Apple's new butterfly keyboard

[Muirium]

First of all, services are irrelevant assuming you're behind a NAT router, which you probably are.

Unless the exploit is in an end user program that you're using... or you're using a laptop on wireless (especially in an untrusted environment)...

Secondly, a G5/G4 isn't going to be able to execute the x64 attack code any malware will send your way.

...and then attacks the service from userspace in platform-independent code (shell scripts, anyone?)

Yup. If it ain't updated any more than it's wide open for abuse. End of story.

The sad part is many old systems are the daily use machines for just the kind of untechnical, easily duped users (relatives) that need to be protected the most. The rapid replacement cycle of iPhones and the like annoys me (thumb typing this on my "your software is up to date" iOS 5 running iPad 1) but the fact that people are junking old systems instead of soldiering on with compromised software is at least good from the security standpoint.

People will run the worst shit forever, if you let them. Even Intel's tired of Windows XP's eternal popularity dragging them down!

http://qz.com/361280/intel-says-small-b ... pc-market/

[stratokaster]

when i use i3, i think hmm i really should be using DWM, but then i compare the documentation of i3 and DWM ( does it even have any) and its like , yeh sticking with i3

Have you tried Awesome WM? So far I like it better than any other tiling WM I have tried.

[jacobolus]

@Pierergen: Microsoft and Adobe are incompetent dipshits who have been slow to bother including 2X graphics assets for their apps. I use zero software from either of them, but that's always their way. They took years to recompile for x86 when Apple ditched PowerPC as well.

That’s a pretty unfair summary. I’ve talked to people inside Adobe and people inside Microsoft’s MacBU, and Apple’s transitions from 68k to PowerPC, then from OS 9 to OS X, then from PowerPC to Intel, came down on them both pretty hard. These delays were not due to incompetence. Of course, I think every version of Microsoft’s office software has been a pile of crap since sometime in the mid 1990s, but it’s not because their engineers are idiots.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

15.png (26.32 KiB) Viewed 9570 times

Microsoft never got around to updating the JScript and VBScript icons for Windows XP, let alone 8.1.

(and the fake strikeout trick doesn't work in Segoe UI either, clearly)

[Muirium]

The incompetent dipshits are Microsoft management. And Adobe's to a fair extent, too. Both of them lag far behind new OS features time and time again. That's their choice. Using in-house development systems based on (long deprecated OS 9 transition layer) Carbon: in this day and age! Their priorities don't overlap much at all with their Mac customers.

Fortunately, it's not nearly as much pain for users these days. No retina assets in your version of Office? Ah well, there's a paid upgrade in the works. In the meantime your version is still fine. It's just looks like you forgot to get a Retina display! Once upon a time, you had to boot into a legacy OS to please those guys.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Microsoft killed off Outlook Express for Mac. That's a cardinal sin in my books.

[abhibeckert]

See I just think that's far too gaudy. I like things simple, this is how I have Yosemite setup (click for full sizes):





To me a user interface should get out of the way so I can focus on the content.

Re: shell scripts/etc attacking your system, that works perfectly fine on any system. Once you download executable code and run it you are screwed no matter what security is in place. I put that in the same ball case as social engineering — if you're intelligent you can avoid it. My only real concern for security is buffer overruns when I browse the web.

[bhtooefr]

And what I'm saying is that if your system isn't getting patched, things like buffer overruns and the like are going to happen, they're going to get shell scripts on your system, or elsewhere, and they're going to execute and attack things.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Mac OS 9 only opened one TCP port — port 7, echo. I always wondered whether there was a vulnerability in there somewhere. (For ease, I pointed the DMZ on my router at my Mac, and just forwarded specific ports to my PC.) Psion EPOC32 palmtops had a crash vulnerability with a single port, for which there was at least one program that blocked that port, but Google is suggesting that this is all a figment of my imagination; I never installed any such program, as it was so hard to get a Psion machine on the Internet (you only had IR and a serial port in most cases).

[abhibeckert]

And what I'm saying is that if your system isn't getting patched, things like buffer overruns and the like are going to happen, they're going to get shell scripts on your system, or elsewhere, and they're going to execute and attack things.

It doesn't work that way mate. You clearly don't know how buffer overruns work.

I do.

