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Comment by nextos | Hacker News Reader

I think Ive needed Jobs to provide some user feedback he would listen to ahead of product release.

Without Jobs, it's taken Apple years to get keyboards back on track. Which is absurd given that their desktop keyboard is really good.

I haven't bought any Apple products for years, except for their peripherals. Their touchpad is excellent, and there's no other alternative in the market I know of that works decently in Linux. Their keyboard is a pleasure to use during long typing sessions and has really low latency.

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I think the synergy of the Ive-Jobs relationship was that Ive was the "how it looks" guy, and Jobs was the "how it works" guy, and the "how it works" guy always had final say on a product.

Looking at the past few years, it seems clear that the "how it looks" guy was the one with final say on a product.

Okay, friendly jab here: which one is responsible for putting USB ports in the back of iMacs, in such a position that I either strike luck and bent my wrist but get something plugged or I must stand up, move the keyboard and stuff on my desktop to grab the screen and move it around so I can plug something in and then turn the screen around again :-) ?

I suspect that would have been something they both agreed on. Ives being Ives and Jobs being the type of person who refused to sell a mouse with two buttons until the second "button" could be hidden away behind a touch interface.

Though to be fair any of the displays I've used with USB ports also have them situated around the back. I guess it's a bit different when you're talking about the only ports on the computer vs. ports added for convenience.

That's the reason why there was a USB port on each side of the original Apple keyboard (not the wireless one of course). These ports (on the back) are most likely located there with the idea of having a device pluggued in for good and not moved so often.

If memory serves me well those keyboard USB ports weren't amped enough to handle power hungry devices though.

They were primarily for connecting a wired Apple mouse on the appropriate side for a left or right-handed user.

An even better idea: listen to CUSTOMERS

Except most customers are stupid, so you have to be careful with that, too. If you accept customer input uncritically you get design by the biggest possible committee.

There is not nor will there every be a substitute for good judgment.

"Which is absurd given that their desktop keyboard is really good."

I guess that is pretty subjective. I for one, hate Apple desktop keyboards. Not only the feel of it, but the layout (in my country) is different than the PC keyboards which drives me nuts.

Definitely subjective.

I find chiclet keyboards absolutely horrible, and Apple has been the pioneer of that horrible type of keyboard.

The keys are terrible mushy little islands.

Mechanical keyboards are just SO much better.

In recent versions of macOS the PC keyboard layout is builtin the OS, so no external tools are needed anymore.

What keyboard has high latency?

https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/

Unfortunately that’s only half good. It’s more typical to measure peripheral latency by connecting an LED to the switch to see when it’s actuated. This person performed an Apple 2s to oranges measurement by not controlling his keypress speed and not testing the Apple 2. The conclusions are based on feelings. Keyboard electronics are simple so short of severe mistakes they add negligible latency. HIDs are connected to interrupts so the OS should get the input pronto. The insanely large software stack will slow things down, but it isn’t the keyboard’s fault.

Edit: to exemplify the issue with this test: a poorly implemented capacitive touch keyboard would add 10 ms of latency and feel sluggish yet would be at the top of this chart.

Maybe he means key travel time?

I am also baffled by that comment.

The latency on the magic keyboard is only 15ms, as opposed to the common 30-40ms on other keyboards.

Key travel time contributes to this, so if you have longer travel you will also have longer latency (latency being the beginning of the keypress untill the character appears on your screen). I personally much prefer the feel of a mechanical keyboard, so I dislike both the magic keyboard and regular dome keyboards. The typing experience on a mechanical keyboard is better, even though it has more travel.

> Their touchpad is excellent...

exception: the 2017 macbook pro trackpad. it's not great. i don't know how many times i had to plug a mouse in to get drag and drop to work...

I always go into accessibility settings and enable three-finger click and drag. It seems by far the most easily usable way to do that on a trackpad.

The poster you were replying to makes it clear he means the stand-alone touchpad, not ones in laptops.

Still rocking a 2013 here. Just got handed a 2019 for work purposes. It makes me sad.

> it's taken Apple years to get keyboards back on track

This was a conscious decision, they could have reverted the mistake in 12 months if they had truly wanted. But it would require burning a production line and design roadmap that was supposed to last 3 years. Turned out having users buy an inherently faulty $2000+ product for 3 years and a repair program was the easier pill to swallow.

Tim Cook isn't a product person[0], he's never going to think of the actual product and its impact on the users in a way that could make that call.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxZofbMGpM

The iOS devices haven't suffered similarly though. Those products have been developing fine.

Apple just hasn't cared enough about the Mac (the Mac Pro is proof of that). I've read reports (could be false) that all the A players go on the iOS teams, and the ones left on the Mac teams are the handful of truly passionate, and the B players. (well if you read other reports, the A players go to Google where they pay better...)

If google has so many A players then why are so many of the services in a poor state? You could point to any google service, outside of drive/docs etc., and have severe complaints about it.

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