
Apple's service program for butterfly keyboard MacBooks, even out of warranty - green-eclipse
https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks
======
rogerhoward
After months of suffering with this, with an out warranty 15" MBP 2016 that
was relegated to desk duty with an external keyboard, I heard about this
program. I made an Apple Store appointment for the next day (a Tuesday); they
checked it, warned me it could be a week or more because of a holiday that
week. Thursday morning I had a call that it was ready. Total cost: $0
(according to the invoice the parts were over $800, including a mainboard
replacement to fix a loose USB-C port). It was a basically new machine when I
got it back.

I'm still sore over this kbd design, but its otherwise been a good laptop and
their no-questions-asked handling of it was great.

~~~
reaperducer
Apple's repair service, and the Apple Store in general, have gotten much
better in the last six months or so.

Two weeks ago I brought my Apple Watch in for an out-of-warranty repair on a
Thursday night. I was told it would take 10 business days. It was ready the
following Tuesday.

~~~
fmjfkd
You think so? I remember back in university, Apple would overnight ship my
laptop to fix it. The last time I went to Apple, they wouldn’t even replace my
faulty charger without me complaining to the manager.

~~~
bilbo0s
My daughter was in the Apple store the other day with a faulty charger. (It
wasn't the problem she went to ask about.) They wouldn't even speak to her
about the problem she wanted to talk about until they went and got a new
charger for her. They said it was just better to get that out of the way
first. So her experience was excellent.

How is everyone's Apple store experience so radically different?

~~~
unicornfinder
I reckon it's at least in part down to how busy the particular store is. The
one near me is always absolutely rammed and to be honest the service there
isn't exactly great.

~~~
gruturo
It's also down to how potentially dangerous something can be. Depending on
what actually fails, a charger could electrocute you, and it's cheap to both
make and replace ("here's a new one"). A butterfly keyboard won't kill you and
it's hell to replace.

~~~
ctrl-j
A wall charger is exceedingly unlikely to electrocute you.

Far more likely to burn your house to the ground. Which will still get lawyers
and executives to pay attention.

------
jacknews
Add to that, that the keycaps break. They have teeny-tiny clips on the top
edge, which just break after a while, and they just lift off, sticking to your
finger, or just shift slightly, enough not to 'click' when you press them.

I'm not a particularly heavy typist (though it sounds like it on the butterfly
keyboard, compared to my previous 2013 macbbok pro), but I've now had about 8
keycaps replaced in the lasst year.

edit: OK I was going to edit out the multiple-letters, but not this time, as
this is actually quite typical of typing on this 2016 mbp, so illustrates the
problem.

~~~
cletus
Serious question: how much force do you type with?

The reason I ask is that I see many, many people stab laptop keyboards with a
ridiculous amount of force. It actually bothers me like someone is banging on
my skull, particularly for the bad keyboards you have (which includes the
latest MBP).

I learned to touch type in high school. At first, believe it or not, it was
with manual typewriters. These actually require a lot of force, so much so
that once you go to a computer keyboard (or even an electronic typewriter)
there's really no going back.

Low-profile keyboards (including laptops) need the lightest amount of touch to
register a tap. Low profile also needs very little travel.

At my best I could probably type at 70+ wpm. I haven't measured in awhile but
it's probably worse (with sufficient accuracy). Coding uses a lot of symbols
that a QWERTY keyboard just isn't optimized for (and typing speed doesn't tend
to be the limiting factor anyway).

In years and years of coding and typing on computer keyboards I've had almost
zero problems with RSI or carpal tunnel or any of that. When I was typing much
more (vs coding) with standard keyboards, I actually did get a little
sensitivity/soreness along my ulna and the outer edge of my hand (going up to
my pinky finger). It had the feeling of being inflamed (in that something cold
on it relieved it). But after decades of typing that's it. And I haven't had
that in years. That's pretty good.

Anyway, bringing this back around... I wonder how many keyboard reliability
and RSI issues can be attributed to essentially "bad" typing habits like too
much force.

