Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

I would like a better keyboard

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is happening right now in Las Vegas. The particular segment I always enjoy to read about is PC laptops. A bit of window shopping, you know? My daily-driver laptop is a 202116-inch MacBook Pro (M1 Max), and it’s interesting to see what the Windows side has to offer. Can there be a compelling enough PC product to sway me out of a decade plus loyalty to team Apple?

I am still waiting.

There is one component in modern PC laptops that I do wish Apple offered on its MacBook line: a better keyboard. As an often typist (see: this blog), a laptop with a solid typing experience is a must for me. After the butterfly keyboard debacle, the MacBook lineup has finally returned to a keyboard with good feel and reliability. I still have not found another non-Apple laptop than can match a MacBook for key-deck solidity.

What certain PC laptops do offer though, is better key switches. Mechanical keyboards are super popular these days (except for your office mates who have to hear all that click-clacking from your typing), and certain laptop-makers offer laptops with really thin-profile mechanical keys. My dream typing-focused laptop would be a 13-inch MacBook Air fitted with such keys. Most dreams never come true, obviously.

Other than that, I do not want for anything else with my 16-inch MacBook Pro that the PC camp can sway me over. The build-quality is absolute precision, the 120 Hz mini-LED display is bright and gorgeous, and the M1 Max still chews through everything I need it to do. Best of all, the battery life is unparalleled. In terms of performance per unit of energy, PC laptops have yet to be in even the same neighborhood ever since Apple switched over to its own silicon. It remains amazing to see that after a full work-day, there’s still half battery left on my work-issue M2 MacBook Pro.

I’ve literally heard users complain about the drastically reduced battery life when we give them an Intel-era MacBook Pro, whilst their Apple Silicon MacBook Pro is in service. Horrible batter life is a feature, not a bug, sir.

Not so magic keyboard

Recently I got my hands on an Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. This tiny piece of aluminum and plastic costs a whopping $150 dollars. A $50 dollar premium over the already expensive Magic Keyboard that doesn’t have Touch ID. All for the privilege of unlocking your Mac with your finger.

I was intrigued: my MacBook Pro lives “clamshell” mode plugged into a Pro Display XDR at all times. Therefore I don’t use the built-in keyboard. Which means I can’t use the built-in Touch ID sensor. Gone is the convenience advantage to not having to type in my password every time. It’s the one feature I miss most in running the MacBook Pro in closed position.

The $150 dollar keyboard from Apple fixes this problem, but I was never going to pay that kind of money just for the convenience. And now that I’ve had one on hand to test, my choice is confirmed. Indeed it is wonderful to be able to wake and unlock the Mac from sleep in one press of the button. However, the keyboard itself is utterly crap. The deck is so shallow and thin that it’s like typing on a piece of paper. Especially coming from a keyboard with full-height mechanical keys.

The ease of Touch ID unfortunately cannot trump typing comfort. I can foresee getting hand fatigue rather quickly in using the Magic Keyboard. It’s a shame Apple doesn’t allow third-party keyboard makers to integrate a Touch ID sensor. Or Apple can simply make a keyboard worth of avid typists. The company certainly used to make external keyboards with proper height and key travel.

I’m sticking with my Keychron K8.

Optimize for longevity

My colleagues and I are going around the university campus, checking various computers to get them ready for the fall semester. Most of these machines have not been touched since the begin of the pandemic. At best, you’d just need to run some updates and be done with it. At worst, the PC won’t even boot into the operating system. Macs are definitely easier to deal with under this unprecedented situation.

It seems some users prefer ergonomic keyboards for their workstations. You know, the type with the split in the middle and a heavily contoured typing surface. Having never used one regularly, the ergonomic keyboards alway trip me up, difficulty with finding the keys I want. My muscle memory simply isn’t coded for this! I was raised on the “regular” keyboard.

A more wizen and experience colleague reminded my why people use the ergonomic keyboard: to (hopefully) prevent the inevitable decay that comes with using a computer every single day for many hours. Arthritis of the hands is not fun. Never mind the other stuff that can happen, too: pain at the neck, shoulders, all the way down to the lower back. If sitting in front of a computer is your thing, then you’ll want to optimize the position as best as possible.

Perhaps I should rethink having a laptop as my only device at home. An external monitor to raise the sight line, and an external keyboard to make typing more comfortable. I do enjoy the minimalist appearance of having only the laptop on the desk, and would hate to give up any more space for computer accessories. What I also need then is a bigger desk, ideally one that can adjust for height.

It’s definitely something to ponder on seriously. My hands and fingers are already not in so good a shape, as evident by my ongoing struggle with learning the piano in my 30s. Longevity is the game, so I really ought to optimize for that, instead of maintaining the status quo because of aesthetics.

