02 September 2018

For Labor Day, work harder


Labor Day is a holiday that just doesn’t fit Silicon Valley. It’s purported purpose is to celebrate working men and women and their — our — progress toward better working conditions and fairer workplaces. Yet, few regions in recent times have supposedly done more to “destroy” quality working conditions than the Valley, from the entire creation of the precarious 1099 economy to automation of labor itself.

My colleague John Chen offered the received wisdom on this discrepancy this weekend, arguing that Valley entrepreneurs should take the traditional message of Labor Day to heart, encouraging them to create more equitable, fair, and secure workplaces not just for their own employees, but also for all the workers that power the platforms we create and operate every day.

It’s a nice sentiment that I agree with, but I think he misses the mark.

What Silicon Valley needs — now more than ever before — is to double down on the kind of ambitious, hard-charging, change-the-world labor that created our modern knowledge economy in the first place. We can’t and shouldn’t slow down. We need more technological progress, not less. We need more automation of labor, not less. And we need as much of this innovation to happen in the United States as possible.

The tech industry may have become a dominant force by some metrics, but we are only just getting started. Entire industries like freight have little to no automation. Several billion people lack access to the internet, to say nothing of critical, basic infrastructure. Our drug pipeline is anemic, and costs for education, health care, construction, and government are continuing to skyrocket.

In short, we have barely scratched the surface of what we can achieve with software, with hardware, with better business models and better automation. These aren’t table scraps, but trillions dollar opportunities lying in wait for entrepreneurs to seize them.

And yet, we keep hearing persistent claims that overwork is a problem in the Valley. Discussions of work-life balance are practically de rigueur for startups these days, as are free meals and massages and unlimited vacation time. These demands are coming at a time when some of the most fertile opportunities for innovation in areas as diverse as robotics, space, biotech, cancer, and construction remain ripe for the taking.

It’s a hustlers world out there, and the message that those who want to shape that world should be hearing this Labor Day is simple: work harder. Hell, work today.

Certainly that’s the message ingrained in most places competing with the Valley these days. Mike Moritz wrote a column in the Financial Times earlier this year, comparing the hard-charging work ethic of Chinese tech entrepreneurs and workers with their Silicon Valley brethren. He didn’t mince words, and the piece ignited a firestorm of criticism.

But he’s right, and not just about Chinese founders. Entrepreneurs in developing and middle-income countries from India and South Korea to Brazil and Nigeria now have access to the same tools that top Valley startups use, with experience to boot. And they are hungry to transform their lot in life into something much more ambitious, much more grand.

We need to re-inject their level of urgency back into the Valley ethos and compete ferociously. We can’t rest on companies from the 1990s like Google, or the 1970s like Apple and Microsoft as the final wave of innovative companies. We need the next massive tech companies to be built, and they’re not going to be created 20-hour workweeks at a time.

Entrepreneurship is a rough and solitary life. Hustling isn’t fun, losing deals isn’t enjoyable, and working around the clock under intense pressure is not for the faint of heart. For those who want the easy road, there are many, many pathways today in the modern American economy that will guarantee it, whether that is a big tech giant, or some other Fortune 100 company.

Yet, the spirit of America is always choosing the bigger gamble, the bolder vision. And it is the people who stand up and demand that we make huge strides today — not tomorrow — that are going to own the future.

Of course, founding a company has to be a voluntary choice. No one should have to work for a pittance, or feel coerced into a high-pressure lifestyle when they aren’t ready and willing. No one should be locked into an economic system where they can’t improve their own income and status through tenacity and strategy. Our tech companies should absolutely be more diverse, and fairer to all people. Equity can and should be more widely distributed.

But when it comes to the true meaning of Labor Day in the American sense, we should celebrate the hard-working founders and entrepreneurs who are taking on the biggest challenges and focusing all of their talents on solving these critical human problems. That’s what made Silicon Valley what it is, and it’s the meaning of Labor Day that every founder and dreamer should center on.


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It’s time for Facebook and Twitter to coordinate efforts on hate speech


Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, there has been burgeoning awareness of the hate speech on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. While activists have pressured these companies to improve their content moderation, few groups (outside of the German government) have outright sued the platforms for their actions.

That’s because of a legal distinction between media publications and media platforms that has made solving hate speech online a vexing problem.

Take, for instance, an op-ed published in the New York Times calling for the slaughter of an entire minority group.  The Times would likely be sued for publishing hate speech, and the plaintiffs may well be victorious in their case. Yet, if that op-ed were published in a Facebook post, a suit against Facebook would likely fail.