[andrewjoy]

People will run the worst shit forever, if you let them. Even Intel's tired of Windows XP's eternal popularity dragging them down!

http://qz.com/361280/intel-says-small-b ... pc-market/

If you are still running XP as an IT administrator then your doing your job wrong, i wont have it on my network , anything that runs XP is gone, all the 2k3 servers too. The only machine that still runs XP is not connected to the network ( it controls heating and the likes ).

You are also not conforming to certain regulations if you are not seen to be doing everything possible to secure your network, especially if you deal with card transactions and payments.

That being said we do have an old e-mac ( the one with the swing arm monitor) that's controlling the lighting in the galleries its again not on the lan.

[stratokaster]

I usually just switch outdated systems to Linux. It may have been a problem 5 years ago, but today most people just need a web browser.

When I visited my mother this summer, she complained that her computer had become slow and unstable. It was an old machine running Windows XP, and it was chock-full of viruses and malware. I simply installed Xubuntu 14.04 and skinned it to vaguely resemble Windows. I doubt that she will ever notice the difference. But the only proprietary program she uses is Skype. Obviously that's not going to work for people who need Photoshop or something.

[andrewjoy]

Most stuff people "need" can be replaced with linux alternatives or use wine. There are a few programmes sure but for me the lack of games is the problem. This is why i still use windows at home on my main rig, back when i only played Warcraft however i just ran it in wine and opengl mode and it ran faster than on native windows anyway. Now that i have kicked that particular nasty habit and play more games again i have need for native windows, more and more stuff is comming to mac and linux and that's good but for a gamer like myself i am stuck. If i did not play PC games i would never touch a microsoft os ever again.

I also feel the same as you , most people in work need only google chorme and access to there files, if installed linux and found a WM that looked like OSX i bet 1/2 of them would not notice.

Is there mac emulation under linux ? So i can run stuff like ARD ( apple remote desktop) ?

[Muirium]

That being said we do have an old e-mac ( the one with the swing arm monitor) that's controlling the lighting in the galleries its again not on the lan.

Galleries? Suddenly I imagine you being the computer tech in a chic uptown exhibition space of some sort. Got a display there for your keyboards? The art crowd love weird stuff like that.

My desktop until a few months ago when I hacked Yosemite to work on this Mac Pro:



I got rid of the plastic mat for mousing (they work fine on IKEA's naked MDF but scratch up the surface) as I use a Magic Trackpad full time now with the Mac Pro. Magic Trackpad never got a PowerPC driver. Some dependencies are like that as well!

Most stuff people "need" can be replaced with linux alternatives or use wine.

Most people "need" an iPad or a ChromeBook. We're not quite there yet, but user facing stuff is converging on a clean minimalism that's hooked straight into the cloud for every aspect of storage. A beautiful time compared to the horrors of XP ubiquity and bloody floppy disks and thumb drives of the past!

I also feel the same as you , most people in work need only google chorme and access to there files, if installed linux and found a WM that looked like OSX i bet 1/2 of them would not notice.

There's more to OS X than just the look of it. To dig out a great old Steve Jobs quote:

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer -- that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like.

Design is how it works.

That stops sounding like bullshit once you really get used to a platform than change to another. Missing things like AppleScript application scripting and distinct interface conventions like the systemwide (top of screen) menubar really make a difference for anyone but the simplest of users. Yosemite looks a lot different to earlier versions of OS X, but it works almost exactly the same, so there was no adaptation necessary for me or the millions of other Mac users who've updated. Booting into Linux though, whole different story!

But yeah, the simplest of users only need a web browser and a computer that magically updates itself. That's what's intriguing about Chrome OS. It's a constrictive nightmare for power users like us, but a godsend for our relatives! My main qualm with suggesting it to the nontechnical people I know is how long Google will support any given piece of hardware, and what fate awaits their 2015 ChromeBook in 2018 and beyond, or whenever the plug is pulled. These aren't people who would adapt well to an eventual switch to Linux! I know a few of them are still using 2006 vintage hardware today so it's a definite concern.

[stratokaster]

Most stuff people "need" can be replaced with linux alternatives or use wine.

I personally don't use Linux full-time because there is no Lightroom (or a usable alternative), no Photoshop (or a usable alternative), LibreOffice is still not fully compatible with MS Office and almost all printers at our office happen to be Windows-only. I'm also yet to find any amateur-level sound recording software that's at least half as good as Apple's GarageBand. That's why i use a mix of Windows and OS X (my laptop is my primary OS X machine). And of course, with Windows you have access to modern games way before they get ported to OS X or Linux...