~~~
nvrspyx
Even without a lot of force, the new MacBook keyboards just _sound_ like
they're being abused and typed on with a ton of force. I make a conscious
effort to type softly. My typing speed suffers a bit, but I don't get the
anxiety that sometimes is triggered from typing hard and my body assuming I'm
in some crunch mode.

I have a 2015 MacBook Pro and while there's noise when I type, you can barely
hear it. I've used my SO's 2018 MacBook Pro with the new keyboard and it
sounds (and feels) like I'm putting a ton of force on the keys when I'm not.

It's simply a flaw with the new keyboards. They're loud and fragile. It seems
both of these criticisms are met with equal hatred amongst the community.

I'd like to add that the old MacBook keyboards can take quite the beating.
I've seen people using 2011 and 2012 MacBooks while practically pounding on
the keyboard and they have never had issues. I occasionally type hard on mine
as well, but I've never had a fear of breaking the keyboard. I'm too hesitant
to blame the way someone types when A) the keyboard is clearly a regression in
feel, sound, and durability as well as B) the way people have typed hasn't
been much of an issue with MacBooks in the past.

------
jasonsync
My report:

I just got a new MacBook Air a few weeks ago, to replace an aging MacBook Air.
Retina display is a huge upgrade, and USB C is great (I don't miss the mag
safe charger as much as I thought I would). The keyboard though ...

Week 1: For the first week the keyboard was great (although more clacky
sounding than the older model).

Week 2: The R key started misfiring. Press the R key 10 times, you only get 8
Rs on screen.

Week 3: I was about to bring it in to get replaced, but then the R key started
working again.

Great that Apple has acknowledged the issue, and as soon as the R key
misbehaves again, I will be bringing my MacBook Air in for repair.

The misfiring, along with the clacking noise makes the overall experience of
the newer keyboard feel "cheaper" than it's predecessors.

~~~
aiddun
I recently got a new MBP as a graduation gift and had the same experience with
you. Everything was going great until about a month in when the space bar
started randomly double pressing, sometimes putting periods mid sentence. It's
in the shop now. Coming from using an already pre-owned Thinkpad Yoga for many
years with a perfect keyboard, this is crazy for a product like this.

------
cletus
Rumour now has it that Apple will make the almost unprecedented move of
abandoning this keyboard design [1]. Technically, they might be replacing it
with a newer design (vs the old chiclet keys which IMHO were actually great)
but still...

One can't help but note the timing of Johnny Ive leaving with this move. If it
comes to pass (and it is just a rumour at this point and there are a lot of
false Apple rumours because clickbait).

Johnny Ive does seem to be obsessed with thinness to the point of
ludicrousness. It's said design is the art of compromise and any design is a
compromise. To me the 2010+ Macbook Air was essentially a "perfect" laptop.
Powerful enough, with enough ports but also quite cheap (under $1500) and
light. Size, weight, cost and power are all axes for compromise. This was
largely replaced with the 12" Macbook, which sacrificed pretty much everything
to shave off another millimeter or two. One USB-C port.

It's almost unprecedented that this form factor (13" Macbook Air) would be
resurrected yet it was. Is this tantamount to an admission of error with the
12" Macbook? Was it effectively a rebuke of Johnny Ive's "thinness above all
else" philosophy? Is the new keyboard (if it happens) a furhter admission of
error?

I don't know of course but I'm hopeful that the current trend of terrible
Apple design will reverse.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/4/20682079/apple-
butterfly-s...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/4/20682079/apple-butterfly-
switch-scissor-switch-2019-macbook-air-2020-macbook-pro)

------
luckydata
I'm a little surprised anyone is surprised by this story. Apple has a long
history of making questionable engineering decisions that end making their
products nigh unusable and then steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the issue
until evidence becomes too hard to deny. It happened with the iMacs multiple
times, with the phones multiple times, with the MacBooks multiple times... By
now we should know and not give them the unreasonable amount of credit we, but
I should really say the tech press, gives them.

~~~
scarface74
The “tech press” - even the Apple press were complaining about the quality of
the keyboards from day one. In John Gruber’s initial review when they first
came out he said he didn’t like them as did Marco Arment. They are two of the
most well known Apple pundits. At least Marco slso complained about the iMac
monitors before he got the iMac Pro.

