Beyond the revamped keyboard, the biggest changes in this 2019 model have to do with its thermal management system and the battery cells. The exhaust holes are bigger than those of the outgoing 15-inch model, while inside the new fans with bigger blades allow for more performance. Also, the batteries are similar to previous cells, except they’re each just a bit thicker, all contributing to an extra 16.2 Wh of energy capacity.

The bad news arrives for anyone hoping that this model would allow for easy servicing by anyone other than authorized Mac repair techs. Unlike the latest laptops and tablets from Microsoft, Apple has continued to avoid making its designs more modular or easily accessible. If that’s part of your purchasing decision then you’ll have to wait and see if it changes in a future revision, otherwise you can just find out what the inside of this laptop looks like simply by clicking through.

This is just the latest rumor to come from Kuo. He previously predicted that the 16-inch MacBook Pro will arrive before the end of this year. He also believes future Macs, coming in 2020, will use the scissor mechanism rather than the butterfly mechanism. That wouldn’t be surprising, given all the complaints over Apple’s butterfly keyboard — including claims that it is susceptible to debris and overheating. Apple launched a next-day repair program for the problematic keyboards, and it attempted to improve them with a switch cover, but those efforts have had limited success.

Apple’s butterfly keyboards have been troublesome from the get-go, and are well known to fail as a result of debris or overheating. Apple rolled out a worldwide repair program for 2015-and-later MacBooks, and subsequently updated the keyboard last year to include a thin silicone barrier behind each key to help thwart dust and crumbs. However, it was still prone to faults.

From a technical standpoint, this would be something of a step backwards. Butterfly keyboards are thinner and supposedly more durable than their scissor counterparts. However, these benefits are completely irrelevant if the device can’t be used in the first place, so MacBook owners will undoubtedly welcome any move that will improve the usability of their expensive gear.