The reason for this disparity? Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which provides platforms like Facebook with a broad shield from liability when a lawsuit turns on what its users post or share. The latest uproar against Alex Jones and Infowars has led many to call for the repeal of section 230 – but that may lead to government getting into the business of regulating speech online. Instead, platforms should step up to the plate and coordinate their policies so that hate speech will be considered hate speech regardless of whether Jones uses Facebook, Twitter or YouTube to propagate his hate. 

A primer on section 230 

Section 230 is considered a bedrock of freedom of speech on the internet. Passed in the mid-1990s, it is credited with freeing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube from the risk of being sued for content their users upload, and therefore powering the exponential growth of these companies. If it weren’t for section 230, today’s social media giants would have long been bogged down with suits based on what their users post, with the resulting necessary pre-vetting of posts likely crippling these companies altogether. 

Instead, in the more than twenty years since its enactment, courts have consistently found section 230 to be a bar to suing tech companies for user-generated content they host. And it’s not only social media platforms that have benefited from section 230; sharing economy companies have used section 230 to defend themselves, with the likes of Airbnb arguing they’re not responsible for what a host posts on their site. Courts have even found section 230 broad enough to cover dating apps. When a man sued one for not verifying the age of an underage user, the court tossed out the lawsuit finding an app user’s misrepresentation of his age not to be the app’s responsibility because of section 230.

Private regulation of hate speech 

Of course, section 230 has not meant that hate speech online has gone unchecked. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all have their own extensive policies prohibiting users from posting hate speech. Social media companies have hired thousands of moderators to enforce these policies and to hold violating users accountable by suspending them or blocking their access altogether. But the recent debacle with Alex Jones and Infowars presents a case study on how these policies can be inconsistently applied.  

Jones has for years fabricated conspiracy theories, like the one claiming that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and that Democrats run a global child-sex trafficking ring. With thousands of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Jones’ hate speech has had real life consequences. From the brutal harassment of Sandy Hook parents to a gunman storming a pizza restaurant in D.C. to save kids from the restaurant’s nonexistent basement, his messages have had serious deleterious consequences for many. 

Alex Jones and Infowars were finally suspended from ten platforms by our count – with even Twitter falling in line and suspending him for a week after first dithering. But the varying and delayed responses exposed how different platforms handle the same speech.  

Inconsistent application of hate speech rules across platforms, compounded by recent controversies involving the spread of fake news and the contribution of social media to increased polarization, have led to calls to amend or repeal section 230. If the printed press and cable news can be held liable for propagating hate speech, the argument goes, then why should the same not be true online – especially when fully two-thirds of Americans now report getting at least some of their news from social media.  Amid the chorus of those calling for more regulation of tech companies, section 230 has become a consistent target. 

Should hate speech be regulated? 

But if you need convincing as to why the government is not best placed to regulate speech online, look no further than Congress’s own wording in section 230. The section enacted in the mid-90s states that online platforms “offer users a great degree of control over the information that they receive, as well as the potential for even greater control in the future as technology develops” and “a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.”  

Section 230 goes on to declare that it is the “policy of the United States . . . to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet.”  Based on the above, section 230 offers the now infamous liability protection for online platforms.  

From the simple fact that most of what we see on our social media is dictated by algorithms over which we have no control, to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to increased polarization because of the propagation of fake news on social media, one can quickly see how Congress’s words in 1996 read today as a catalogue of inaccurate predictions. Even Ron Wyden, one of the original drafters of section 230, himself admits today that drafters never exempted an “individual endorsing (or denying) the extermination of millions of people, or attacking the victims of horrific crimes or the parents of murdered children” to be enabled through the protections offered by section 230.

It would be hard to argue that today’s Congress – having shown little understanding in recent hearings of how social media operates to begin with – is any more qualified at predicting the effects of regulating speech online twenty years from now.   

More importantly, the burden of complying with new regulations will definitely result in a significant barrier to entry for startups and therefore have the unintended consequence of entrenching incumbents. While Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter may have the resources and infrastructure to handle compliance with increased moderation or pre-vetting of posts that regulations might impose, smaller startups will be at a major disadvantage in keeping up with such a burden.

Last chance before regulation 

The answer has to lie with the online platforms themselves. Over the past two decades, they have amassed a wealth of experience in detecting and taking down hate speech. They have built up formidable teams with varied backgrounds to draft policies that take into account an ever-changing internet. Their profits have enabled them to hire away top talent, from government prosecutors to academics and human rights lawyers.  

