
Apple Admits to Hardware Quality Problems with iPhone X, MacBook Pro - walterbell
https://www.thurrott.com/apple/191172/apple-admits-to-hardware-quality-problems-with-iphone-x-macbook-pro
======
andy_ppp
I've had my iPhone X replaced once after the screen went mental - a bright
green line randomly appeared on one side of the screen - now the replacement
drops > 50% of all calls :-(

On the MacBook Pro front I've had the sticking keys issue on the left command,
C, B, G and 3 keys - so took it in finally after being tortured by this for
months - 1 week later and I called them to see what was going on and they said
that the whole top piece needed to be replaced, but when taking out the
motherboard they have snapped the thing in two.

Making these machines difficult to repair doesn't just effect end users it
seems.

Still, I'm glad that Apple are still the sort of company that replace the
whole machine in these situations. I'm sure there are bean counters who will
be thinking making it harder to get things fixed is the solution though.

~~~
ardy42
> but when taking out the motherboard they have snapped the thing in two.

Don't MacBooks have the SSD soldered onto the motherboard now, so motherboard
damage == total data loss?

Edit: yep: [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/11/touch-bar-mbp-
teardo...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/11/touch-bar-mbp-teardown-
soldered-ssd-cosmetic-speaker-holes-and-more/)

If you're going to make something almost totally unrepairable, you'd better
make it almost totally reliable as well.

~~~
thinkingkong
Actually it doesn't need to be totally reliable. It just needs to fail at a
rate which ensures the cost to apple to replace + refurb is less than the
repair + the cost of building a 'repairable' device.

The market demands thinner laptops with amazing battery life. The market - in
general - isn't demanding a more serviceable macbook.

~~~
chx
> The market demands thinner laptops with amazing battery life. The market -
> in general - isn't demanding a more serviceable macbook.

It doesn't. This is false. Noone cares about thin laptops. People want light
laptops but thin is completely artifical and doesn't improve your experience.

One might say it was Jobs' plan to destroy the laptop industry with it and it
worked.

~~~
robotresearcher
If the tech specs were the same, which form factor do you prefer:

[https://i.imgur.com/dV7WHCD.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/dV7WHCD.jpg)

[https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/kfOpFgAZ4kfdK8vNUNMOlKjuYwc=...](https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/kfOpFgAZ4kfdK8vNUNMOlKjuYwc=/0x0:2040x1360/1920x0/filters:focal\(0x0:2040x1360\):no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11733899/vpavic_180718_2757_0021.jpg)

I've owned both of these. They both have good specs for their time. The
ThinkPad keyboard was wonderful. The trackpad of the MBP is wonderful but so
is its size and shape. The ThinkPad was a brick.

You say no one cares about thin, but once you have seen the MBP, the ThinkPad
is a hard sell. (Though you youngsters should try one of those keyboards to
see what you missed).

~~~
dethac
I think this is a bit of a disingenuous comparison. That ThinkPad looks to be
around the mid 1990s (maybe early 2000s?). Meanwhile, if you looked at a
modern ThinkPad (regardless of your opinion on Lenovo as a company), the
keyboard is still category-leading, the weight is almost identical to a
MacBook in the same class, and the thickness likewise. Look at, say, the X1
Extreme.

Replaceable RAM and SSD. 4.06 pounds. The MBP 15" is 4.03 pounds.

Now, the keyboard definitely isn't as good as it was (RIP old keyboard, may
you rest in peace), but it's definitely still very competitive.

~~~
rhizome
Wow, the X1s have come a long way. Possibly the only non-Mac 15" with a
tenkeyless right now.

~~~
int_19h
X1 is 14". It's actually noticeably smaller than a MacBook Pro, other than
thickness.

MacBook is actually really bad in the keyboard department when you consider
that it's 15" \- it has tiny up/down arrows, and no PgUp/PgDown/Home/End.
Which is a shame, since these all would easily fit if speakers went elsewhere,
and the touchpad was just a wee bit smaller (I mean, seriously, does it really
need to be bigger than a 6" smartphone?). For a productivity laptop, these are
very weird trade-offs.

