Call me crazy but I must be the only person who enjoys typing on the old butterfly keyboard.
Yes I was one of those people who originally thought the travel was too small but after using it for a couple hours I found the low travel was a huge relief to Carpal Tunnel and I also typed much faster.
Maybe I have the only keyboard that “works” but I love me some butterfly keyboards.
I actually prefer the butterfly keyboard's clickiness – coming from a mechanical keyboard, I always found the chiclet keys a tad too mushy. And the jarringly-short travel, while annoying at first, is easy to adapt to.
The thing that turned me against the butterfly keyboard were the reliability issues. I've had to get replacements for broken keyboards three times: spacebar stopped working, `f` ended up double typing every single time, and capslock (I remap to Ctrl) would 'stick' for a few seconds when pressed.
Same. I love typing on it, and my reliability issues haven't been as bad as yours, but occasionally having 2 'a's come out instead of one is very annoying for a command-line driven workflow.
I felt the same way until my butterfly keyboard gradually stopped working and I went back to my old 2014 MBP keyboard, and realized I had developed Stockholm Syndrome. If you haven't already, try switching back to the old (or new) scissor keys and see if you still feel the same.
Agreed - I used the 2017 model for a couple years and no complaints about the feel, just the non-working keys. But I didn’t realize that my typing had gotten slower and less precise.
I switched to the X1C7 and will prioritize key travel and response from now on.
I had one of the butterfly keyboards at work and an old one at home. I still feel like the butterfly keyboard felt crisper and faster to type on. I never dealt with any issues with the butterfly keyboard, but I only used it about a year.
I enjoy the butterfly keyboard, but once the keys started putting two spaces in when I said one, or putting two of other letters, or none of yet other letters, it got old really fast.
Still like my keyboard, and would be happy to have it back if Apple fixed the reliability issues.
I'm with you. There are probably dozens of us. But really, the loudest ones in the room are always the ones that got screwed over by the keyboad. I love the way the butterfly types, and 1+ year in, I've had no issues. Let's just hope it lasts another 6. I got 7 years out of an Air (replaced the battery in year 6), and I'm hoping to get as much out of a way more expensive pro...
I'm also curious as to if the keyboards are different sizes on 13in v. 15in models. As in, are all the problems/complaints stemming from the 13in models?
I am starting to think that it’s more to do with how people type, rather then a keyboard quality. Most people who get them break - go through 3-4 keyboards in a year. I am still using my 2017 butterfly and have not had a single issue with a keyboard. So it’s either 0 or 3+ replacements
I think it might be more about how much contact your keyboard has to particulates. The primary mode of failure has to do with dust/crumbs/etc getting into the mechanism. It's not impossible to imagine that people who type in more particulate-rich environments have frequent keyboard issues.
But that's still victim blaming. There are plenty of keyboard designs which are not this fragile, and you shouldn't have to dust-proof your workspace to avoid hardware failures. We're not making CPUs here.
One thing I found is that the reliability issues are usually quite fleeting. I have the feeling that a lot of the people who are experiencing issues are going to the Apple store straight away to get it fixed. I've had a few issues: 5 key stopped working properly, space stopped working properly a couple times, same for f key, where by properly I meant it needed more effort to get the keypress out, however every time the issue resolved itself in 2 or 3 days of use (presumably by the typing breaking up whatever dust had gotten itself under there)
They are definitely unreliable and shouldn't break so easy, but every issue I've had has resolved itself
As one anecdotal point: I waited months for mine to go away, and eventually got really frustrated with it and brought it to the store. They took it to the back and somehow their air can removed what my air can at home could not.
About a year since I did that and the key funkiness is slowly coming back for the last two weeks. Hopefully I only need another Apple Store trip and their compressed air to fix it.
The point is that a keyboard shouldn't have those kind of problems. If it fixes by itself or if it needs sometime, doesn't really matter because most other keyboards works fines for years.
I'm with you. I have an old Macbook Pro at home with the original scissors keyboard, as well as some old bluetooth Mac keyboards with scissor switches, and a 2017 Pro with the butterfly switches, so I get plenty of experience with both styles. I prefer the butterfly keyboard.
But like you, I haven't had a key go bad (yet?). I'm sure some folks did not like the butterfly feel, but I think a lot of the frustration started with how easily it broke.
Besides reliability, the problem with the butterfly for me was the close inter-key spacing. It was too easy to hit the next key over while I was typing. I kept having to back up and retype. it took most of the last year before I, mostly, got used to it. The travel or stability was never a problem, but then it was never a problem on the 2014 either. :)
Who knew? Keyboards turn out to be very personal. I am in your camp. I picked up one of the 13" MBPs when they rev'ed it earlier this year and I love the keyboard! I have never typed faster on any laptop keyboard.
I've used 3 different MacBooks since 2016 with the butterfly keyboards (upgrading to newer models as they came out), never had a problem with any. Granted, I always use a "keyboard condom" anyway no matter what (because I hate the inevitable stains that no keyboard is immune to), maybe that saved me?
The Touch Bar can also be pretty handy, especially if you customize it with third-party apps like BetterTouchTool. I certainly use it more than I ever used F# keys.
Not everybody hates the feel of the butterfly keyboard, I kinda like it too. The problem is in its reliability.
Anyone who works in a shop with a large population of Macs will have see them fail in droves. My 2016 has had the B and V keys fail, a couple keys falling out, and now spacebar and a few other keys come out duplicates every other sentence.
You can count me in. I was expecting Apple to fix the problems with the butterfly keyboard (I didn't have any but seems like a bunch of them stopped working). Instead, they went backwards. Maybe it's the right move and the butterfly is really broken.
But it was a nice typing experience for a while. At least, until I get the new Mac!
I felt likewise and enjoy the key travel. I do type faster on it and find it overall pleasant. Then again I’m wary of getting anything under the keys and worried for the day one or more keys stop working properly. Hard to tell what the actual failure rate is.
I bought the pre-16 inch MBP specifically for the keyboard. It's joyful and effortless to type on at the same time. Hands down the best laptop keyboard. (I used ThinkPads exclusively for more than a decade before coming to Macs)
I find the whole debacle absolutely bizarre. The butterfly keyboard is fantastic. The only real problem with it is that the keys aren’t easily removable. If they were, you could easily clean them and/or replace them. I don’t understand why the design directive after the first ones started failing wasn’t: Make the keys easily replaceable.
They did four iterations on the original design and never made a variant where you didn’t have to replace the entire top case because of some cookie crumbs. It’s just insane.
All they had to do was redesign the hooks under the keys. I’m no engineer, but when I look at them it doesn’t seem like some kind of impossible challenge.
Yes I was one of those people who originally thought the travel was too small but after using it for a couple hours I found the low travel was a huge relief to Carpal Tunnel and I also typed much faster.
Maybe I have the only keyboard that “works” but I love me some butterfly keyboards.