These platforms also have been on a hiring spree in the last couple of years to ensure that their product policy teams – the ones that draft policies and oversee their enforcement – are more representative of society at large. Facebook proudly announced that its product policy team now includes “a former rape crisis counselor, an academic who has spent her career studying hate organizations . . . and a teacher.” Gone are the days when a bunch of engineers exclusively decided where to draw the lines. Big tech companies have been taking the drafting and enforcement of their policies ever more seriously.

What they now need to do is take the next step and start to coordinate policies so that those who wish to propagate hate speech can no longer game policies across platforms. Waiting for controversies like Infowars to become a full-fledged PR nightmare before taking concrete action will only increase calls for regulation. Proactively pooling resources when it comes to hate speech policies and establishing industry-wide standards will provide a defensible reason to resist direct government regulation.

The social media giants can also build public trust by helping startups get up to speed on the latest approaches to content moderation. While any industry consortium around coordinating hate speech is certain to be dominated by the largest tech companies, they can ensure that policies are easy to access and widely distributed.

Coordination between fierce competitors may sound counterintuitive. But the common problem of hate speech and the gaming of online platforms by those trying to propagate it call for an industry-wide response. Precedent exists for tech titans coordinating when faced with a common threat. Just last year, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube formalized their “Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism” – a partnership to curb the threat of terrorist content online. Fighting hate speech is no less laudable a goal.

Self-regulation is an immense privilege. To the extent that big tech companies want to hold onto that privilege, they have a responsibility to coordinate the policies that underpin their regulation of speech and to enable startups and smaller tech companies to get access to these policies and enforcement mechanisms.


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Payday startups are increasing access to wages, but is “make any day payday” the right choice?


Imagine you get a monthly paycheck on the 15th of the month but your bills come in on the 1st of the month.  Between the 15th and 1st you must set a portion of your check aside to pay bills.  This becomes a complicated budgeting equation. How much can I spend today vs how much do I need to set aside?

In a perfectly rational world people would reduce their consumption by the amount needed to afford their bills and have money left over to make it to the next payday.  Sadly, this isn’t what happens. When income and bills are farther apart, we struggle to make the math work.

Researchers Brian Baugh  and Jialan Wang found that financial shortfalls – payday loans and bank overdrafts – happen 18% more when there is a greater mismatch between the timing of someone’s  income and the bills they owe.

We come up short.

Baugh offers some reasoning: When we get paid, we spend money. More money than usual.  Research from Arna Olafsson and Michaela Pagel supports this. They find that both poor and rich households respond to the receipt of income, with the poorest households spending 70 percent more when they get paid than they would on an average day and the richest households spending 40 percent more.  This inclination to spend more on payday makes the monthly budget harder to balance – and sometimes makes it unable to balance at all.

Many fintech companies are starting to address pay period timing, in hopes they can close the gap between income and consumption needs.  Apps like Even, Earnin and PayActive provide people with instant access to their paycheck.  Gig economy employers like Uber and Lyft have features that allow drivers to cash out immediately after they drive.  For people who would otherwise get paid on a monthly schedule, this is critical.  Jesse Shapiro of Harvard  found that food stamp recipients consume 10 to 15 percent fewer calories the week before food stamps are disbursed.   Even a few days matter. In Baugh’s study, the difference between a paycheck period of 35 days vs a paycheck period of 28 days resulted in 9% more instances of financial distress.

The question we should be asking now is what is the optimal timing for pay periods?  Too long between checks causes hardship, but how short should pay periods become?  These fintech companies are offering to “Make Any Day Payday” with promises that people can “Get your paycheck anytime you want.”  While this smooths the gap between pay periods, given Olassof’s research, it may also serve to increase spending if everyday is payday.

To dive deeper into this problem, our team sought to understand what employees preferred.  As a reminder, our preferences don’t always represent what’s best for us. You may want to eat that chocolate cake, but that doesn’t mean it will help you with your summer dieting goals.  However, we were curious: do people have the intuition that more frequent pay periods are better, and how frequent is optimal?   To do this we asked 384 people making less than median income ($30,000 a year) to tell us their preferred pay schedule. Using Google Consumer Surveys, we gave them six payment schedules to choose from: Annual, Monthly, Bi-weekly, Weekly, Daily or Hourly.