Gruber doesn’t upgrade his computers as often as Marco but he does usually get
review units. So he doesn’t get to comment on long term issues with them. He
famously still uses a 20 year old Apple ADB keyboard.

------
ulfw
I would love to know how much this whole keyboard disaster has cost Apple, in
constant replacement costs (material, man hours) and reputation/lost sales.
The stubbornness to have stuck with this for half a decade is what fascinates
me.

~~~
jm4
Can there be any doubt this is what precipitated Ive’s departure? This
keyboard is a disaster. They ended up replacing the entire inside of my laptop
when my space bar broke. Then I had the logic board replaced again a few
months ago after it was bricked by an update. Worst computer I’ve ever owned
and I’ve owned the likes of e-machines, gateway and cheap netbooks back in the
day. Each repair exceeded the cost of AppleCare. I’m basically on my third
laptop with the original case and I don’t think my situation is as bad as some
of the other people complaining on HN. They’ve probably lost significant money
on these MBPs in addition to the market share they’ve ceded to Dell and
Lenovo.

~~~
raydev
> Can there be any doubt this is what precipitated Ive’s departure?

That this precipitated his departure is doubtful.

Ive has had one foot out the door for a few years.

~~~
jm4
This keyboard has been a disaster for a few years. If it’s true that Ive was
the one pushing it then it would be ignorant to think that this failure hasn’t
had an impact on his standing within the company. This is a massive failure.
We are talking about a part that experiences more physical wear and tear than
any other in the computer and that requires a logic board replacement as part
of the repair process. That’s absurd. How do you think it impacts the margin
when a significant number of units are coming in for one or more repairs?
Executives get fired for these kinds of failures all the time. Depending on
some of the dynamics behind the scenes, I might want him out for this or at
least put on a leash if I’m on the board.

~~~
ulfw
A lot of Ive's later designs have been a disaster.

I dropped my iPhone XS Max from a tiny height. It being made out of (not
great) glass, the backside immediately shattered. Oh well. What shocked me was
how incredibly stupid the phone was put together. The back glass (unlike the
front where the screen is!) can not be replaced without replacing the whole
phone.

The whole case you mean?

No. The. Whole. Phone.

"Thankfully" Apple was kind enough to only charge me $500 for the replacement
phone rather than the $1300 it cost to begin with. But one thing I can assure
you. I will never buy a (in total) $1800 phone again.

------
rgovostes
I have two generations of the butterfly keyboard and I can say that the
version with a silicone membrane is vastly superior. The keys feel much
better, they rattle less for virtually silent typing.

iFixit found that the membrane also made a big difference in terms of limiting
the impact of dust:
[https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/7/19/17592138/i...](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/7/19/17592138/ifixit-
apple-macbook-pro-keyboard-anti-dust-membrane-update-teardown)

I have sent two of the pre-membrane keyboards in for repair, but haven't had
an issue with this new one. I haven't tried the one or two revisions since the
membrane has been added, which are reported to be better still.

~~~
gorbypark
I have a 2016 13" MBP which I believe does not have the membrane. Any idea if
they'd replace it with a membrane version of the keyboard or if they would
just put in the exact same one as before?

~~~
rgovostes
Unfortunately, I can say with near certainty they would not put a newer
keyboard in an older machine.

------
gorbypark
Will this make my 13" 2016 MBP better? I don't have any permanently "sticky"
keys but on occasion something gets in there and the key feels weird for an
hour or two before it somehow "clears" itself out. If I went through the
trouble of sending in my laptop, would the keyboard be replaced with a newer
keyboard with the "membrane" or would they just slap the exact same keyboard
in?

------
pooya13
This was the case with my 2015 MacBook a couple of years ago. The “geniuses”
were refusing to fix the keyboard free of charge until they realized I was
aware of the law suite and their attitude suddenly changed to “we will fix it
for free because we have a great customer support”. I garantee there are
people who didn’t know better and paid for it. And I highly doubt that “it’s a
small percentage of the customers” affected as that page claims.

~~~
ericmcer
I don't understand why the workers would do that. There is no incentive for
them to get you to pay for it. I worked retail for 8ish years and I was
usually as good to the customer as my company would allow. It would be bizarre
for me to try to hoodwink a customer out of a free repair I am authorized to
provide, because I felt some bizarre loyalty to my corporation.

