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This article comes from the public geek selection (ID: GeekChoice), the author who is the hero, and the love fan is authorized to publish. Apple has always been keen on the smell of new technologies, but from the butterfly keyboard event, they may be able to learn a lot.
After disappearing, is there a chance to come back?
A lot of times we know that it is not possible, but Apple tells us another answer. After four years of products (including MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro), Apple finally no longer pushes its proud butterfly keyboard, letting the disappearing scissors keyboard in
There are a variety of keyboards. Before the introduction of the butterfly keyboard, a scissors keyboard was commonly used on laptops. This design is named after the activity mechanism similar to scissors, as shown below.
▲图from Wikipedia
Since the X-shaped crossover design, the keystroke distance of the scissors keyboard is shortened, which is quieter and more labor-saving than other keyboards. Therefore, it becomes an ideal choice for notebook computers, but there is no end to lightness. Keyboard.
▲Figure from Apple’s official website
Butterfly keyboard because it resembles butterfly wingsNamed after the V-shaped structure, Apple designed a new notebook keyboard with this structure and stainless steel arch switch. It is shorter and smaller than the previous keystrokes, which is beneficial for the thin and light notebook, so after In the four years, Apple has replaced many MacBook Pro and MacBook Air products with butterfly keyboards. Similarly, the thickness of these products has been further reduced.
The butterfly keyboard clearly contains Apple’s consistent design philosophy, and further exploration in the pursuit of design and practicality. However, when people get the product to feel the charm of the butterfly keyboard, the problems appear one after another.
“Butterfly” effect
The first is the feel of the hand. Because the keystroke is very short, the butterfly keyboard is spit out by many people into a no-key (although improved later). Typing is like typing on the desktop, and it is more prone to fatigue when used for a long time. For this reason, some people even designed a mechanical keyboard that can be placed on the keyboard. It is not so much a sensation of the keyboard feel, but rather a mockery of the butterfly keyboard.
On the other hand, the butterfly keyboard is also more prone to failure in daily use. Due to the V-shaped structure different from the scissors keyboard, food, debris or dust in daily life is more likely to enter the inside of the keyboard, causing the button to malfunction or the button to be pressed. These problems may rarely occur in Apple’s labs and daily tests, but in the complex environment of everyday life, some people have headaches, so the problems with the butterfly keyboard have also increased.
In 2018, a report from foreign media AppleInsider said that the failure rate of the 2016 MacBook Pro butterfly keyboard was twice that of the old model (scissor keyboard).Although Apple subsequently launched a keyboard repair program to freely replace the keyboard for users with keyboard failures, things are still not over.
In January of this year, the foreign digital big V Unbox Therapy received hundreds of responses and thousands of likes in a short time after complaining about the butterfly keyboard problem on his Twitter. The 15.7 million followers of YouTube bloggers demonstrated the false triggering of the letter E on the MacBook Air keyboard: when he pressed the E button, there was a strange repetition on the screen, and there was a chance that the letter would appear. Repeated letters, this video with only 5 minutes and 32 seconds has 2.8 million views, which shows people’s attention to this matter.
▲Figure from YouTube
In March of the same year, Wall Street Journal columnist Joanna Stern complained that she had problems with the MacBook keyboard for only four months. Her E and R keys also appeared to be inoperative and falsely triggered, just like the Unbox Therapy demo. That way. Compared to digital self-media, the Wall Street Journal reported more detailed and specific incidents, and it is more likely to affect investors’ perceptions of Apple. This incident became the direct cause of Apple’s apology, which they mentioned in their subsequent statements:
“We know that there is oneA small number of users have problems using their third-generation butterfly keyboard, and we regret that most MacBook users have a positive experience with the new keyboard.
Maybe, as Apple said, there is only a small part of the problem, but it is clear that the voices of these people have had a significant impact on Apple’s word of mouth. In the fourth year of the butterfly keyboard, Apple updated the keyboard service project again, freely replacing the keyboard for more notebooks including the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and introduced a keyboard replacement service for the newly launched notebook. It shows that Apple still has not completely solved the problems encountered by the butterfly keyboard, and this is obviously not a long-term solution.