What should people say? If everyone acts rationally, we would expect people to say they want to get paid hourly – immediately after working. It’s their money and they would be best off with unfettered access to it.

This is not what we found. Instead, people prefer to get paid on a bi-weekly or weekly schedule.  Aggregating everyone’s responses, people preferred bi-weekly (37.2%), followed by weekly (26.6%).

Why aren’t more people choosing hourly or daily?  While we can’t be sure, one guess is that Baugh’s findings ring true. Weekly and biweekly paychecks can act as a self control device for spending. If paydays were every day, they may be more tempted to spend on non-critical items, leaving less money for bills.  Weekly and biweekly paychecks also serve as a way to fix the misalignment of income and bills that Baugh cites drives overdrafts and payday loans.  Our team interviewed 40 people in Fresno, California and found this to be a popular budgeting strategy – one paycheck is used for the family car payment and one is used for rent.

When we break out responses by income, we find some correlational differences across income groups. People reporting less than $6,000 income (50% below poverty line) are more likely to opt for an immediate pay schedule.  As people’s income level rises above poverty (or part time status), the preference for weekly and bi-weekly pay schedules increases.

We also asked people to tell us how they would describe their personal need for money when paying their bills over the past year. No surprise, but the more people felt they needed money for immediate bills (or feeling scarce) the higher the demand for more frequent paychecks (hourly or weekly).

The verdict?

More research is needed to determine the effects of the growing trend to offer instant access to your paycheck. These apps can bridge critical gaps for people living paycheck to paycheck, but they may also have some detrimental effects if Baugh and Olafsson’s findings hold. If apps help people make everyday payday, and each payday results in higher spending, the end of the month may be much harder to get to.

Key insights for companies trying to improve people’s financial lives

  1. Help move people off a monthly pay cycle. Our study suggests that lower income individuals don’t prefer monthly and other research suggests it has costly implications for their financial lives.
  2. Help people match up their income and their bills. Lenders can do this upon loan origination or fintech apps (like EarnUp) can help people automate timing.
  3. Provide (thoughtful) access to the paycheck. Apps could ask people up front to precommit to when they want to take money from their paycheck. This would still allow people to have access, but could possibly slow down an urge to withdraw too frequently.

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Gaming at IFA 2018: What’s New and What’s Hot?


There were few new announcements in Gaming at IFA 2018. a few notable exceptions , most companies used their space to showcase their already existing product lines.

Here is a run down of the best things on show for gamers at IFA 2018.

Note: This article will be updated as the conference goes on.

Acer

Thronos

The announcement with the most buzz at IFA 2018 was Acer’s new gaming chair. The “Thronos” was only unveiled to press in the days leading up to IFA and was absent for the rest of the conference. Here is what we know:

Standing at over 1.5 meters tall and capable of sustaining 3 27” gaming monitors, the Thronos is imposing. Black steel, accented in blue or white, cage the user in a n adjustable chair capable of leaning back to 140 degrees. The bottom of the mount contains space for a Predator PC case, and also dynamic response to in game sounds. In short, you will feel every in game impact.

The concept of all-in-one gaming chairs is nothing new. The Thronos seems to have struck a chord and the idea of a self contained “gaming cave” has arrived to stay.

There are no details as to release date or retail price at present. Rumors put the cost at up to $5000 dollars, making this already niche product even more exclusive. That said – serious gamers are unlikely to let price get in the way of what seems to be the ultimate gaming experience.

Predator XB273K Gaming Monitor

Acer also showcased their new Predator XB273K monitor. Aimed specifically at gamers and their needs, it comes with all the features you would expect of a high end monitor. With a resolution of 3840 x 2160 and a refresh rate of 144Hz it promises great image quality.

A budget conscious alternative to the Predator monitor comes in the form of the Nitro XV273K. Aimed at giving a high budget feel at a better price (yet to be announced), it comes in several forms. The 3 announced variations are the XV273K, XV273U (both 27” IPS^3 displays, and XF272U (WQHD).

With each model featuring Acer’s VisionCare(TM) tech, even the lower range models seem a pretty good prospect for the budget minded gamer. The XB273K with be available at EU 1299 during the fourth quarter of 2018.

RAZER

Razer were promoting a trio of peripherals under the slogan “Raise the Level Cap”. What this meant in practice was a hands on experience of their new gaming mouse, keyboard and headset. Each was newly presented at IFA 2018.

Kraken Headset

The new Kraken headset was designed with both quality and comfort in mind. An inline controller on the USB cable controls not only volume, but bass level – something they were keen to point out is unique at this price point.