There’s also another problem: the monitor I want is $5,000 dollars…

The piano is here!

Remember early last week I wrote the piano I purchased was backordered for months?

Well, good news: it has since arrived safe and sound! I guess once they freed that ship blocking the Suez Canal, things do indeed move on pretty quickly!

Jokes aside, Guitar Center - from whom I bought the keyboard - really threw me for a loop. One day the order status read the Yamaha CP88 is backordered, the next day I get an email saying it has shipped via UPS. And it is due to arrive the very next day! I had to scrambled to tell my housemate to be on a lookout for a 55 pound package, lest a porch pirate runs away with a piano that costs more than two months’ rent.

Right, so I’ve got an intensely expensive - for my very low skin level - piano unexpectedly sitting at home. Because I did not think it would come so quickly, I don’t have any of the other stuff that needs to go along with it. So this weekend I bought a sturdy stand for the keyboard, and also ordered a pair of headphones. The CP88 is a stage piano, which like an electric guitar needs an external audio source to function. There aren’t any built-in speakers. For the sake of my housemates, I opted for headphones instead.

I also decided on an online piano course: Piano Marvel. Amongst its competitors, Piano Marvel seems most comprehensively focused on classical piano teaching, heavy on theory and sight-reading. It’s just a matter of connecting the CP88 to my MacBook Pro via a USB cable. Like with Korean, I was always going to self-teach piano. Progress will undoubtedly be slower comparative to hiring an actual teacher, but alone is how I like to roll in life.

I can’t wait to get started. The headphones cannot get here quick enough from Amazon.

Apple's sneaky fix for its butterfly keyboard

Last week Apple (finally) updated the internals of their Macbook Pro line with the latest Intel processors, among other improvements (optional 32GB of ram!). The news however was overshadowed because all focus was on whether or not Apple has fixed the issues with their butterfly-switch keyboards. The greatest laptop in the world would be quite useless if mere grains of sand can render keys wholly inoperative. Bold move indeed if Apple kept the same keyboard in the new refresh.

The good news is Apple did update the keyboard in the new Macbook Pros, calling it their third generation butterfly mechanism. Missing from the PR literature however is any mention of fix for sticking and unresponsive keys. With multiple lawsuits in preparation against it, Apple is likely not at liberty to openly admit any faults innate to prior generation butterfly keyboards. Therefore the official company line is that the gen-three butterfly keys are quieter than the previous versions.

Journalists who’ve had a first-hand look have found this to be true.

The team at iFixit did their usual diligence and tore open a brand new 2018 Macbook Pro. They found that underneath each key-cap is a silicone membrane/gasket covering the butterfly mechanism. The new part appears to be what’s damping the clicking noise (ergo quieter as Apple says), though it also functions to prevent small dust particles from seeping in further underneath the key-caps - a de-facto remedy for the malfunctioning keys problem.

So it seems Apple did fix the issues of the old butterfly keyboards; they just won’t say so officially, again probably due to the pending lawsuits. A PR move dictated by the needs of the lawyering brigade.

Nevertheless, owners of Mac laptops outfitted with the first or second generation butterfly mechanism ought to demand that Apple retrofit this rubber gasket solution onto their Macbooks. On the other hand I wouldn’t buy a Mac laptop that hasn’t got the gen-three butterfly keys; Apple needs to update the rest of its laptop lineup quickly.

Apple should also continue to work on its 'Portrait Mode' algorithms. The blur on the stem as it meets the flower head is horrendous.

Changed up my typing regiment

Autocorrect have made me a worse typist that I already am.

Typing is a large part muscle memory, is it not? Not having to look down at the keyboard whilst typing is all in our fingers remembering each and every key position. Autocorrect disrupts that memory because even when my fingers betray me momentarily, I never have to go back and correct the mistake - the computer does it for me. This happens enough times and suddenly my muscle memory on how to type a particular word is completely out of sync.

I was never that great of a typist to begin with - thanks for nothing, Mavis Beacon - and autocorrect exacerbates it. Therefore I've turn it off on all my computers.

On the same tangent of typing, I've recently had a nasty liquid spill on my desk and my old Corsair mechanical keyboard took the brunt of it. Water and electronics never mix so I had to purchase a new one. I've own the Corsair K70 for five years and to be honest I was hoping to get plenty more mileage out of it.

That thought escaped my mind as soon as the replacement arrived: a Das Keyboard Model S Mac edition. This unit is pricey indeed but the haptic typing experience is supreme. I hadn't realize there's a hierarchy in the realm of mechanical keyboards, and apparently I've bought the Ferrari of them all. The Model S has a tactility and response that feels mega on the fingers, rendering the other keyboards I use for work completely inadequate.

Pray I don't end this keyboard's life prematurely with misuse liquids as well.