~~~
rhizome
Thinkpad X1 Extreme is 15.6"

[https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/Thi...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/ThinkPad-X1-Extreme/p/22TP2TXX1E1)

~~~
int_19h
Ah, I see, I was thinking about the regular one. Yeah, this one looks like it
could have a numpad without reducing the key size, although it would be a very
tight fit at the edges.

~~~
rhizome
The thing is that I don't want a tenkey keyboard.

------
aunty_helen
I've just had the keyboard recall done on my 2017 mbp after the J key started
failing/duplicating when being pressed.

The whole process, although annoying, was painless. The tech gave me the
option of them trying to fix it by blowing dust out or just replacing the
entire keyboard. I elected for the later given that it's a design fault. The
repair took 1 1/2 days which I had done when I was out of town.

Since they glue everything together, getting a new J key also meant a new
keyboard, touch bar, finger print reader, speakers, battery and touch pad.
Which if there was no recall I can imagine would be a costly exercise.
Hopefully after the recent recalls Apple engineers will be looking at making
easier to service components.

~~~
btown
Does anyone know if the new 2018 MBPs are having keyboard failures, or did
their "quieter keys" update fix the issues? It's very hard to find information
on whether people have experienced problems since this summer - which might be
a good thing! But anything definitive?

~~~
mitchty
I bought the 2018 mbp on day 1, so far zero issues with the keyboard.

Not definitive by any means but its all I can offer up to go on. YMMV but
thats true of all hardware.

~~~
matwood
Same. I have had a 2017 MBP for awhile, and have had zero issues with the
keyboard. I assume it will fail at some point, but otherwise I like the
keyboard.

------
czardoz
It feels like Apple is caught in the classic "innovator's dilemma" described
in Christensen's book. Constantly being pushed to higher margin products by
competition which is focused on the low end market. The problem is, at some
point, the "low-end" products become good enough, causing a sudden loss of
sales.

The way out is to come up with entirely new products, which Apple has done
remarkably well before. I think it's high time they do so again.

I think the drive to create high margin products is making Apple gravitate
towards pushing out technologies that differentiate them from the rest, such
as the touch bar, or these keyboards. But it may not actually be better.

~~~
scarface74
People have been saying that for at least 7 years - that Samsung would take
over and kill Apple’s margins.

He has been consistently wrong about the iPhone

[https://stratechery.com/2013/clayton-christensen-got-
wrong/](https://stratechery.com/2013/clayton-christensen-got-wrong/)

He doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to the iPhone.

[https://jeremy.linuxquestions.org/2007/06/28/clayton-
christe...](https://jeremy.linuxquestions.org/2007/06/28/clayton-christensens-
innovators-dilemma-says-iphone-will-fail/)

It looks like another case of “No Wireless. Less Space Than the Nomad. Lame”.

~~~
czardoz
Seven years is not that big of a timeline IMO. These changes happen over a
couple or more decades. IBM is still around, but it's not really a leader
anymore, is it?

I'm pretty sure there will be a sizable market for Apple products. It's just
that they might lose the edge after some time.

~~~
scarface74
He was wrong from day one and predicted that the iPhone wouldn’t be successful
when it was first introduced before it went on sell.

~~~
czardoz
Yes, I'm not saying the person you quoted is correct with his failure
predictions. But it sure seems that Apple is caught in the innovator's
dilemma.

~~~
scarface74
The person I quoted was the author of the “innovator’s Dilemma”.

The symptoms of it is new entrants coming in from below with “good enough”
products that are cheaper. Forcing the market leader to lower prices. Apple
has been headed in the opposite direction for years.

He also predicted that “modularity beats integration” as a market segment
matures because you have more companies specializing in parts of the product
and putting R&D behind it.

But look at what’s happening in the phone market. Apple is consistently
bringing out better processors than the rest of the industry. The operating
systems are definitely not behind the competitors. By being tightly integrated
for instance, they were able to tell developers to submit watch apps using
bitcode (?) because they knew four years later they were going to introduce a
64 bit chip got the watch.