Sound is taken care of through 2 balanced drivers per ear designed to give equal response across all volumes for accurate positioning. The Kraken headset is also the first to make use of THX spatial audio. The virtual positional audio system gives a far greater depth to directional audio, and from the small demo provided is a marked improvement to other budget headsets.

Retailing at $99, the headset certainly had the feel of something more expensive, and the design around the eyes is designed to keep the user cool. Notched ear padding for glasses wearers and a 3.5mm jack input into the USB adapter show that this headset has been thoroughly thought out with user comfort and practicality in mind.

Black Widow Elite Keyboard

The Black Widow Elite keyboard brings a new programmable system to the table. A mod key gives the user a second keyboard layer which can be assigned to any key combination or macro. Media keys have also been added to the top right of the keyboard along with a notched radial dial and button. While they are designed as media and volume keys, they are fully programmable from Razer’s Synapse softtare controller. On board keyboard memory can store these macros making up to 5 custom keysets plug and play regardless of what computer you plug into.

Razer have also modified their switches, adding walls to them stopping any key wobble or false hits. The effect this had was impressive, as running your finger across the keyboard caused no sideways movement at all.

Again the thought and comfort are apparent here, with an easy to adjust magnetically attached full leather wrist pad, and a cable channel to route the cable out from either side of the keyboard. The previous Black Widow Elite retailed at $179.99, and while the new edition is cheaper, $169.99 is still a high price for many. This keyboard is feature packed, and while it’s impossible to tell from a few hands on minutes, seems worth it.

Razer Mamba Wireless Mouse

Initially released in 2010, the Razer Mamba Mouse was originally touted as indistinguishable from wired mice. The 2018 update ups the ante again, with an improved battery life and a new 5G optical sensor (requested by pro-gaming Razer users allegedly). Much like the Black Widow, the mouse has onboard memory, and programmable buttons. The same mod system is in place allowing a mod button to give each other button multiple functions.

Battery life is claimed to reach over 50 hours, and a micro USB cable takes care of charging while allowing the mouse to function as a standard wired mouse. It will retail at $99, putting it squarely in the middle of the field in terms of premium wireless mice.

Razer were very keen to impress upon us the differences these new peripherals have, and from what we have seen these are well thought out changes designed to give more functionality at a similar or lower price point.

Dell

Dell showcased the recently released G3 line of gaming laptops, which function as a cheaper alternative to the G5 and G7 range. Starting at $799 with an Intel i5-8300H and topping out at $999 for an i7 they claim solid performance on a budget. While clearly less powerful than their Alienware counterparts, the G3 played well. The main difference outside of processing power and minor aesthetics is the display. The G5 is available with an ultra high definition (UHD) display much like it’s predecessor (The Inspiron 15 7000). The G3 IPS comes with a perfectly capable IPS, but no option for upgrade.

Also showcased was the new S2719DGF 27” Gaming Monitor. With resolutions up to 1440p, and a reported refresh rate of over 150Hz it is designed with high end gaming in mind. The monitor in action looks fantastic, but even more impressive is the price. According to a Dell representative, the 27” edition will retail at around 420 Euros (around $487) with 24” model available for around 250 Euros (around $290). If these prices are true, this is a lot of gaming monitor for your money.

Alienware

Alienware were showcasing their revamp of the Elite Gaming Mouse. Designed to adapt to any user, it is incredibly customizable. The sizes connect magnetically to the mouse allowing users to change mouse widths on the fly. Another advantage to this feature is that the thin mouse has two thumb buttons while the wider mouse has 4 (not pictured here). The chassis is capable of taking two sets of weights for optimum control over the feel and balance of the mouse, and the top of the shell is retractable for different hand lengths.

Alienware also were showcasing the new AW988 headset , described as the “gaming headset for the most dedicated audiophile.” While the display model was not able for testing, it was surprisingly light and above all – comfortable.

Of course, this is Alienware, so everything had RGB LEDs, which are fully customizable from the Alienware Command Centre software. The recent range of Alienware laptops boast the high end gaming specs we have become accustomed to, and strike a nice balance aesthetically between the larger than life previous models and standard laptop cases.

Samsung

Samsung launched the CJ79 34” curved widescreen monitor. While not touted specifically as a gaming monitor, it is the first of it’s kind to support a Thunderbolt 3 connector. Users of Razer external graphics cars will be ale to chain their gaming laptops to the monitor. laptops The 3440 x 1440 screen is capable of supporting dual display sources, and a larger CJ89 monitor has also been announced. Currently neither monitor has a retail price.