By the way, I think FreeBSD is way better than Linux, it's very clean and simple and easy to understand, but hardware support is patchy compared to modern Linux distributions (accelerated video drivers, for example, are a huge problem). So far Debian, in my opinion, has been the "sanest" Linux distribution, but once they switch to systemd, I will have to look elsewhere. I want my system to be modular and easy to understand, and an all-in-one package with cryptic configuration options and binary logs (!!!) is the direct opposite of that.

[bhtooefr]

And what I'm saying is that if your system isn't getting patched, things like buffer overruns and the like are going to happen, they're going to get shell scripts on your system, or elsewhere, and they're going to execute and attack things.

It doesn't work that way mate. You clearly don't know how buffer overruns work.

I do.

Eh, point, it would need to be PPC code there.

Plenty of other vulnerabilities that wouldn't need to be, though.

[andrewjoy]

Galleries? Suddenly I imagine you being the computer tech in a chic uptown exhibition space of some sort. Got a display there for your keyboards? The art crowd love weird stuff like that.

that is exactly the place i work no display for my keyboards. but we do have an old typewriter that is converted to USB

EDIT

You can even tweet from it

https://twitter.com/tweeting_tw

[Redmaus]

Microsoft killed off Outlook Express for Mac. That's a cardinal sin in my books.

My father has win 7 on his computer and is using outlook express on XP with a virtual machine still. From what I can tell it looks really simplistic. I like it.

[Muirium]

The new MacBooks came out today, and I popped into the local (San Diego) Apple Store to check them out.

Warning: contains a mech nerd's positive thoughts about a razor thin laptop keyboard.

My goodness. I'm under that little machine's spell, for sure! In fact, I hardly even noticed the whole Apple Watch launch going on in there. The six MacBooks out on display had a crowd of their own, and the black models were especially hard to get your hands on. (The staff also told me they're selling more "space grey" models than the other two, which only made sense. People clearly love them. I've no immediate preference of the three.) But I persevered, and the result?

These keyboards are no mechs, make no mistake. They can't be. The whole machine is a fraction as thin as a classic keycap! But compared to what they are competing against: modern scissor switch laptop keyboards, well, these are just night and day. I'm thoroughly impressed. The tactile snap is impressive, given the fact these keys all but don't even move. It's a similar sensation to the artificial "Taptic" click mechanism Apple's put into the accompanying touchpad. A real pop when you hit actuation point. Metal domes are apparently crazy responsive compared to rubber. I went back and forth between the new MacBooks and the Airs behind me, with growing comic effect as Apple's previous keyboard technology feels downright sloppy compared to the new guys.

A couple of things I noticed. First, the stabilisation on these new keys is absolutely top notch. The old ones wobble like crazy, once you adapt to the new. No surprise, given the doubled up "butterfly" mechanism, but the long keys are also solid. Second, much to my vintage minded delight: Apple's actually gone spherical profile with these caps. The alphas have a subtle but noticeable concave shape to them. I welcome this over the tyranny of flat chiclets they've been using for almost a decade now. These aren't as scooped as the horseshoe profiled caps on my good old PowerBook, but they are definitely there to help with feeling keys. The outer columns of mods, meanwhile, have flat surfaces which is an interesting choice and potentially a smart one as another means to signal finger position. The bottom row is flat too. F & J, meanwhile, are still marked by small homing bumps, within their slight spherical dips.

So, I'm seriously thinking about selling my 15" MacBook Pro and grabbing one of these guys. The Apple Effect at its best. (Let's see if I change my mind…) The board is that much better. I'm not even annoyed by the new arrow keys, as the up/down pair still have their traditional ridge and I find them just as fast. The screen's delightful, works well cranked up at higher res, and I just cleaned up my SSK for a Bluetooth conversion so things are possible…

Then I went a few shops away to the Steinway showroom, and felt keyboards so high end and truly mechanical that I cursed the fact we didn't make the web from music, and that I've yet another thing to pine about. Sweet mercy! 100 year vintage grand pianos. Even my beamspring trembles!

