This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2005 at 13:11 and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Monday, December 19, 2005
Today a friend calls to say that their daughters iBook keys are all popping off and they don’t know how to get them back on. I told them I’d be right over as I was in between calls. When I got there, I found the “P”, ” ; ” , and the ” ] ” keys off. The “P” and ” ; ” were easy enough to pop right back in but the ” ] ” keys link was also popped off its mount. Getting that back in was way tougher then I though it would be as the top notches wouldn’t hold when attaching the bottom bar to the lip. It was a bit frustrating but at the same time an interesting learning experience of what Apple was thinking when engineering the board.
The keyboard has a nipple that flexes easily to and fro. That’s for the key depressing of the character. North of it is two holes on each side and south of that is a small lip. This is where the two piece “bone” goes that will allow the key to attach to. I’ve seen Dell, AST (remember them?), and IBM keyboards and all have used metals and simpler attachments. So it made me wonder why Apple decided to go this route with a more complex keyboard. I’ve typed on a lot of keyboards and I like the Apple boards but still prefer the IBM’s. That said, I feel that the Apple’s are second best and this unique, yet difficult, keyboard design is obviously the reason for the better finger response. Looking at the bone design indicated that the two plastic pieces will actually give a better springy feel when pressed then with a metal bar behind it. It also cuts weight as well as noise. Overall a good design. But again, a difficult one to put back together. I also noticed the keys seem well sealed and thus dirt shouldn’t be an issue if it gets under the keys.
The only question I couldn’t answer my friend is why the keys came off. My only explanation I could offer was that by leaving it in the garage and the temperature reaching in the low 50’s last night caused the plastic to shrink and thus the keys popped off. No abuse was placed on the keyboard, so that’s all I can think off. If any of you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.