Keyboard reliability was fixed and switch back to scissors or what they called magic keyboard. But the Key travel distance is still not the 1.5mm used in the pre Butterfly era.

Having used all three of them, I'd say the fixed version is finally good enough. 2015 was one of the best laptop keyboards I've ever used, but the new one is 80% there. It's nowhere near close the disaster inbetween.

Reliability isn't as good for me as the 2015 MacBook Pro. My 2019 16" doesn't register presses that are near the edge of the keys like the 2015 model did. Perhaps it's related to the travel distance. It is my biggest issue with the 16".

This was the selling point for the butterfly keyboard when it was introduced, actually, that no matter where you hit on the key it would be equally responsive.

Anecdata FWIW: I upgraded directly from a 2014 (same keyboard as 2015 that everyone praises) to the first 16". I did notice a difference at first but adjusted within less than a week, never had any complaints after that.

My own anectada: I owned a 2015. It now belongs to my son. I also own a 16" with a Magic Keyboard. I had a butterfly along the way that was a total nightmare.

Going from the butterfly to the Magic felt absolutely incredible. I now own an M1 MacBook Air (mainly for the better and quieter performace, and the lack of TouchBar), and its keyboard feels about the same as the 16", so pretty good.

After a long time, I was helping my son with stuff on the computer, and as soon as I typed a couple words I was blown away by his keyboard. It's better in every aspect to the newer ones.

Magic Keyboard ranges from good to very good. The 2015's is superb.

I’ll supplement my anecdata to say…

I gifted my other old 2013 which had the same pre-butterfly keyboard, erased my data after I had already gotten used to the 2019. I did notice the difference in key travel then. But it didn’t bother me when I went back to the 2019 after. I honestly couldn’t say I’d prefer one over the other, besides current familiarity/muscle memory.

Key travel isn't back to what it used to be, but it's moving down everywhere so apple at least isn't far behind. I went from a T series thinkpad to an M1 air and the keyboard was a clear downgrade, but in practice I find it to be "good enough".

Apple:

.7 mm - butterfly keyboard

1 mm - current mac scissor keyboard

1.3 mm - old mac scissor keyboard

Thinkpads:

1.8mm - T series thinkpads (aka the ones with the good keyboard)

1.5mm - last year's X1 carbon (the thin and light)

1.3mm - this year's X1 carbon

For added reference, the beloved 7-row ThinkPad keyboards found in laptops like the T410 and T420 have 2.5mm key travel.

Kailh Choc (low profile) mechanical switches have a total travel of 3mm.

Cherry MX switches (and most clones) have 4mm travel. Some clones are a little more or less.

I miss the 0.7mm travel. Less work for the fingers. Faster typing. Too bad they couldn't make it reliable.

I know it's completely subjective, but I'm currently on a work provided 2018 mac with the 0.7mm travel and I despise it. I have far, far more typing errors on this keyboard than I do on pretty much anything else.

I'm excited to try the new 1mm keyboard.

Same, I use a mechanical keyboard at my desk, and being forced to use the laptop keyboard would drive me insane. I spilt coffee on it and ended up upgrading to a 2020 Pro which (to me) is just barely bearable.

You spilt coffee on purpose for an upgrade? :)

I certainly don't miss the feeling of typing on concrete. I suppose a very light fingered typist might appreciate the reduced travel though.

Typing on concrete - that's exactly right. I got awful RSI from the butterfly keyboard on my 2018 15-inch MBP. I had used previous MacBooks for nearly a decade with no problems.

I actually thought the old butterfly keys were fine back when I was using them, but after getting an M1 2020 mbp, going back is HORRIBLE

Yes! Thought I was the only one. It was slick, good-looking, and typing was a breeze on those.

But it was super-problematic and had mine broken multiple times over the years. If they could make 0.7mm butterfly reliable, that would have been awesome.

I feel like we are either odd ducks or else in a silent majority. I love minimal key travel and find it a far superior typing experience.

I love my 2019’s keyboard. That’s the year they added the extra membrane to prevent dust getting in. It’s been flawless for me for the last two years.

I have the 16" MBP (late-2019), really annoyed with the heating issues. Any time I do anything intensive, like edit raw images in Lightroom, at some point temperature rises which makes some "kernel process" pretty much hog up all the CPU and the machine starts lagging severely. Looked up online and this is quite common.

It’s come up before but still not everyone knows: you may want to try plugging the power cable on the right side. It can drastically reduce this throttling.

Yea it's especially common when running external monitors. The conspiracy-minded would say Apple wanted to leave a reason for MBP buyers to upgrade to M1 laptops.

Using any external monitor requires turning on the discrete GPU. I'm sure that's a large part of the problem.

Why would that be required? The embedded GPU should be good enough for many things.

Poor drivers. The same reason why the discrete GPU pulls around 20W just for being on with an external screen, even if the screen is black. Apparently not an issue:

    * in clamshell mode;
    * on Windows via BootCamp.

According to some reports in the MacRumours forum [0] this is fixed in Monterey.

[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an...

Edit: Not quite a fix. Apparently they introduced a Low Power Mode that helps bring wattage and temps down by essentially preemptively throttling CPU and GPU or something like that.

> by essentially preemptively throttling CPU and GPU

Not really a fix then. That may prevent hurting your machine but it’s still not running at optimal performance.