Another advantage you are seeing in the market because of integration vs.
modularity is that Apple can push OS updates for all of its devices that have
been introduced since 2013 in one day. The “modular” Android ecosystem, not so
much.

~~~
ksec
The theory of innovator's dilemma ignores one of the fundamental issues in
today's computing world. And that is software lock in. I think we are only
just starting to see good enough products that are cheaper. Huawei, OnePlus,
Xiaomi all have better software than Samsung, and arguably better design and
hardware at similar price range as well. So it remains to be seen whether
innovator’s Dilemma as a theory is wrong. All the three companies are only
just setting foot in Europe and need a few more years to play out in other
parts of the world.

Another thing is that there has never been a company that sell premium
products and got 20% of unit sales market share and even higher in usage
shares. At least I am not aware of. Apple may very well be the only one in
history. And the unit sales, combined with high margin has allowed them to
constantly innovate. The original theory behind innovator’s Dilemma never
expected the innovator has such high margin and high sales.

And I think it is one reason why Wall Street has low valuing Apple Stock. They
have never seen it, there are no case studies in all the text book.

~~~
scarface74
There is really no software lock in. Very little money is spent on the
traditional idea of buying apps. Most people are either paying for services
that are available for both iOS and Android (Netflix, Hulu, etc) or are paying
for consumables for games.

As far as purchased media, music has been sold DRM free on iTunes for almost a
decade and you can transfer most of your purchased movies between iTunes,
Google, Amazon, and Vudu using Movies Anywhere (completely legal).

Most consumers in the US don’t pay for their phones. All of the carriers offer
zero interest payment plans. The difference between a $300 phone on spread
between 24 months and $1200 phone spread over 36 months (not a type. T-Mobile
is offering 36 month financing on some high end phones) is a lot easier for
people to stomache.

~~~
ksec
>There is really no software lock in

Tell that to average consumers. There are people who are even reluctant to
upgrade their iPhone because they don't want to do Data Transfer. Let alone
transferring to another system, say WhatsApp from or to Android. By far most
people don't want to relearn what ever it is on a new system.

~~~
scarface74
“Data transfer” for iOS is making sure your old phone is backed up and logging
into your new phone with the same account.

Don’t most apps like WhatsApp store your contacts on their server? I don’t use
WhatsApp but all of the chat apps I use do.

~~~
ksec
WhatsApp History, which no one wants to lose. iMessages History, which no one
wants to lose.

It is actually easier for WhatsApp history to move from Android to iPhone.

------
abledon
I went into an apple store and tried the new MacBook Pro — keyboard had keys
that didn’t work LOL. The Best demo I’ve ever had, really showcased the true
issues I read about on these threads !

~~~
bitwize
I was issued a 2016 MBP at work. (I do not purchase Apple hardware for my own
use.) Within a few days, the TAB key was stuck.

~~~
pintxo
I gues your company mandates spaces over tabs.

------
cfitz
I've had my latest gen MBP (retina with touch bar, top spec'd) replaced twice,
and on the latest replacement, the whole keyboard assembly - with whatever was
attached to it - also replaced.

(Yes, I fully regret selling my previous gen MBP.)

Like another person on here said, these replacements & repairs hurt both the
customer and the company.

I don't understand why Apple makes these drastic changes on major products
without thorough, repeated, and lengthy QA processes.

What's happened?

~~~
rz2k
It seems like their goal is accomplishing something difficult that can only be
done economically by a large manufacturer operating at immense scale. It is a
reasonable strategy to effectively create barriers to entry from competitors,
and preserve the ability to earn relatively large profit margins.

There have been articles on Hacker News where people talked about it being
extremely difficult for a hardware startup to do something as simple as
achieving a uniform color to plastic components, or packaging their products
in white cardboard like Apple.