AverMedia Capture Cards

A smaller booth at IFA this year was home to AverMedia, showing their latest line in capture cards.

With streaming more popular than ever, AverMedia’s latest capture cards are aimed both at dual PC streaming and PS4 Pro players. The GC573 is an internal capture card capable of 4Kp60 High Dynamic Range (HDR) recording – something they claim is unique. Meanwhile their GC553 Live Gamer ULTRA external capture card provides pass-through 4Kp60 HDR, and recording at 4Kp30. Both cards claim ultra low latency – under 60ms was the figure claimed by a representative.

If these cards can do what they say they are a new standard in capture cards, and we hope to review them in future.

Gaming at IFA 2018

Gaming was somewhat underrepresented at IFA, but given it’s proximity to Gamescom this wasn’t too much of a surprise. What was on show was still impressive, and whether you need a gaming throne or a cheap but high quality monitor you’re well set with what IFA 2018 had to offer.

Read the full article: Gaming at IFA 2018: What’s New and What’s Hot?


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An ode to Apple’s awful MacBook keyboard


Yes I am very late to this. But I am also very annoyed so I am adding my voice to the now sustained chorus of complaints about Apple’s redesigned Mac keyboard: How very much it sucks. Truly, madly, deeply.

This is the keyboard that Apple “completely redesigned” in 2015, in its quest for size zero hardware, switching from a scissor mechanism for the keys to what it described then as the “new Apple-designed butterfly mechanism” — touting this as 40% thinner and 4x more stable.

Reader, there is nothing remotely beautiful and butterfly-esque about the experience of depressing these keys. Scattershot staccato clattering, as your fingers are simultaneously sucked in and involuntarily hammer out a grapeshot of key strikes, is what actually happens. It’s brutalist and unforgiving. Most egregiously it’s not reliably functional.

The redesigned mechanism has resulted in keys that not only feel different when pressed vs the prior MacBook keyboard — which was more spongey for sure but that meant keys were at reduced risk of generating accidental strikes vs their barely-there trigger-sensitive replacements (which feel like they have a 40% smaller margin for keystrike error) — but have also turned out to be fail prone, as particles of dust can find their way in between the keys, as dust is wont to do, and mess with the smooth functioning of key presses — requiring an official Apple repair.

Yes, just a bit of dust! Move over ‘the princess and the pea’: Apple and the dust mote is here! ‘Just use it in a vacuum’ shouldn’t be an acceptable usability requirement for a very expensive laptop.

Apple has also had to make these keyboards quieter. Because, as I say, the act of using the keyboard results in audible clackclackery. It’s like mobile phone keyclicks suddenly got dizzingly back in fashion. (Or, well, Apple designers got to overindulge their blue-sky thinking around the idea that ‘in space no one can hear you type’.)

Several colleagues have garnered dagger glances and been told to dial it down at conferences on account of all the key clattering as they worked. Yet a keyboard is made for working. It’s a writing tool. Or it should be. Instead, Apple has made a keyboard for making audible typos. It’s shockingly bad.

As design snafus go, this is up there with antenna-gate. Except actually it’s much worst. You can’t not ‘hold it in that way’. You can’t press keys on a keyboard radically differently. I guess you could type really slowly to try to avoid making all these high speed typos. But that would have an obvious impact on your ability to work by slowing down your ability to write. So, again, an abject mess.

I’ve only had this Oath-issued 2017 MacBook Pro (in long-held-off exchange for my trusty MacBook Air, whose admittedly grimy and paint-worn keys were nonetheless 100% functional after years of writerly service) for about a month but the keys appear to have a will of their own, whipping themselves into a possessive frenzy almost every time they’re pressed, and spewing out all manner of odd typos, mis-strikes and mistakes.

This demonic keyboard has summoned Siri unasked. (Thanks stupidly pointless Touch Bar!)  It has also somehow nearly delivered an ‘I’m not interested’ auto-response to a stranger who wrote me at length on LinkedIn to thoughtfully thank me for an earlier article. (Fortunately I didn’t have auto-send enabled so I could catch that unintended slapdown in the act before it was delivered. No thanks to the technologies involved.)

At the same time Caps Lock routinely fails to engage when pressed, as if it’s practising for when it’ll be broken. It equally countlessly fails to disengage when re-pressed. ‘Craps Out Lock’ more like. I fear it’s beset by dust motes already. Which is hard to avoid because, y’know, everything in the world is made of dust.

