cking horrible. It's a bad solution to a nonexistent problem. My fingers touch it by mistake often, finding ESC is awful, and worst of all, it sleeps! Give me back my ESC and media keys.
4. A computer with two GPUs SHOULD NOT CRASH when plugging in external monitors. It should also wake from sleep properly in clamshell mode. A lot of the time I actually have to unplug one monitor to get either to turn on.
5. Support for external retina monitors is terrible. I spent the better part of a day getting two Dells to be readable / look good.
6. Xcode. A medium sized project compiling now hits all 8 cores so hard music will actually stop playing (I use Roon with a pretty heavy CPU load).
Unless things turn around, this will definitely be my last MBP, maybe leaving the dev ecosystem altogether.