Apple’s New Keyboard Design Debuting With 16-inch MacBook Pro Later This Year

Earlier this month, there were reports about Apple planning to move away from its butterfly keyboard design on its MacBook devices. After multiple upgrades and countless complaints from customers, Apple is finally moving away from the butterfly keyboard design to something new.

And according to a new report from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via AppleInsider), the company’s new keyboard design will debut later this year with the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Now if you have been following MacBook rumours closely, you would know that the 16-inch MacBook Pro was expected to be delayed till 2021.  Kuo is now revising his predictions, stating that Apple is now planning to release the new device later this Fall.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Kuo is also reporting that Apple will expand the new keyboard design to the entire MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines by 2020 as well, though the existing variants will continue to ship with the butterfly keyboard design for now.

This new keyboard design that Apple is working on is called a scissor-switch keyboard design. Here’s how I described it earlier this month:

Apple is working on a new scissor switch keyboard design that uses glass fiber to reinforce the keys on the keyboard. The new design will offer longer key travel and durability, but the whole design would be slightly thicker than the butterfly keyboard design. The difference will still be harder to notice by users, though. The new scissor switch keyboard design could even be cheaper for Apple to manufacture than the butterfly keyboard.

A new keyboard design on the MacBook has been a long time coming, and it’s also one of the main reasons I have stuck with my really slow and old 2015 MacBook Pro. Apple should have made this change 2 years ago instead of doing all the butterfly keyboard iterations that really didn’t fix anything. But hey, at least things are getting better.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 8 comments

  • will

    Premium Member
    25 July, 2019 - 5:25 pm

    <p>Outside of the keyboard I am curious what they are going to call this new laptop? If they are going to have a starting price of $2999, and I am sure it will be awesome, and if they call it the NEW MacBook Pro as it is more Pro focused, would the current 13" and 15" be phased out? Replaced with the new 16" now and a newer 13/14" laptop next year with the Air becoming the mainstream device? Lots of guessing here but curious what Apple has in store 🙂 </p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      26 July, 2019 - 4:22 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#445098">In reply to will:</a></em></blockquote><p>They used to have 13", 15" and 17" models, the 17" disappeared several years ago. Maybe there is a big enough backlash that they are reacting, or they are following the rest of the industry and putting a 16" display in a 15" case (i.e. thin bezels). Dell, HP and Lenovo have been doing this with "designer" models in the 13" and 14" category for a few years now.</p>

  • chrishilton1

    Premium Member
    26 July, 2019 - 1:24 am

    <p>Hey Mehedi, when you're ready to get a new one, I'd take your slow and old one for a nominal sum. </p>

  • dontbe evil

    26 July, 2019 - 2:06 am

    <p>strange… it was the best keyboard evaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa</p>

  • brduffy

    26 July, 2019 - 9:19 am

    <p>Yep, I'm waiting for the new keyboard before getting a new macbook pro. Actually though, my mid 2014 macbook pro still works great. I wouldn't call it slow at all. The one thing I will do differently next time is get more storage, 128G is fine for personal use but as a developer I'm consistently having to find ways to make room for xcode upgrades and the like. </p>

  • Stooks

    26 July, 2019 - 11:28 am

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">my really slow and old 2015 MacBook Pro"</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Did you buy it with a 5400rpm HD? 4 gigs of RAM? </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Seriously if it has 8gigs or more and the typical M.2 SSD that Apple puts in there I bet there will be no REAL WORLD difference in speed. Benchmarks yes but using it to write this blog post no difference.</span></p>

    • warren

      26 July, 2019 - 3:48 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#445300">In reply to Stooks:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>The 2015 MBP doesn't have an "M.2" SSD. M.2 refers to the physical connector. Apple used a proprietary connector that is not compatible with any other computer.</p>

  • TallGuySE

    Premium Member
    28 July, 2019 - 9:13 am

    <p>Seems like I'm in the minority, but I actually prefer the butterfly keyboard – I like the clicky-ness of it. Have the 2017 15" MBP, no issues with the keyboard or anything else.</p><p><br></p><p>That said, I put off upgrading to the 2019 version because of the 16" rumors. Still miss having the 17" screen size, so a 16" would be a step in the right direction.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC