Apple has received a lot of controversy over the years for its faulty butterfly keyboard. The new 16-inch MacBook Pro fixes these issues, by introducing a new scissor-switch keyboard design.
Apple has already used the scissor-switch design in the past. It has proven to be great, and much more reliable than the current butterfly keyboards. A teardown by iFixit reveals that the new keyboard boasts approximately 0.5 mm more key travel than the previous generation, giving the keyboard a total key travel amount of 1 mm.
iFixit also comments that the keycaps’ clips seem to be more reinforced than before, allowing for easier removal and repair. Apple claims that the new design of the keyboard makes it much quieter to type on, an important point for hard typers. Additionally, Apple has brought back the physical ESC key. This is tremendous for software engineers, who weren’t content with the buggy ESC key on the touch bar.
The new keyboard is also said to be more responsive, and so far it lives up to that. Another change on the keyboard is the now inverted-T arrow keys, which Apple claim will “enable fluid navigation”. So far there have been no complaints about the keys, and we’re hoping it stays that way.
Touch Bar and Touch ID remain on this MacBook Pro. A little detail, the Touch ID sensor has now been separated from the Touch Bar. Overall, we think it helps differentiate the two. However, it would have been nice to see Apple include Face ID on this computer, so that as soon as you open the computer – you’re in. If you’re wondering about the 13-inch MacBook Pro, well Apple has sadly kept it unchanged. On the bright side, we could see a 14-inch MacBook Pro later next year, which will incorporate many of the features seen in the 16-inch.