The keyboard also frustrates because of the jarring juxtaposition of having individual keys that depress too willingly, seeming to suck the typos from your fingers as letters get snatched out of sequence (and even whole words coaxed out of line), coupled with a backspace key that refuses to perform quickly enough (I’ve had to crank it right up to the very fastest setting) so it can’t gobble up the multiple erroneous strikes quickly enough to edit out all the BS the keyboard is continually spewing.

The result? A laptop that’s lightning quick at creating a typo-ridden mess, and slow as hell to clean it up.

In short, it’s a mess. A horrible mess that makes a mockery of the Apple catchphrase of yore (‘it just works’) by actively degrading the productivity of writing — interrupting your work with pointless sound and an alphabetic soup of fury.

The redesigned keyboard has been denounced by Apple loyalists such as John Gruber — who in April called it “one of the biggest design screwups in Apple history“.

He precision-hammered his point home with this second economical sentence: “Everyone who buys a MacBook depends upon the keyboard and this keyboard is undependable.”

Though it was Casey Johnson, writing for The Outline, who raised the profile of the problem last year, kicking up a major stink over her MacBook keys acting up (or dead) after a brush with invisible dust.

Since then keyboard-related problems have garnered Apple at least one class action lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the company has responded to this hardware headache of its own design like the proverbial thief in the night, quietly fiddling with the internals when no one was looking. Most notably it slotted in a repair earlier this year, when it added a sort of silicon gum shield to wrap the offending butterfly mechanism, which is presumably supposed to prevent dust from wreaking its terribly quotidian havoc. (Though it’s no use to me, right here, right now, with my corporate provisioned 2017 MBP.)

We know this thanks to the excellent work done by iFixit this summer, when it took apart one of Apple’s redesigned redesigned keyboards and found a thin rubberized film had been added under the keycaps. (Looking at this translucent addition, I am reminded of Alien designer HR Giger’s biomechanical concoctions. And of Ash’s robotic hard-on for poking around inside the disemboweled facehugger. But I digress.)

Shamelessly Apple tried to sell this tweak to journalists as solely a fix for those noisy key clicks. iFixit was not at all convinced.

“This flexible enclosure is quite obviously an ingress-proofing measure to cover up the mechanism from the daily onslaught of microscopic dust. Not — to our eyes — a silencing measure,” it wrote in July. “In fact, Apple has a patent for this exact tech designed to “prevent and/or alleviate contaminant ingress.”

And the date on Apple’s ingress-proofing key-cap condom patent? September 8, 2016. Read that and weep, MacBook Pro second-half 2016, 2017 and first half 2018 owners.

So if, like me, you’re saddled with a 2017 (or earlier) MBP there’s sweet F.A. you can do about this fatal design flaw in the core interfacing mechanism you must daily touch. Abstention is not an option. We must typo and wait for the inexorable, dust-based doom to strike the space bar or the ‘E’ key — which will then make the typing experience even more miserable (and require a trip to an Apple store to swaddle the misbehaving keys in rubber — leaving us computerless, most probably, in the meanwhile).

There is an entire novel written without the letter E. I propose that Apple’s failed keyboard redesign be christened the ‘Gadsby‘ in its honor — because, ye gads, it’s awful.

This is especially, especially frustrating because the MacBook Air keyboard was so very, very good.

Not good — it was great. It was as close to typing perfection I’ve come across in a computer. And I’ve been typing on keyboards for a very long time.

Why mess with such a good thing?! Marginally thinner than what was already exceptionally thin hardware is hardly something consumers clamour for.

People are far more interested in having the thing they bought and/or use actually doing the job they need it for. And definitely not letting them down.

(Or “defienmtely nort letting them down” as the keyboard just reworked the line. I really should have saved every typo and posted a mutant mirror text beneath this one, containing all the thousands of organic instances of ‘found poetry’ churned out by the keyboard’s inner life/poet/drunk.)

If shaving 40% off the profile of the key mechanism transforms an incredible reliable keyboard into a dust-prone, typo-spewing monster that’s not progress; it’s folly of the highest order.

Offering free repairs to affected users, as Apple finally did in June, doesn’t even begin to fix this fuck up.

Not least because that’s only a fix for dust-based death; There isn’t a rubber film in the universe that could make typing on these keys a pleasing experience.

