I have the new 2021 14” MacBook Pro and love it. Its keyboard is smooth and quick to type on. It runs crazy fast and stays cool; it’s heavier but not too heavy; and the screen is a big step up.
Looking back, I admit the butterfly Mac — the keyboard and form factor debuting in 2015 with the 12” Macbook and ending with the mid-2019 MacBook Pro — was, in technical terms, a disaster.
The keyboard was delicate, unreliable, and expensive to repair. It had to go.
The touch bar on the Pros was controversial and many are happy to see it go as well. The port situation was a giant fiasco. The thinness of these devices led to all sorts of compromises and limitations, making them far from Pro.
With the advent of the 2021 MBP, everyone is understandably sighing in relief, but I can’t help think the butterfly MacBook was a classic — the most interesting and compelling Mac ever made.
Jony Ive’s vision
I still own my 2019 MBP and have no intention of giving it up.
What in the world am I on about?
First, I know I’m not alone in harbouring a lingering attachment to it. At least a few YouTubers and forum posters have expressed a preference for the butterfly Mac over the new 2021 form factor.
Back in the day, when the butterfly keyboard was first ported over to the entire MacBook line in 2016, reviewers often said: ‘while it takes some getting used to, I now prefer it.’
There were two facets to its draw: visual and tactile.
In designing the keyboard, with its flat, wide, oversized keys and small spaces in between, Ive — or the design team — took inspiration from German-American architect Mies van der Rohe, who had a distinct and memorable way of using lines and spaces in his architecture to make visually appealing designs.
The butterfly’s fatter, wider keys captures something of van der Rohe’s striking use of lines and shapes…
As soon as Apple swapped out the butterfly keyboard with the Magic Keyboard in the last Intel MacBooks, I felt a certain ambivalence, even disappointment, just looking at them.
That the new Magic Keyboard also felt that way — ordinary, reliable — was obviously good, but somehow anti-climactic when I got my hands on a 2020 MBP. (So much so that after a few months, I sold mine and went looking again for a butterfly Mac.)
Equally intriguing was how the butterfly keyboard felt to type on. It looked, felt, and sounded like nothing else out there.
It was obnoxiously shallow and stiff, but, my goodness, was there ever a satisfying snap to every click of the keys! I know this sounds insane, and the love-hate relationship with it was never ending, but it was somehow more interesting to use, in its strange way, than any other device in memory.
Form over function
In hindsight, looking back at the butterfly MacBooks from the vantage point of the thicker and heavier 2021 Pros, a big part of the aesthetic draw to the butterfly Macs was their thinness, their relative lightness, their smaller footprint. Alongside the new 14", the 13" looks not just more portable but more intimate.
It was also about minimalism, and I liked that too.
I never minded having only USB-C ports. It was a statement: this is all you really need.
Yet as compelling as I find the butterfly MacBook, I admit: it was seriously compromised.
I could never type on any butterfly Mac I owned for more than about five minutes without feeling strained. That was a major failing.
I’m left in the odd position of treasuring my 2019 13” and wanting to keep it, but knowing that it’s essentially an expensive toy I hold onto for nostalgic reasons.
The 2021 MacBook Pro is not only vastly superior in its specs, it’s also far easier to use and an all around more effective tool for getting work done.
Aesthetically, though, it’s not in the same league. Apart from the boxier shape, harkening back to the genius of the titanium PowerBook G4, the design of the new MacBooks is impressive, but not special. The butterfly Mac, from 2015 to 2019, was a work of art.
I don't expect we’ll see anything quite as odd or inspired ever again.