~~~
pooya13
I suspect that it was because at that stage Apple was still in denial about
the issue.

------
tomduncalf
Why is this being reposted? Has something changed recently or is it the same
as before? I'd like them to extend it beyond four years to be honest, would go
some way towards making up for this sh __design

~~~
savoytruffle
It keeps expanding to more and older MacBooks

------
vuln
Ugh. I really want to upgrade my 2014 mba. Four gigs of ram doesn’t cut it
anymore and my eyes have grown tired of the screen. I love the size, battery
life, I just don’t know what to get next.

~~~
52-6F-62
There are a lot of refurb 2015 MBP's on the market since many people upgraded
to newer machines. They're the last run before the butterfly keyboard, you can
find up to 16GB memory and 512GB storage—some of them with dedicated video as
well (if the 15" size is what you're after). And substantially cheaper than
new models.

Mind you I think this is t he run with the battery issue.....

~~~
breck
I didn’t know there were 16GB options. I thought I got the best last
generation MBA at 8gb and 512. It’s my primary machine and I still love it.

~~~
Fnoord
I have a MBP 13" 2015 with 16 GB RAM and a MBP 15" 2015 with 16 GB RAM. The
13" was actually bought in begin of 2017.

~~~
breck
Ah, as I wrote in the other comment it must have been my mistake, not checking
the actual store and just going straight to the refurb store.

------
green-eclipse
To be clear, according to Apple, these keyboard repairs are free.

~~~
ramijames
My time isn't free. The fact that I have to deal with this at all makes me
never want to buy another Mac and I have been a heavy user for at least 20
years. Super annoyed.

~~~
cced
This. I have 7 distinct repairs so far. Every one of these involves a back up,
checking in at the Apple Store, explaining what the issue is, having the staff
run “diagnostics” only to find nothing wrong with the computer, my having to
tell them that this has become routine and that I want them to take my
computer in for repairs, having them call me back a few days later with a
repaired computer, retrieving the computer, reinstalling the image.

I just want my money back.

~~~
iamnotacrook
It sounds like the "diagnostics" are faulty. If they ended up fixing your
problems (as suggested by your "distinct repairs" comments, so they can't have
just sat on the device for a phone days then said "yep, we fixed it") then it
sounds like they do further tests once they've accepted it for repair, and
where those tests highlight a genuine problem, in which case they should
probably do those tests initially instead, or at least not make you have to
argue with someone at the store when you've already had to stop work, get it
to the store etc.

~~~
delfinom
The goal of their diagnostics is to a.) upsell/make you pay up for "repairs"
you may or may not need b.) avoid doing work under warranty

Same shit for car dealers and other places involving consumer goods. This all
driven by corporate setting quotas for employees to meet (knowing full well
they can't be met unless certain non-spoken shortcuts are taken...).

~~~
dpkonofa
No it's not. The diagnostics are just basic, front-level diagnostics that they
do for all machines to check off a few boxes. It's unfortunate when you're in
the small percentage of people that have an uncommon problem but their current
diagnostic system lets them accommodate and repair 99% of the issues people
come in for quickly with 1st tier repair staff. It's not ideal but they're not
trying to screw you over. Apple has some of the best and most highly rated
support in the industry.

------
BitwiseFool
I'll be holding on to my 2012 MacBook Pro until they switch to a different
kind of keyboard. If they don't, then I'm getting a Surface instead.

~~~
pault
If you don't care about the default telemetry and ads, switch to Windows 10
with WSL. I was a die hard Mac user for a decade and since switching I haven't
looked back. Windows is a different beast than it was 10 years ago, and having
the whole ecosystem of hardware and software at your disposal is fantastic.