Indeed. I disable turbo boost on my 16". It hurts peak performance but runs (slightly) cooler and quieter, and sustains for longer. This reads all kinds of wrong.

I have the 2020 Intel one as well. I think the key travel still isn't what it was in 2015 or earlier, though. They are still too shallow for me. It's minor, but I do feel I bottom out too quickly on them. It feels like tapping on glass after a while.

It's insane to me that manufacturers still haven't figured this out. Reducing the travel by .1mm is extremely worth it if you can give a slightly squishy/springy bottoming out with a rubber gasket. It dramatically reduces typing fatigue.

Its kind of funny that while everything else has gotten better laptop keyboards have gotten so bad that the one thing we try to avoid on desktop keyboards (I can never go back to that squishy plastic dome feel after the crisp action of mechanical switches) would actually be an improvement.

If you need a rubber gasket at the bottom to avoid “fatigue”, that means you are smashing your fingers down too hard and can plausibly injure yourself with or without the gasket. This feature of typing style can be improved with practice. Try to use a light springy touch with only slightly more force than minimally necessary to actuate the keys. Try to keep the palms floating in the air (rather than resting on any surface) while actively typing.

More helpful in keyboard hardware would be greater key travel distance and a sharper tactile snap.

(Trying to solve keyboard injuries with rubber at the bottom of the keyswitch is similar to wearing heavily padded running shoes then smashing heels into the ground on every step, relying on the shoe padding to absorb some of the shock. The better way to avoid ankle/knee/hip injury is to get a less padded shoe and fix the gait to have gentler steps and use the tendons/muscles to absorb the shock instead of cartilage etc.)

Why should I spend time training myself when we could just design equipment to be more easily usable. Minimalist shoes fell out of fashion, and serious competitors mostly never used them.

Indeed, that argument feels very much like "you're holding it wrong". Technology should adapt to us, not the other way around. Especially human interface devices like keyboards.

Part of the issue with Apple's keyboards is that the activation point is so close to the bottom due to the short travel. Lenovo does this a lot better and it's really a joy to type on. Bottoming the keys out hard is instinctively reduced due to the earlier and clearer feedback.

I agree that technology should adapt to people’s anatomy rather than vice versa. The improvements in that direction in switch design are a longer travel distance, sharper tactile snap at the actuation point, where possible audio feedback, and possibly lower force required for actuation.

More importantly than keyswitch design, the keyboard is a pretty bad overall shape for human hands. Laptop keyboards could be improved dramatically with a different physical arrangement of keys. In particular the right half of the letter keys should be scooted an inch or more to the right, and arranged so the wrists can stay straight while typing, the right pinky should be given fewer keys to press, the thumbs and index fingers should have more keys, and in general finger reaching should be minimized.

Training to safely and efficiently use tools is also important, however. Untrained typists have injuries at much higher rate than trained typists, because they develop habits poorly aligned with human anatomy. Same story for musicians, etc. Many people would benefit from more effective handwriting training.

Telling people to sit with their backs straight instead of hunched over or slouching, keep their necks straight, keep their wrists straight while doing fine work with the fingers, (more generally avoid postures with high static strain on muscles/tendons,) change positions every once in a while to reduce/shift remaining static loads, get enough sleep and exercise, etc. is just generally good advice irrespective of equipment. RSI is no joke, and people who make heavy use of computers should make some effort not to cause themselves permanent injury.

Yes indeed, I've had RSI in varying degrees for decades ago I'm very careful with it. Though it's easy for bad habits to slip in.

But part of this is that I will feel very quickly when something is ergonomically wrong. The butterfly keyboard in particular but also Apple's super flat magic mouse.

On the other hand, it doesn't have to be something super fancy either. Even the basic Microsoft wired ambidextrous (so not officially "ergonomic") mouse serves me well.

The older Apple keyboard (Island style) also suits me. It's not all bad :)

Because the lack of feedback on the shallow depth is extremely off-putting to most people. Me included.

I can’t say I’ve ever gotten typing fatigue from any keyboard I’ve used even when being stuck typing for 10+ hours with very little downtime.

You should spend time training yourself because the design that “feels” softer is still actually putting a ton of strain on your joints, which often leads to debilitating injury.

It was fixed but not brought back to its former glory.

Having briefly had to use an old Pro from when they still had DVD drives in them (which I used way-back-when but hadn't touched in a long time), I can authoritatively say that the "former glory" is a solid two generations behind the very-flat newer keyboards. Even the one it replaced (2012?-2015?) wasn't as good as those were. Felt great to type on. I don't think nice-feeling keyboards are compatible with extreme thinness.

I own a 2011 Macbook Pro I still use daily. I have Apple laptops going all the way back to the PowerPC days and use current ones through work but that DVD equipped unibody generation has the very best keyboard. By far.

I have a 2011 MacBook Pro and a 2019 MacBook Pro, and the keyboard in the 2011 MacBook Pro still feels so good even after 10 years.

wow.....

I agree that they felt great to type on but at least for me typing speed was much slower. Going back to my 2010 (I think) MBP now, typing still feels great but it also feels like typing in molasses.

I have it too, but to say I love it would be a stretch. It really doesn’t feel like max spec machine most of the time.