One could argue that Apple is not accomplishing the goal of producing a
premium product, but whether it is still a good strategy depends on a lot of
numbers that are difficult to find. How much of the value of a MBP that is
entirely replaced for the end consumer gets recycled back into the refurbished
programs? 20%, 50%, 80%? What percentage of units have to be replaced? 1%, 2%,
5%, 10%? What is the margin on each unit sold? How much would fixed
manufacturing costs increase if they retooled the entire line to revert to
older style keyboards? How much is the damage to Apple's reputation costing
them in dollar terms?

~~~
cfitz
I find your "accomplishing something difficult that can only be done
economically by a large manufacturer operating at immense scale" point very
interesting.

Perhaps they should focus on building a reliable premium product rather than a
premium product that suffers failures due to too many gadgets (too put it
simply).

As far as what is a better strategy for them moving forward on their policy
re: replacement & repairs, they're probably trying to figure out what to do
right now based off your mentioned hidden numbers.

I hope they do the right thing by the customer, as many of us are heavily
invested in their product line, in multiple ways.

------
vikingcaffiene
I’ve invested heavily in the Apple ecosystem so it pains me to see these
issues. It looks like my best bet is the Mac Mini and hook up higher quality
externals. That or I’ll just hope my 2013 MBP lasts long enough for a viable
replacement option to appear.

~~~
danieldk
_I’ve invested heavily in the Apple ecosystem so it pains me to see these
issues._

Same here. I have a MacBook Pro 2016 with AppleCare, that I want to sell
before the AppleCare runs out (with some margin) and definitely before the
extended keyboard warranty deadline is in sight. I am worried that, since
these generations are plagued by keyboard problems, the prices will drop
quickly.

I used to buy a new MacBook every 1.5 to 2 years. However, I honestly do not
know which model I would buy. I do not want a model with a touch bar (I don't
like the touch bar and it is slightly expensive). The MacBook Pro escape
wasn't refreshed, it still has the keyboard without the silicon membranes. And
the new Air uses much less powerful CPUs. Even if I would go for the Pro with
touch bar or Air, I would still be worried that the butterfly keyboard
problems are not solved, just postponed.

I agree that the Mac Mini looks like the only reasonable machine, performance-
wise and quality-wise. Of course, it's not that handy on the go ;).

------
jokoon
I wish I could pay 50% more for a laptop, so even if it's just less fast, 300%
thicker, could still survive for 5 years without fainting.

It seems thinkpads or some other dell laptops (or other brands?) have some
kind of military grade requirements so they can sustain not only punishments
and mistreatments, but also not have those faulty gimmicks that are caused by
fragile designs.

It's the difference between wanting a fancy sports car and a good old military
vehicle. There are designs that are well thought out, and are just more
reliable in the long term. I don't want shiny, performant cool object, I want
things to work. Not aiming at apple in particular.

~~~
blattimwind
Panasonic (Toughbook), Dell (Latitude Rugged) and Getac all supply Milspec and
milspec-ish laptops. I've owned several of these and in certain locales
they're quite handy. Also, carrying just a laptop, which already has a carry
handle, is lighter than carrying a 1 kg laptop in a soft briefcase. Since
shock-proofed hard disk carriers are a bit bulkier than your regular 2.5" disk
some of these laptops also have a good amount of stash space.

While more modern Thinkpads seem less physically robust than the old guard (Mg
castings and all), even the physically low-end ones are still quite ok (e.g.
the E485, which incidentally also has a Ryzen CPU).

~~~
agumonkey
Some videos show people abusing toughbooks, it's weirdly amazing what they can
endure.

------
btilly
Huh. My iPhone X failed that way a week and a half ago.

They can't repair it until "Find My iPhone" is turned off." Do you know how
much fun it was to turn it off while my phone was sporadic in what it
responded to?

~~~
stevewodil
I thought if you logged into iCloud and deleted the phone from your account it
was the same. Do you know if that's true?

~~~
2_listerine_pls
It may ask you to use your phone to log in or may take hours to log in.

~~~
stevewodil
Why would it take so long to log in?

~~~
2_listerine_pls
I kept trying to login from my mac to find my lost iPhone but the connection
would repeatedly time out. The same thing is happening right now to my new
iPhone. It may be that there is congestion because Apple is not provisioning
enough iCloud servers for unpaid users in my region.