~~~
hiram112
I still am trying to figure out what WSL has solved for anyone. It works fine
for the little tutorials they use to showcase it, but on any real project it
is just as bad as what many of us have had to do for the last 10 years if we
were stuck with Windows: use a VM with all the problems it brings like using
extra CPU and memory, poor filesystem performance, duplicating tools and
configs in both the Windows and Linux environments, etc.

~~~
pault
I'm not sure what your threshold is for a real project, but I've been using it
for multi-stack dev environments with no trouble at all for the past year. You
shouldn't use it to host a production environment, but I'm not sure why you
would want to. What it solves is you don't have to use the minority, poorly
supported windows ports of your language runtime, _if_ it even has one. Many
smaller languages I've tried don't support windows at all, and many NPM
libraries have terrible bugs in windows (hard coding posix paths/environment
variables, etc). WSL allows you to skip all of that trouble and use windows
without changing any of your workflows or having to learn a totally new shell.
The upcoming 2.0 release should be even better.

~~~
hiram112
I'm definitely not running a production environment. But imagine this
scenario:

I've got my Linux shell with various tools like GIt, JDK, NPM, NVM, Maven,
etc. All the config files are setup in my Linux home in the VM. But the whole
point of WSL is that I can use the nice GUIs available on Windows. So now I've
SourceTree for Git, IntelliJ, WebStorm, etc running on Windows. And they all
need the same tools installed like maven, Git, JDK, etc.

First problem is that the I now have to duplicate all the tools in both
Windows and Linux - all sorts of fun problems when they get out of sync. Same
with the config files which are always screwing up due to differences in line
endings and path slashes.

But the worst of all is performance. If I compile some huge multi-module Scala
and Java project completely in native Windows, it takes five minutes. Doing it
in WSL bash takes 15 minutes. And having my IDE in Windows doing it on the
code that's on the Linux WSL filesystem takes 60 minutes, assuming it even
works with all the path and line ending problems as the tools are sometimes
called in Windows, sometimes called in Linux.

Exact same problems with python apps, Node apps, and everything else that is
common these days.

It's absolutely no better than what I did 10 years ago when I had my company
spend $200 for VMWare Workstation license and I ran Fedora or Ubuntu VMs with
Linux, but still tried to use Windows for half the build. Same with Cygwin...

~~~
pault
> But the whole point of WSL is that I can use the nice GUIs available on
> Windows.

I think the point is that you can have a linux environment on your windows
machine without running your own VM, not that you can use GUIs for your
platform back end. If I just wanted GUIs I would use Mac OS. The real godsend
of WSL is that we poor souls who are forced to use windows machines at work
can finally have a development environment that isn't a second class citizen
(assuming you aren't a windows platform developer). I'm not sure that it's
fair to say that WSL doesn't solve anything for anyone just because it doesn't
fit your workflow. I run node, haskell, and python in WSL and VSCode remote
development extensions provides me with a full featured IDE for each of those
environments, along with git integration if I should need it. Usually I just
open up a terminal when I need to use git. Anyway, the next version of WSL
will host a full linux kernel, so it should be easier to use X forwarding if
you need linux-native GUI applications.

------
rixrax
Somewhat off-topic pipe dream, but I wish Apple would up their Linux support.
I would get one of these [old 13,1] MBPs in a heartbeat to run Ubuntu on it
should I be able to put a stock Linux on it. Unfortunately hibernate and audio
still do not appear work[0].

[0]
[https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux](https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux)

------
ibrault
Wow. I regularly get repeated "e" keypresses and for the longest time just
assumed I was getting worse at typing (even though it was only "e"...). Glad
to see it's an actual thing and I'm not crazy. Yes I probably should've
Googled it but it wasn't that much of a nuisance

~~~
awakeasleep
This has been the perfect solution to my double press problems.
[https://unshaky.nestederror.com](https://unshaky.nestederror.com)

------
skue
On a related note, has anyone else had issues with the iPad Smart Keyboard
after 15+ months?

Bought mine for the 10.5 iPad Pro and at some point I started getting
Accessory Not Recognized messages, then it would stop working unless I removed
and reattached it, then it finally died entirely.

