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Comment by da_murvel | Hacker News Reader

I think it's funny that now when Apple happened to make a truly awful keyboard, basically everyone is raging. But PC makers has been building terrible keyboards for years and no one seems to give a damn. Or is everyone just assuming that keyboards are supposed to be that way on PCs? Also, this problem goes beyond laptops, most "affordable" keyboards that I've tried has been horrible as well. I'm typing at the moment at some standard logitech keyboard my fingers cry for every key I press. It's got a cheap feeling to it, the force it takes to press beyond the "bump" is way too great and the keycaps wobble. The only thing I like about it is the profile which is rather low.

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PC Market has choices. If I don't like HP's new keyboards, I can look at Lenovo or Dell or one of a number of other providers.

And some PC Laptop keyboards are really nice, so it's not as though there aren't good options (My HP Elitebook 840G1 has been working well for ages and is really nice to type on)

The problem for Macbook users is that they're the only game in town, so if you don't like the direction of travel you're stuck.

I've got a similar problem on the phone angle. I like iPhones, I've had iPhones mainly since the 4, but I don't like the removal of ports. The removal of the headphone jack was a right pain for people who had paid good money for ANC headphones and lightning options are thin on the ground.

It's the challenge of a monoculture ecosystem...

Everything you're saying is simply untrue.

> But PC makers has been building terrible keyboards for years and no one seems to give a damn. Or is everyone just assuming that keyboards are supposed to be that way on PCs?

MBP keyboards _stop functioning_. This means, you click on a key, and nothing happens, you get duplicatee keystrokess, or you have to press very hard to even get a keystroke.

I have never had a keyboard that stopped functioning from normal use in any laptop more expensive than $500, and the MBP I used to have I paid 1749 EUR for (not sure what that is in USD, maybe 2000?).

It's ridiculous.

> think it's funny that now when Apple happened to make a truly awful keyboard, basically everyone is raging.

Are you kidding? No one is raging. Journalists kept giving their crappy laptops good reviews and there was no mention of keyboard problems anywhere for years even after many, many people complained.

It took Apple 2-3 class actions to even acknowledge the problem. I moved to PC at least a year ago because of this.

They're advertising like they make high-end stuff--much better than 99% of the other guys, and they can't even make a laptop good enough to be used as a laptop.

> The only thing I like about it is the profile which is rather low.

I guess you have gotten lucky and your keyboard is better, and you didn't read on what the whole problem is about.

I think its more of a problem because Apple laptops are the only option for a lot of people (myself included) because they value having macOS over whatever annoyances the hardware might present.

If this years' Dell has a shitty keyboard then you can just get the Lenovo instead or vice versa.

> I think it's funny that now when Apple happened to make a truly awful keyboard, basically everyone is raging. But PC makers has been building terrible keyboards for years and no one seems to give a damn

No, that's not a fair comparison.

PC makers have made cheap or low-quality keyboards for years. But they've always been mostly functional, even if they didn't feel great. And if it had failed it's been easy (or at least possible) to replace. I've replaced keyboard keys and/or whole keyboards on laptops like the Lenovo Yoga and Dell Inspiron, for instance. It's a delicate process, but can be done with just a few screws or clips, at below $100 USD prices.

Apple made a defective unusable keyboard that intentionally can not be repaired and costs multiple hundreds of dollars to fix. That's a big, unique escalation of worst-case keyboard problems, hence the outrage.

I'm not aware of any major PC manufacturer shipping a keyboard that broken and that expensive in their flagship devices in decades. No laptop keyboard from Dell, HP, Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Microsoft, etc in the past 10 years was ever as bad as the keyboard Apple shipped all last year.

The closest thing I can think of is something like the Lenovo Yoga Book, but even that is a prototype device not replacing real Yoga lines (so real, reliable keyboards were still always available), and even that Yoga Book all-touchscreen keyboard is still more reliable than the previous MacBooks physical keyboard.

How is that funny? Keyboards are decoupled from PCs via USB and PS/2, so if someone wants a better keyboard they can go spend £50-200 on one. There is a wide variety of keyboards.

The point of a laptop is integration, and if you want integration you have to have what the manufacturer provides. Also, if you need macOS, and a laptop, there's not much choice.

A MacBook Pro can easily be a £500-1000 premium over an equivalent spec Dell laptop, and who knows how much over a similar spec PC. You should get a good keyboard for that money.

I have an Apple USB external keyboard for when I have to do serious typing on the linux laptop...

Hopefully Apple will continue making awesome external keyboards and not suddenly decide to mess this up by making them stupidly thin, or removing the extra USB ports (so useful!) or converting them to USB C so need dongles to be useful.

You are confused by this? It is because Apple have taken something away. If they took replaced the track pad with the sorry excuse that Dell or HP use, they will also be castigated for it.

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