[scottc]

Very interesting! I've heard that there have been some poor reviews of the keyboards (mostly by fanboys who feel at one with the "crisp tactility" of the squishy scissor boards) so it's interesting to hear the opinion of someone who actually knows what they're talking about. I can't wait to try one out myself.

They sound nice, but are they 1,500 euro nice? I've heard that they compare to a 2011 netbook performance-wise, so is it worth the price tag for the screen and keyboard vs. a regular Macbook Air or Pro?

[Redmaus]

I personally don't like apple because of the way they do business, but I did enjoy reading what you had to say about them mu. Wobbling keys is also a pet peeve of mine, and its good that some laptop does something to combat that. Although if you plan to get one, be get to spend a hundred dollars on adapters as well as a 1200$ something laptop. Pretty sure the main reason apple made it with one port is so they could cash out on overpriced adapters.

[overstrike]

I personally don't like apple because of the way they do business, but I did enjoy reading what you had to say about them mu. Wobbling keys is also a pet peeve of mine, and its good that some laptop does something to combat that. Although if you plan to get one, be get to spend a hundred dollars on adapters as well as a 1200$ something laptop. Pretty sure the main reason apple made it with one port is so they could cash out on overpriced adapters.

Why would they use a standard connector, then? USB C cables and adapters will be a cheap commodity in no time at all.

[Findecanor]

The old ones wobble like crazy, once you adapt to the new. No surprise, given the doubled up "butterfly" mechanism, but the long keys are also solid.

The "butterfly" mechanism is practically the same as a scissor switch, except that the scissor legs are cut off below the hinge.
The biggest reason it feels more solid is probably because it is smaller. The longer the legs, the more wobbly a scissor switch gets with the same tolerances and stiffness in the materials. They also replaced the real hinge with plastic that bends, which means that there is less play in the hinge mechanism.

[Muirium]

Good point. It feels real tight, which I like a lot.

Why would they use a standard connector, then? USB C cables and adapters will be a cheap commodity in no time at all.

Nothing else fits the Evil Apple narrative, that's why. Right now, it's technically true. They got to USB C good and early for a change. (Can't say the same for USB 2, which Apple dragged its feet on for several years while trying to favour FIreWire.) But here's the kicker: I asked in the store, and they hadn't even got the adapters in stock. You could buy a MacBook on the spot, but you couldn't get a standard USB converter for it!

I'll be spending more time fondling these laptops, as I ponder selling this one. My 15" Retina MacBook Pro has some discolouration on the left palm rest that's been driving me every bit as mad as you can imagine! I'd rather sell it now while it's still valuable, than procrastinate too long. These tasty new Macs coming out right now while I'm here in America, where they cost $1299 instead of £1049 ($1556), makes a very tempting proposition.


@Scott: I get where those "oh noes, the keyboard's different!" guys are coming from. It's different from before, for sure. In a very positive way, from my perspective. But I'm not as used to the old one as them, because I do everything I can to avoid using it! So horrible. The new one could well shake things up for me completely.

As for comparisons to the MacBook Air and Pro, the Air is shockingly dated now. Their displays aren't even IPS, let alone Retina. I'd advise anyone to stay away from the Airs and either go up to a MacBook or shop second hand if the price is too much. The Airs are old technology.

The Pros are much more interesting, though. My 15" Pro (the 2013 model) is just the right size to sling a TKL across (like this 66g Realforce I have here!) and the screen is a sight for sore eyes. I run things in full screen mode routinely and make the most of its sheer size. But the downsides are quite stark. The 15 and 13" MacBook Pros have no USB C, still use the old keyboard, and only the 13" now has the force touch trackpad. My 15" is a damn nice machine (excepting my particular one's staining) but it's so unspeakably big compared to the new MacBooks in every dimension of size and weight. The 13" Retina MacBook Pro is a solid machine, but again it feels like a whale in bulk compared to the new hotness. And, once more, you're on the wrong side of the USB divide, plus the sloppy old keyboard.

Apple's always going through transitions. Once they introduce something new, it spreads across the whole line. Intel, SSDs, Thunderbolt, it's all one way journeys. Retina is everywhere now besides the desktop displays (which I *really* want them to update so I can have a desktop setup as good as my laptop!) and they're surely going USB C native across the board soon enough. It's always better to be on the right side of such a divide with Apple, than on one of the last machines before the jump. Not only for day to day convenience, but for future updates to the OS.