------
jbnorth
About time Apple recognized this issue with the iPhone X. We’ve been replacing
iPhone X displays nonstop for months due to this issue and the troubleshooting
process to have Apple cover it has been a huge pain.

------
st3fan
My car also had an issue and I had to bring it in for a part to be replaced.

Why is it so special when this happens for a major hardware vendor like Apple?
Is the expectation that hardware has no bugs? Is that realistic?

~~~
blueboo
It's big news when car manufacturers do major recalls too

~~~
agumonkey
smartphone screns and batteries are main parts of the device, it's as if
engine or frame failed in the first year..

~~~
wasdfff
Major recalls have been far more catastrophic for automakers. No one dies
because their screen has defective pixels.

------
jplayer01
I'm waiting for the EU to finally pass regulations that require a certain
level of repairability for electronics. Modern iPhones are almost impossible
to take apart and I don't understand how that's okay from any point of view
other than profitability. It's such a massive waste of resources on one-use
devices.

~~~
zepto
They last far longer than Android devices, and in part this is due to their
construction. They are both refurbished and resold and finally also now almost
completely recycled by Apple.

There is no ‘massive waste of resources’ and they are not one-use, and from an
environmental perspective they are far lower impact than their ‘repairable’
alternatives, which in practice are rarely actually repaired.

Any legislation that mandates repairability would be a catastrophic
environmental disaster.

~~~
hrktb
I thnk parent is including laptops.

Those last far longer, are rarely resold, and would need to be more repairable
in general.

~~~
zepto
The parent explicit talks about iPhones.

Even so, the same logic must be examined. It cannot be assumed that
electronics designed for repairability have a lower environmental impact.

------
geauxvirtual
Now if they would just admit the Intel modem in the iPhone Xs is garbage.

~~~
bsaul
i’m curious : what kind of things are you doing with your phone to determine
that the modem is garbage ??

~~~
johnnyb9
Not the op, but in NYC walking in and out of the subways is annoying... takes
the phone sometimes a minute to re-connect to the cell network. In prior
phones w/Qualcomm modems the experience was much faster.

------
herf
With the Time Capsule being discontinued, how does the average MacBook user
make a backup? Remembering to plug into USB doesn't seem very reliable.

~~~
gnicholas
I think you can plug a drive into an Airport over USB, though I'm not sure if
this setup fully replicates TC functionality.

~~~
herf
Yes there is samba support in the latest version too. This is not a solution
for "every Macbook customer" though.

~~~
gnicholas
Because of complexity to set up, or because of cost? Given how pricey the TCs
were, I'd think that buying an external drive would actually be cheaper.

------
r00fus
Great news that Apple is finally admitting what's been common knowledge and
the butt of many jokes in the Mac community.

Armed with this knowledge I'm going to wait till my company gets decent stock
of the 2018 MB Airs then report my reproducible but not urgent issue on my
current 2017 MBP.

------
nkkollaw
Oh, it took them 2 years (and God only knows how many laptops with related
frustration).

Better late than never, I guess.

~~~
slededit
Longer than that. The random battery shutdowns started with the iPhone 7.

------
msie
Is there some semi-official reason why they are (intentionally?) making them
less repairable?

~~~
virmundi
I wish I had the link. A few years back the argument was they could make
things slimmer with integrated components. Apple wanted everything to be slim.
That was their differentiation.

------
writepub
A year after iPhone X went on sale, they admit to a problem? And 1 more year
before their performance throttling kills the usability if this model

What if they delayed admission to reduce repair costs, and minimize brand
damage? I don't trust them to be transparent, I hope regulators are watching
this pattern.

~~~
codetrotter
Some issues might take a while to show up I guess.

