The $395 is only for people who've gotten multiple repairs done, $125 for a single keyboard replacement, and $50 for only having keycaps replaced (was that even a thing?). What about those of us who just put up with it because we couldn't give up our work computer for however long a repair would take?
3rd time I needed mine fixed apple made me pay like $500 because the keyboard included part of the case or some non-sense
digusting company, my wife now refuses to use apple-anything because of how badly they treated her when trying to get her keyboard fixed because it wasn't apple's fault and bufferfly keyboards were great
even with how crap their laptops were if they made them easily replaceable and fixable it wouldn't have been a big deal but instead they blame their customers
I was part of that group. Just went with an external keyboard because realistically going without a workstation for up to two weeks wouldn’t happen unless I planned my vacation around Apple’s repair appointments, which also wasn’t going to happen.
I’m just happy everyone’s on the same page now that those keyboards were an abysmal downgrade from prior generations.
I was one of those that had multiple repairs. Each time I sent them in on a Friday afternoon. I got them back the following Monday. This was shipping things from the Midwest to Texas.
I realize that doesn't help you now, but the three times I've sent devices in to Apple for repair I've gotten them back the next business day. Maybe I'm an outlier on this, but that's my experience at the very least.
That's great for you, but what's that got to do with the actual question posed by the GP? Why is Apple not being properly held liable for this shitty design? They should be replacing every single unit sold. Only paying pittance of the costs to a subset of failed devices is total bullshit.
I'm also in the category of having never replaced the keyboard and dealt with it by using external keyboard/mice. The amount of hassle and expense of getting the repair done was not conducive to my schedule. That's great that you could spare your laptop for 3+ days. Not everyone can do that.
Even that sounds much better than the service I received in the UK.
Each time I had to take it to the physical Apple store (they didn't even offer me the option of a mail-in repair, and when I asked said it wasn't an option) and each time I'd spend a good hour or two talking to the "genius" before they would have it repaired, usually about a week later.
I was always very impressed how fast Apple would send my laptop back after service.
Not so much impressed how the FedEx driver would just toss the box in my front yard late in the evening. I'd find my laptop in the grass as I was going to work in the morning.
FedEx is awesome. I once noticed something sticking out of a pile of leaves in front of my house. Dug it out and it was a job offer that had been sitting there for a week or two.
Don't forget their logistics as well - I have a package that was supposed to be delivered yesterday. So far their site updated itself to say it would be delivered on the 2nd (when it wasn't even in my home city yet), which it wasn't, then the 3rd (the original promised date), which it wasn't, and now it's stuck at the distribution center. No idea when or how it'll be here. It's amazing they'd update to promise earlier than expected when there was no way it was gonna happen.
> It's amazing they'd update to promise earlier than expected when there was no way it was gonna happen.
This is something I've experienced as well, at least 3 separate times with FedEx. Every single time the estimate changes to an earlier date, the package ends up arriving later than the original date.
I don't know any other delivery service that so consistently feeds wrong information by over promising when no one asked it to and then under-delivering even the initial estimate.
DHL, which has normally been spectacular, got me the other week. I was getting a package delivered on Monday that I needed by Thursday at noon. It required a signature, so I filled out the release for them to leave it without one. It also had a spot for delivery instructions. I have a simple gate with a latch and no lock, so I said the gate is unlocked, they could open the gate to deliver, leave it inside or outside the gate, or even toss it over the gate.
The Friday before the Monday which they were scheduled to deliver, I got a delivery exception saying that it was unable to be delivered according to my instructions and that nobody was home. I WAS home, though I was not notified they were coming, and I can't think of a scenario which "inside or outside the gate" does not cover.
On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday they updated to say it was 'out for delivery', each time updating in the evening to say the following day after they failed to return to my house. It was finally delivered 1 hour after I left for the airport.
I took mine to a local shop that specializes in Mac repairs and they quoted me a week to have it done but it was completed next day for free. I did, however, eventually have another key start breaking and bought a newer model when I otherwise wouldn’t have.
I just put up with my R key not working right, it was my main work machine and the disruption would've been way more expensive. But Apple was lucky cuz I mostly use an external keyboard. All this until I got a new laptop (the m1 max which is phenomenal) so I've mostly forgotten it but I feel Apple got off too easily on this.
They should be punished harder for this shitty design that they didn't immediately backtrack on.
I think I should have gotten it replaced. I just felt like I would get the same terrible keyboard, but I now realize it would have been better for a while, and that would have been good for productivity. Ah well. (I used an external keyboard but got it out less than half the time.)
Definitely take advantage of these programs when they're available in the future, I don't think this is the first time they've paid out to people who used the replacement program.
I'd imagine they're switching off Apple devices too. Perhaps to a manufacturer that doesn't rivet the keyboard to the top case making it stupidly hard for mere mortals to replace without replacing the whole top case. Like ThinkPads. I did that. Even stuck a Japanese keyboard in my W520 for like $30 for funsies and extra thumb keys.
Sometime in early 2018, we received one of those clear biscotti containers from an Apple Repair Center filled with replacement butterfly keys. That's when we knew it was bad.
Also, as I learned from the OG Pixel microphone class action, the squeaky wheel gets the payout. I felt like I'd bugged them enough after getting two RMAs for other problems that I just bought some Bluetooth headphones and didn't complain about the mic. Missed out on a few hundred dollars even though I could prove I was affected.
Interestingly I got the full amount because I got the keyboard replaced and the battery replaced at a separate time (which required the top case to be replaced as well). I'll take it though since the keyboard was also having issues at that time.
I literally did the expensive route of churning through laptops about once a year. (Selling the old one of course) A week of downtime was far more expensive than a new machine.
