by Jason Snell
‘There’s no i in keyboard’
Stephen Hackett’s MacBook Pro keyboard is busted:
A couple of weeks ago, its i key started feeling a little sticky. This keyboard does not boast large amount of travel, but this key was barely moving at all when pressed…. One of the tiny arms that the key cap clips onto is broken. My nearly $2,000 laptop that I bought less than a year ago is now missing a key.
I’m here in Chicago at the Release Notes conference with Stephen1. His MacBook Pro keyboard has a huge shiny square where the i key once was.
We can feel free to disagree about whether Apple’s new laptop keyboard design with drastically reduced key travel is pleasant to type on or not—I don’t like the feel of the keyboard at all, but I recognize that reasonable people will differ.
But like them or not, these keyboards seem to be easily broken. I can’t tell you how many people I know who have reported some problem with the keyboard that has required a visit to the Apple Store. Casey Johnston has a similar horror story at The Outline, involving a spacebar that may have been screwed up by a piece of dust.
I think Apple made a mistake in creating an ultra-low-travel keyboard and sticking it on every laptop it makes. But it would be easier to accept that decision if the design hadn’t also proved to be unreliable.
- I wrote his headline! ↩