The keyboard! I have an M1 mac, I typing this from a 2012 macbook air. The new keyboards are utter crap! They are still crap. If I could have the M1 in an x220 shell, with the mac trackpad, I would be good.
>The new keyboards are utter crap! They are still crap
Hold on, are you claiming that the new scissor switch keyboards have similar reliability issues to the older butterfly keyboards?
If not, then this is really just a matter of taste. You can't please everyone with keyboards. People do genuinely have different preferences regarding feel and key travel. It honestly seems hyperbolic to describe a keyboard that most people find completely functional as "utter crap".
I personally love the feel of the older butterfly keyboards. I also think that Apple fixed the reliability issues with them in their last generation. At least, I've not had a single keyboard issue with my 2019 MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
I am not saying they have similar reliability issues, not enough time has passed for that to be determined. Utter is too strong of a word, the keyboard has the same qualities for me that made the butterfly keyboards suck.
They may have fixed the reliability issues, but they have not fixed key travel issues. The person that designed this keyboard is a very particular person, and this person probably does not like the keyboard in the 2012 MBA.
It isn't just preference, the new keyboard is slightly uncomfortable to use, the key pressure is too high and the travel too low, so the impulse on the tendons is too sharp.
The gist is that Apple has over designed its product and made design the number one metric. Design only works when it is subservient to function.
>It isn't just preference, the new keyboard is slightly uncomfortable to use, the key pressure is too high and the travel too low, so the impulse on the tendons is too sharp.
Sure, but some people (like me) find keyboards with shorter travel more comfortable to use. So as far as I can see it is just a preference – and a question of what your fingers are accustomed to.
I'm old enough to remember when the chicklet macbook keyboards that everyone now idolises were the Worst Keyboards Ever because they didn't have enough travel.
>The gist is that Apple has over designed its product and made design the number one metric.
Apple is now using an ordinary chicklet keyboard that's very similar to the ones used by most other modern laptops. It's a very conservative and unremarkable design as far as I can see.
I'm typing this from a 2019 16" MBP keyboard. And I can say without a doubt that it is my favourite keyboard of probably 10 macs I've ever owned. There is a Macbook Air sitting nearby which I just tried for comparison. It's pretty good too. But the MBP 16" is just lovely. Quiet. Enough feedback.
The only gripe is, and this might be true of all Mac backlit keyboards. Is that I can see light coming from under the keys when viewing it at a low angle such as when I've got my feet up and it's on my lap. Not just through the letters, but little slivers of light under each one.
> Not just through the letters, but little slivers of light under each one.
My pet peeve too. I hate that, as it doesn't happen on Microsoft Surfaces.
If it can't be fixed due to the different travel distance, give me instead a RGB led per key and I will be coding funny patterns to work around the issue (ex: red keyboard backlight at night, with a green for the important keys like enter, and blinking F keys if I got activity on a terminal)
Ok, I just switched back to the M1 from the 2012 MBA. Keyboard is just too shallow and key travel is just too short. It is improved over the butterfly but it still isn't as good as the 2012.
The machine you mention is my work machine, but it has been docked and I haven't really broken in the keyboard.
The previous work machine which I typed in probably 20k words a day was a butterfly keyboard mac. I hate that machine with a passion, I want to buy it back from my employer and bisect it with a plasma torch.
I actually like the feel of my M1 pro keyboard better than my 1015 15" macbook pro's keyboard. But... That weird lcd strip constantly flickering in the periphery of my vision makes me want to throw the laptop out of the window. Good thing it isn't my main working machine, just a device to make fat binaries of Krita on.
You can imagine the Apple of old hiring a team of researchers to determine the absolute optimal key travel and springiness. The Apple of today wants to make things that look nice on display and are never actually used.
