Ryan Bigg

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They fixed the keyboard

28 Nov 2019

Consider this post a sequel to my The 2018 MacBook Pro Keyboard Drives Me Crazy (Aug ‘19) post from earlier in the year.

In that post, I listed the following complaints about the 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard:

  • duplicated “o’s” that I’ve had to go back and fix, or missing ones – guess how fun it is to write a book about a Toy Robot with this particular problem
  • double spaces – or no spaces
  • a Command key that registers 9 out of every 10 times
  • words like “times” that inexplicably get spelled like “timies”, or “about” that gets spelled like “abouot”

I’ve now been using a brand-new 2019 MacBook Pro for about 5 hours and I’ve been using the keyboard extensively during the setup of this machine.

Those complaints that I had above? They don’t exist on this keyboard. There has been no duplicated letters, spaces, dodgy Command keys, or mispelled words that were not my clumsiness.

I’ve felt more productive on this keyboard since I got it. I’m guessing because I didn’t have to go back and fix up so many mistakes.

But I wanted to get quantifiable data on this, and given that I type for a living what better way to do this than to run a few tests.

So I went over to TypeRacer on my old MacBook Pro and scored in the 95-105WPM range over 5 tests.

Then I went to TypeRacer on my new MacBook Pro and did 5 more tests.

My range there was 105-120WPM. So I’m typing at 15-20WPM faster on this keyboard than I was on the old one.

This keyboard is better for me than the old one was. It seems that Apple has fixed the keyboard issues.

Bravo.