What does it tell us when a company starts making the quality of its premium products worse? Especially a company famed for high-end design and high quality hardware? (Moreover, a company now worth a staggering $1tr+ in market capitalization?)

It smacks of complacency, misaligned priorities and worrying blindspots — at the very least, if not a wider lack of perspective outside the donut-shaped mothership. (Perhaps there’s been a little too much gathering around indoors in Cupertino lately, and not enough looking out critically at a flaking user experience… )

Or else, well, it smacks of cynical profiteering.

Clearly it’s not a good look. Apple’s reputation rests in large part on its hardware being perceived as reliable. On the famous Steve Jobs’ sales pitch that ‘it just works’. So Apple designing a keyboard that’s great at breaking for no reason at all and lighting fast at churning out typos is a truly epic fail.

Of course consumer electronic designs won’t always work out. Some failure is to be expected — and will be understood. But what makes the keyboard situation so much worse is Apple’s failure to recognise and accept the problem so that it could promptly clean up the mess.

Its apparent inability (for so long) to acknowledge there even was a problem is a particularly worrying sign. Having to sneak in a late fix because you didn’t have the courage to publicly admit you screwed up is not a good look for any company — let alone a company with such a long, rich and storied history as Apple.

More cynical folks out there might whisper it’s design flaw by design; A strategic fault-line intended to push users towards an upgrade faster than they might have otherwise have unzipped their wallets. Though Apple offering free keyboard repairs (also, albeit, tardily) contradicts that conspiracy theory.

Yet the notion of ‘built in obsolescence’ persists where consumer computing hardware is concerned, given how corporate profits do tend to be locked to upgrade cycles.

In Apple’s case it’s an easy charge to level at the company given its business model is still, in very large part, driven by hardware sales. So Apple doing anything that risks encouraging consumers to feel it’s intentionally making its products worse is also folly of the highest order.

Apple does have some active accusations to deal with on that front too. For example, a consumer group filed a complaint of planned obsolescence in France late last year — on account of Apple performance throttling older iPhones — something the company has faced multiple complaints over and some regulatory scrutiny. So again, it really needs to tread carefully.

Tim Cook’s Apple cannot afford to be slipshod in its designs nor its communication. Jobs got more latitude on the latter front because he was such a charismatic persona. Cook is lots of good things but he’s not that; he’s closer to ‘safe pair of hands’ — so company comms should really reflect that.

Apple may be richer than Croesus and king of the premium heap but it can’t risk tarnishing the brand. The mobile space is littered with the toppled monuments of past giants. And the markets where Apple plays are increasingly fiercely fought. Chinese device makers especially are building momentum with lower priced and highly capable consumer hardware. (Huawei displaced Apple in second place in the global smartphone rankings in Q2, for example).

Apple’s rivals have mercilessly cloned its slender laptop designs and copypasted the look and feel of the iPhone. Reliability and usability are the bedrock of the price premium its brand commands, with privacy a more recent bolt-on. So failing on those fundamentals would be beyond foolish, with so many rivals now pushing cheaper priced yet very similarly packaged (and shiny) alternatives at consumers — which also often offer equal or even greater feature utility for less money (assuming you’re willing to compromise on privacy).

When it comes to the Mac specifically, it clearly has not been Apple’s priority for a long time. The iPhone has been its star performer of the past decade, while growing its services business is the fresh focus for Cook. Yet when Cook’s Apple has paid a little attention to the Mac category it’s often been to fiddle unnecessarily — such as by clumsily reworking a great keyboard for purely cosmetic reasons, or to add a silly strip of touchscreen that’s at best distracting and (in my experience) just serves up even more unwanted keystrikes. So thrice blighted and the opposite of useful: A fiddly gimmick.

This is worrying.

Apple is a company founded with the word ‘Computer’ in its name. Computing is its DNA. And, even now, while smartphones and tablets are great for lots of things they are not great for sustained writing. For writing — and indeed working — at any length a laptop remains the perfect tool.

There’s no touchscreen in the world that can beat a well-designed keyboard for speed, comfort and typing convenience. To a writer, using a great keyboard almost feels like flying.

You wouldn’t have had to explain that to Jobs. He honed his Mac sales pitch to the point of poetry — famously dubbing the Mac a ‘bicycle for the mind’.

Now, sadly, saddled with this flatfooted and frustratingly flawed mechanic, it’s like Apple shipped a bicycle with a pair of needles where the pedals should be.

Not so much thinking different as failing to understand what the machine is for.


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