There are reports of similar experiences in the Apple Support Communities and
on Reddit, and Apple reportedly created a program to replace some of the
keyboards [1]. But when I contacted Apple I was told my keyboard was out of
warranty — effectively $180 of electronic waste after just over one year of
use.

[1] [https://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/17/05/08/apple-
offe...](https://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/17/05/08/apple-offers-free-
ipad-pro-smart-keyboard-repairs-in-wake-of-functional-issues)

~~~
derefr
Sounds like the trouble with old NES cartridges: corroded contacts. (They
sometimes started working when you reseated them enough times, because moving
them in and out of the connector was scraping off a little bit of the
corrosion.)

If that’s the problem, the real solution should be the same: cleaning the
keyboard’s contact pads (and maybe the iPad’s contact pads as well) with a
q-tip and a bit of isopropyl alcohol.

------
panzagl
My daughter wants a Macbook when she leaves for college next month- no Apple
store within a 8-hour drive. Does anyone have experience getting this type of
stuff fixed through whatever arrangement Apple has with a typical University?
Is Applecare an absolute requirement in this type of situation?

~~~
X-Istence
Apple doesn't typically have an arrangement with a university. Apple does
allow you to send the device in/get it shipped back to you though if there is
an issue. There may also be a certified Apple repair store near your daughters
university.

~~~
bradknowles
Depends on the University. UT Austin does have such an official relationship
with Apple -- I knew the guy who did all that work, and he had 30 years worth
of certification on various hardware and software from Apple.

He was also the guy who was certified and licensed to do all that same kind of
work on Dell. He spent > 90% of his time working on Dell stuff, and was very
happy when he got a call to come work on Apple stuff.

Yup, one guy for the entire campus of 50,000+ students, and 20,000+ faculty
and staff. It amazed me, too.

------
rohug
In the list of eligible models:

"MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)"

I'm certain they previously would have specified that model with "Touchbar"
rather than the number of thunderbolt ports...

RIP Touchbar!

~~~
bradknowles
Of course, that also means that they are killing at least one or two of the
Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Because there's no way they'd add one or more T3 ports on top of already
having four of them.

So, maybe you don't want to be so glad to see that designation.....

------
stunt
Ok! this is least they could do, and it's something that I'd appreciate and
expect from a company like Apple. Finally!

They could really recognize this problem earlier.

------
quxbar
I'm quite glad I've held onto my mid-2012 15 inch mbp all these years. I had
the latest 2019 model for a job and it was a distinct downgrade. The 2012
model isn't much heavier or slower, has all the ports I need, and they
keyboard feels relatively solid. I hope Apple will come to their senses and
pull an iPhone SE, releasing the design from 2012 with updated internals.
FaceID would make it perfect.

~~~
igotsideas
Yes! I have a 2011 MBP that is going strong. I never had a problem with it. My
2018 MBP from work has been switched out twice because of the keyboard and the
screen just going dead.

------
iends
I’m not sure I have an issue, because I always use an external keyboard. Will
Apple still fix my keyboard, or does it have to exhibit some issue?

------
02thoeva
Dropped mine in earlier this week at a London Store. Currently a 7-10 day
turnaround for repairs.

------
Tempest1981
> The program covers eligible ... models for 4 years after the first retail
> sale of the unit.

After 4 years, if you then pay to have the keyboard replaced, do you get an
additional 4 year warranty on the keyboard?

------
algaeontoast
Does this entail a replacement keyboard with their "new" keyswitches or just
service if you happen to have a key start sticking?

------
arvinsim
Dang, I bought AppleCare just for this issue.

But then again, the peace of mind I get for the next few years is probably
worth it.

------
babyslothzoo
I don't know a single person who likes these keyboards or the Touch Bar.

------
archy_
I'm impressed that Apple would continue to replace devices without a warranty.
Really shows their dedication to their customers, not many other companies
would continue to drop so much money on devices they don't have to support.

~~~
FireBeyond
They're being threatened with/ have multiple class actions underway about
these keyboards not being "fit for purpose", spent months, years denying that
it was a problem. I'd slow down on the cheerleading just a little.