The MacBook's performance was impressive to my eyes today. I need to contrive something more demanding to throw at it in the store. My quad core i7 MacBook Pro is surely streets ahead, yet I couldn't feel a palpable difference in person. Transcoding video would cure me of that illusion, I'm sure! But I've a desktop for all that. For desktop centred power users like me, or light use normals, this laptop's a slender wee miracle. It's iPad Air thin, for goodness sake. My hands already adore it!


So, anyone want a 15" 2013 Retina MacBook Pro? (Ships for free in San Diego. I might even show you a beamspring…)

[jacobolus]

Can someone compare one of these side by side with a Surface “type cover”?

(When I went into a Microsoft Store [did anyone realize that was a thing?] about a year ago, all the laptops on display had pretty bad keyboards, noticeably worse than Apple laptop keyboards, but I was somewhat impressed by the type cover keyboard: it’s not something I’d want to use for extended typing every day, but it was pretty impressive considering its thickness.)

[jacobolus]

I expect the next generation of “pro” Apple laptops to have magsafe, headphone jack, 2x Thunderbolt 3, 2–3x USB Type C, possibly an SD card slot, and who knows about HDMI. Basically, pretty much like the current model, but with Thunderbolt 3 instead of Thunderbolt 2, and USB 3.1 Type C instead of 3.0 Type A ports (and maybe more than 2 of them). I suspect they’ll be slightly thinner than the current iteration, but personally I wish they’d bump battery life another 4–5 hours instead of trying to make the thinnest possible thing. Hard to guess whether they’ll adopt the new Macbook’s keyboard.

One thing I keep hoping they’ll do is release some “retina” external displays.

[Muirium]

A 21" 4K display would be very nice indeed. The trouble with 5k (as seen in the 27" Retina iMac) is the bandwidth exceeds Thunderbolt 2. But 4k is fine at 60Hz, I'm told. Do that! Pronto, plz.

I'll try the Surface touch covers at the Microsoft Store in town here. I've never even seen one of those at home.

[jacobolus]

They got to USB C good and early for a change. (Can't say the same for USB 2, which Apple dragged its feet on for several years while trying to favour FIreWire.)

That seems just slightly unfair. Apple added USB 2.0 ports across all their machines starting in mid-2003. Though USB 2.0 officially debuted in 2000, not too many vendors put USB 2 ports on computers for the first couple years, because there were few if any devices using it, and USB 1.1 ports were forwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices, just at slower speed.

Apple really screwed up with FireWire licensing IMO. Trying to make money from FireWire licenses could only have been a winning strategy if there was no other game in town. They thought that because FireWire was so much faster than USB 1.0/1.1, other vendors would be forced to add FireWire ports to be compatible with various high-bandwidth peripherals like video cameras and hard drives. But USB 2.0 (with roughly comparable speed to Firewire 400) came along just in time to save other vendors from needing to license FireWire, and therefore quickly gained majority market share. Even though Firewire 800 in 2003 was much faster still, USB 2.0 was good enough for the time.

In any case, silly PC vendors keep putting PS/2, serial ports, parallel ports, VGA, usb 1.1, and all manner of silly things on their machines, even down to today.

[Muirium]

It takes balls to drop a port. Apple's a damn ballsy company. The other guys, well, they'd much rather chase every edge case they can possibly cram in their boxes.

In case anyone's wondering why there's no traditional USB A port on the new MacBook: it really is much too thin to handle one. My (now chunky) 15" MacBook Pro can only just fit them: they're the full height of the metal base, pretty much; just like Ethernet was to my PowerBook. An early 2003 model without USB 2, a fact that bit me many times. Not least when syncing Apple's own devices!

Hmm… wonder if I'd attract undue attention if I were to bring my HHKB to the store and plunk it down on one of the MacBooks to see if it's a good fit? According to Apple's and EK's specs, it should be about the same width. Just as the Realforce TKL is a good match for my 15"! Not that the new guy should need it quite so much…

[bhtooefr]

And I just made a Genius Bar appointment for getting my MBPR's trackpad replaced (which, on the MBPR, is a chassis replacement that includes the keyboard and battery, and a new battery would be nice too). So, I'll be playing with the MacBook this evening.

I'll bring some nickels.

Also, even my MBPR's keyboard is slightly spherical, Apple's been doing that for a while now.