▲Figure from Apple’s official website
So, we saw that on the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, Apple finally gave up the obsession and embraced the more comfortable scissors keyboard (the foreign media iFixit dismantling report called the new scissor keyboard and the old model) The MacBook keyboard has almost no difference in structure. The butterfly keyboard has finally reached the most embarrassing situation.
Frustration of “killing the keyboard”
From the attention it has been replaced, the Apple butterfly keyboard can be said to be more difficult, but its ambitions are great. In fact, what Apple has to do is to gradually integrate the keyboard and touch screen to create a future shape.The notebook product, in the process of moving forward, the butterfly keyboard + Touch Bar combination has just taken the first step.
Former Apple Product Design Director Jony Ive once said in an interview with CNET in 2016: “We had a similar prototype design two years ago (2014), and now we see the combination of Touch Bar and keyboard. The completion is not very good. We are concerned with the combination of touch, display input, and mechanical keyboard.”
▲Figure from Yanko Design
Geeks choice once has been discussed with you before, in Apple’s vision, the future keyboard part can be achieved through a touchpad, this idealized goal has been achieved in the Windows notebook camp. For example, Lenovo launched Yoga Book , but the biggest problem is not to actually transfer the typing through the touch panel when the The touch, in a way, the extremely short keystrokes of the butterfly keyboard are just preparing for this.
However, regardless of the feel, the butterfly keyboard has encountered more problems, which has caused some users to increase their troubles, and also has a negative impact on Apple’s product reputation. The ideal is very full, the reality is very skinny, on the way to kill the keyboard, Apple’s steps are still too fast, and now a different way may continue to move forward toward the future.
▲There is still a long way to go in the future (pictured from Yanko Design)
Does the butterfly keyboard completely exit the stage of history?
In a recent Cnet interview with Apple Marketing Director Phil Schiller, when the reporter asked about this, his answer was unclear, he said:
“I can’t say now, we are continuing these two designs.”
But from this point we can see that after re-evaluating the difficulty of improving the butterfly keyboard, today’s Apple is trying to move forward in a different way. And once the scissors keyboard is compared to the butterfly keyThe disk is more popular, so the latter is not far from the real exit. After all, this technology has a great influence on the MacBook’s reputation. Choosing a better and more stable design is beneficial to both Apple and consumers. harmless.
Go ahead in the correction
Will a new technology become a future trend? This problem is not easy to answer even for giants like Apple. Even if you look at the direction, sometimes some radical projects will still bring setbacks. In recent years, there are many examples in Apple products. In addition to the butterfly keyboard, the Touch Bar and 3D Touch that have been proud of it have also encountered. It was a setback.
▲Figure from Apple’s official website
On the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro, although the Touch Bar still exists, we have seen Apple’s improvement on this part, one side is to separate the ESC key on the left side, and the other side is the Touch ID/power supply. The keys are independent, and the Touch Bar area and the keyboard section have more room, which is gradually perfected after the user vomits, perhaps this is a radical correction, as Phil Schiller said:
“Separating the ESC key and Touch ID is the best solution for most users.This allows us to feel our innovations while using the Touch Bar.
Another example is the 3D Touch feature that has completely disappeared on the iPhone this year, although Apple has high hopes for this type of interaction from the iPhone 6S, hoping it will be based on the “click” and “slide” of the finger. Look for more meta-interactions.
▲Figure from Apple’s official website
But after so many years of hard work, it has not become the common way of interaction for most people, and it has not been able to build a huge and rich ecological application. So on this year’s iPhone, we saw that this technology has completely disappeared. Instead, it is a long press operation. Although such “correction” does not satisfy people who like 3D Touch, Apple has exchanged for a longer battery life. In some cases, such trade-offs are still worthwhile.
In the promotion of new technologies, the problem of “ideal is higher than reality” is not only encountered by Apple, but by all technology companies. But no matter what, Apple will always try to balance risk and stability as much as possible. Innovation will not always happen, but in this revision, we may see more and more perfect products.