THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Thursday, November 14, 2019 |B5
latest butterfly keyboards, up-
dated in May, have been well
received.
The Mac is still a big busi-
ness for Apple, accounting for
nearly 10% of its $260 billion
in sales in the latest fiscal
year. At a starting price of
$2,399, the latest MacBook
Pro is meant to woo photog-
raphers, musicians and video
producers. Many of its up-
grades would be noticed only
by people whose jobs require
viewing multiple high-resolu-
tion monitors.
Some buyers might con-
sider the splurge just for the
improved keyboard, and there
are a few other features that
benefit even those among us
who focus on the written
word. Battery life, for one:
The Federal Aviation Admin-
istration says a laptop can
have a maximum battery size
of 100 watt-hours, so Apple
chose that as this model’s
battery size, up from 84 Wh
in the previous 15-inch Mac-
Book Pro. The company says
this translates to about 11
hours of total use, up from 10.
In product demos, the new
speakers blew away competi-
tors, and the built-in three-
microphone array seemed to
be of a high enough quality
for podcasting. And the only
thing better than having that
bigger 16-inch screen—with a
resolution of 3,072 pixels by
1,920 pixels—is getting it in
approximately the same size
frame that held the predeces-
sor’s 15-inch display.
That isn’t to say this is a
thinner and lighter machine
than ever before. In fact, like
the recently launched iPhone
11 Pro, this laptop addresses
customer issues by actually
getting a little thicker (by
0.03 inch) and a little heavier
(by 0.3 pound). It’s not espe-
cially noticeable, but it does
suggest that Apple is taking a
breather from the race to ulti-
mate design perfection to ad-
dress real user needs.
We’ll have more to say
when Joanna completes her
review of this new MacBook
Pro—and if and when Apple
brings the scissor keyboard
back to its mainstream Mac-
Book line. Since the MacBook
Air received a long-overdue
refresh just one year ago, that
might take a while.is work through this difficult
period,” he said during a call
with analysts on Wednesday.
“Over time, [we] hope the
problem will solve itself.”
The Shenzhen-based com-
pany is also facing challenges
at home. Younger tech compa-
nies like Bytedance Inc., whose
short-video apps TikTok and
Douyin have won a global au-
dience, are cutting into adver-
tising on WeChat at a time
when companies are more
cautious about ad budgets.
Tencent plans to back its own
flagship app for short videos,
Weishi, with “a lot of market-
ing and content dollars,” Mr.
Lau said.
Tighter government control
of programming ahead of the
70th anniversary of the found-
ing of the People’s Republic of
China also limited Tencent’s
ability to air several historical
costume dramas. The loss of
sponsorship deals helped send
Tencent’s media advertising
revenue down 28% to 3.7 bil-
lion yuan in the third quarter.
Some of those shows have
finally made it to air, James
Mitchell, Tencent’s chief strat-
egy officer, said during the
call. “We believe the worst is
behind us.”
One upside for Tencent is
its gaming business, which has
rebounded from an extended
regulatory freeze last year on
new-game approvals in China.
“Peacekeeper Elite,” a video-
game introduced in May that
glorifies China’s military, has
become a smash hit.
Tencent’s mobile version of
“Call of Duty” was down-
loaded 148 million times glob-
ally in its first month, the sec-
ond most successful mobile-
game launch of all time,
according to research firm
Sensor Tower.
Tencent executives said the
company plans to aggressively
go after international markets
by creating its own games.Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s
profit slid in the third quarter
as the Chinese tech giant
looked to expand its gaming
business abroad while grap-
pling with upstart tech rivals
and slower economic growth
at home.
The world’s largest video-
game company by revenue,
which also operates social-net-
working app WeChat, said
profit fell 13% from the year-
earlier quarter to 20.4 billion
yuan ($2.9 billion)—short of
the consensus forecast of 24.4
billion yuan by analysts polled
by FactSet.
Revenue climbed 21% to
97.2 billion yuan, just missing
analysts’ forecast of 97.9 bil-
lion yuan.
Tencent is navigating politi-
cal minefields, many arising
from tensions between the
U.S. and China.
The company has exclusive
rights to digitally stream Na-
tional Basketball Association
games in China, having agreed
in June to pay $1.5 billion for
a five-year extension of its
deal. But last month it tempo-
rarily suspended its streaming
of NBA games after the gen-
eral manager of the Houston
Rockets inflamed Chinese sen-
sibilities by tweeting in sup-
port of Hong Kong protesters.
Then on Saturday, it halted
the live stream of a game be-
tween the Los Angeles Lakers
and the Miami Heat after a
front-row fan was spotted
wearing a shirt depicting the
flag of the self-governed but
Beijing-claimed island of Tai-
wan, according to state media.
Martin Lau, president of
Tencent, said the company is
relying on its strong relation-
ship with the basketball fran-
chise and the NBA’s Chinese
fan base to weather the cur-
rent controversy.
“What we are trying to do
BYSHANLI
Tencent Earnings
Fall as Rivals Cut
Into Ad Revenue
TECHNOLOGY
againstApple over keyboard
defects, which were among
several hardware missteps that
tarnished Apple’s reputation.
The new 16-inch MacBook
Pro has a new scissor-mecha-
nism keyboard that Apple
says is based on designs
found on older MacBook key-
boards and the Magic Key-
board bundled with current
iMacs. During a demo, Shruti
Haldea, Apple’s MacBook Pro
product manager, called it
“the best typing experience
on a Mac notebook.”
Purchasers of the new lap-
top won’t be eligible for the
extended keyboard repair
program available to buyers
of butterfly-keyboard Mac-
Books. When I asked if Apple
would be using this new key-
board when it next refreshes
its other MacBook models, a
spokesman declined to com-
ment on future products. Ms.
Haldea said the majority of
MacBook users with butterfly
keyboards like them.
The first thing you notice
on the new MacBook Pro key-
board is that your fingers
take a bit longer to reach the
bottom of a press. Your fin-
gers actually travel about
twice the distance they would
on the recent MacBook Pro
butterfly keyboards, though
not quite as far as they do on
the older scissor-style Mac-
Book keyboard—the one
found on pre-2016 MacBook
Pro models. In a side-by-side
comparison with the butterfly
keyboard, the new keyboard
is noticeably quieter and
more cushioned.
As a fairly violent typist, I
find the new keyboard to
cushion the blows more ably.
Compared with that earlier
scissor-style keyboard, the
new keys feel steadier, but
definitely less squishy.
It’s hard to say if this de-
sign means no more keyboard
troubles for Apple—and an
Apple spokesman says theContinued from page B1MacBook
Pro Tackles
Key Flaw
MICHAEL BUCHER/THE WALL STREET JOURNALLEARNMOREABOUTTHETHREATSTOYOURFREEDOMAT
#ProtectPressFreedom
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Apple’s newest MacBook Pro returns to the ‘scissor’ keyboard
mechanism of the past, following complaints about the
‘butterfly’ mechanism found in MacBook Pro models since 2016.Source: the companyButterfly mechanismApple s newest MacBook
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butterfly’ mechanismfouScissor mechanismKeyboard travelavelPre-2016Scissor1.6 mm2019Scissor1mm2016-18ButterflyKeyboard tra2016 -18Butterfly0.55 mm