------
curo
Is the new Air a safe bet? I'm looking to buy before the end of the year. Does
anyone know or suspect whether Apple has or has not fixed their hardware
problems?

~~~
Eric_WVGG
Folks aren’t complaining about the keyboards anywhere close to as much as they
were a year ago.

------
the_clarence
Are the newest macbook pro problematic?

------
vbuwivbiu
I wonder whether hardware is already so complex that reliability is impossible
since devices can't even be fully understood.

Maybe we need to give up on designing (deterministic) things and have them
evolve instead.

------
2RTZZSro
Louis Rossmann, a highly respected and well-known unauthorized Apple repairman
in Manhattan, NYC, explains the problems with Apple product engineering:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8)

~~~
theonemind
I've seen this one. The video in the link above has the name "The horrible
truth about Apple's repeated engineering failures." Rossmann's dislike of
Apple comes through, but he gives verifiable facts and, in my opinion, makes a
really convincing case that Apple engineers hardware with poor reliability,
falling short of matching industry quality and engineering standards (while,
of course, charging more.)

As for my own thoughts on how they do this, they really create a premium look
and feel, which sells products. Less visible aspects take time to come to
light, and you have the opportunity to put some spin on it and obfuscate
numbers. Obviously, it works amazingly well in practice.

When people say "you can't judge a book by its cover", I think having an ugly
cover with good insides comes to mind first (perhaps because books have much
more meat than the cover.) On the flip-side, you can have a great cover on bad
insides.

In that video, Rossmann details some substandard first-party Apple
refurbishing for issues, and how they time and place recalls, extended
warranties, etc. for minimum impact to Apple at consumer expense. The facts,
without Apple spin, laid out plainly, really show a manipulative, anti-
consumer company with a completely contrary facade, in my opinion.

~~~
bunnycorn
> Rossmann's dislike of Apple comes through, but he gives verifiable facts

No, he doesn't.

He is a liar.

~~~
theonemind
Any specific examples?

~~~
bunnycorn
Yes.

How many do you want?

Here, he said that Apple puts a chip to break MacBooks after 3 years.

[https://youtu.be/1AcEt073Uds?t=1m](https://youtu.be/1AcEt073Uds?t=1m)

Here, he says that "Apple" (actually a Customs office) sent a letter to him to
pay for batteries that were legitimate, later, on Reddit, he admitted he
bought fake batteries from China that had Apple logos (and therefore, should
be, as they did) caught by the customs (because saying otherwise would get him
in jail), his friends at Reddit, deleted the comments, but there are still
copies of what he said:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossman...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9pow06/louis_rossmann_admits_to_using_parts_from_a/)

Also, in his video, he says that Apple makes products "vintage" or "obsolete"
after 4 or 5 years.

The newest "vintage" Apple product in late 2018, is from 2011:

[https://support.apple.com/HT201624](https://support.apple.com/HT201624)

~~~
2RTZZSro
Chinese sellers are often unscrupulous and liars. Louis Rossmann instructed
the sellers to remove the logo and they did not, as they could not care less
about spending effort doing what the customers wants since it means they won't
make more money. Yes, they are that short sighted.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXXQnyWRSSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXXQnyWRSSg)

~~~
bunnycorn
Chinese sellers know what their costumers want. And that is an Apple logo, so
third party repairmen can say it's genuine.

------
intopieces
The keyboard problem doesn’t make the whole computer unusable, as is claimed
by the article. It makes the keyboard unusable -- that is, a person can still
connect a USB keyboard.

~~~
drusepth
I went through two MBPs with this issue. Yes, you can technically just keep
mashing keys over and over until they stick and/or delete the 2+ instances of
the character each time it finally types, or you could technically hook up an
external keyboard for the laptop, but... both "solutions" are pretty much
showstoppers for a laptop. The issue did make my computer unusable and I was
unable to work on it.

Side note: I dropped from 110+ WPM to ~20 WPM because I had three keys with
this issue and had to spent 5+ seconds every time I tried any of those keys.
The worst part is sometimes it wouldn't register the key and sometimes it
would register it on the first try but type the character several times
repeatedly. It was literally hell.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
Product idea: Key debouncer, a program that listens to key presses and
corrects input. If a character was repeated within x milliseconds, it reduces
the input to a single instances of the character. Ideally it debounces the
input before any key events are passed on to other programs.

~~~
drusepth
Throw on the capability to also detect if a word is missing a character that
was typed but not registered and I think you're positioned well for an
eventual Apple acquisition.