I agree on one point: Apple should be refunding a fractional laptop value to anyone who bought a device with the butterfly keyboard. This is a pretty underwhelming agreement.
I disagree on your other point: I think Apple absolutely did the right thing removing the charger. Everyone's got a charger at this point, and making it a nominal option during the purchase of the device would be good enough.
And in fact, I think the law should be that anything that can be charged by a Lightning/USB-* charger should be. I recently acquired a rechargeable flossing device, and an electric razor and I see no reason why these should have their own proprietary chargers.
I agree on the point that we should have our own charger/adapter. But I would love to do that when every company follows the same standard.
European Government and few of the Asian government's are enforcing companies to follow a single standard. Hope this will help us move toward a universal standard
Let's leave USB for the computers and microelectronics. I can still charge electric trimmers and toothbrush when there's oil/water/toothpaste on or even in the port. It also still trivially easy to break a usb port. On devices with the rubber power connector you can practically bend the plug out sideways without damage. They're also much easier to connect as they're not designed to support 10+Gbit/s of signal integrity.
I believe a sufficiently motivated market would come up with a good solution. I just don't believe every small device in my house needs its own proprietary charging tech.
I have an M1 now and it is glorious but back when I had the MBA with the butterfly keys, someone pointed me to https://github.com/aahung/Unshaky and it helped eliminate 99% of the double-typing or ghost keys. You will have to tweak the ms until you find the right number that fits your typing speed but once you get it all setup, the butterfly keyboard will become much more tolerable.
All of us will forever be baffled about how not only did Apple produce the dumbest laptop keyboard ever, but then defended it.
If there was a museum of terrible technology, Apple's butterfly keyboard would be right up there with Windows ME, the Virtualboy, Juicero, etc.
(Also removing Magsafe was clearly a dumbass decision. And at some point people will realize that current Apple laptops are once again thick enough to have K-lock slots again.)
I had the last generation laptop with the "fixed" butterfly keyboard. I never had a problem with it and I had it for three years. It is by far my most favorite keyboard ever. I was said to have to hand it back when I left that job.
I'm a light typer though, I think heavier handed typists suffered with it.
And it is worth pointing out when Butterfly keyboard first appeared on MBP, every single HN comment were praising it as the greatest keyboard ever. ( As the two comments reply you have right now )
The old MBP had 1.5mm Key travel. They could have cut it to 1.2 or 1.3. Instead they went with 0.7 with the butterfly and later 1mm to the new scissor. Light typer generally dont "dislike" slightly more key travel. But those who cant adopt to small key travel "hate" the new keyboard.
Really? IMO, it had the best feel out of the all Macbook Pro keyboards. Fortunately I never needed repairs, there was only one time I needed to clean out a key with compressed air and was fine. (Owned a 2016 and my work machine was a 2019).
The "double-tap" issue of both a defective keyboard, and a laptop design that had the keyboard physically fused to the case had to be expensive even for Apple.
My experience was a 2017 model developing keyboard issues after ~2.5 years, The repair took a less than 48 hours from drop off to return and it appeared the device went from MN to Texas and back in that time. Additionally since the repair required an entirely new laptop I got a fresh case and battery with zero cycles.
No apple care, no repair fee. It's hard to imagine a scenario where these repairs didn't obliterate the profit from an entire generation of macbooks.
Apple makes a shitty keyboard and it's the best thing to ever happen to Fedex?
Ax ante, the expected value of shipping the butterfly keyboards was probably positive, even if there was some chance they would be called out and lose money in the long run.
I'm also willing to assume that "cheaping out" was not part of the original design vision, and that it became a judgement call later in the development process.
What's important is that, in the long run, these incidents don't really hurt the company as long as they don't happen too often, even if this particular incident lost them more than they gained.
Jony Ive was one of the top decision makers at Apple, maybe second only to Tim Cook.
Jony believed the butterfly keyboard was his crowning achievement & legacy, and was willing to fight to the death to preserve it. Loss of the butterfly keyboard was actually the definitive factor in Jony Ive's departure.
Do you not remember the faulty AC adapter design that they refused to fix for years? There was eventually a class action, but I think they just replaced them instead of fixing the design.
Her MacBook pro wouldn't turn on. It was less than a year old and she paid for AppleCare+ so she was told it would be covered under warranty.
She got a call to pick it up and when she arrived she was told there was internal water damage and she had to pay $450. Also that the screen was scratched and they would replace it when the part came in. Her screen was not scratched when she dropped it off.
But she noticed her stickers were gone and the shell was all scratched on the top and bottom.
She asked someone if this was even her laptop and they checked and ensured her it was and the shell had to be replaced and that's why her stickers were gone but the shell wasn't new as it was all scratched.
Then she asked why the background would have changed and they told her they had to reset everything and she lost all of her files.
She was devastated as they said they would call and discuss options if it came to that.
They said they could undo the repair and she could take it somewhere else but if Apple can't recover the files then no one else would be able to recover them.
Agree, the pricing isn't correct (accidental damage is $299 for macs across the board) and every time I've sent a device off for service they always tell me to either back up my data or wipe the device myself.
Time Machine and an external SSD (they're really cheap now!). With the soldered storage you definitely don't want to have your only copy of important data on the device itself.
Are you seriously saying that Apple wiped all your “friend’s” files - completely obliterated what could have been unique work or memories - without even telling her, or asking permission first. Then effectively said “seeya!”
This doesn’t even remotely match any experience I’ve had with Apple or Apple devices in almost 25 years of use.
I’d check back with your “friend” and make sure she was telling you the whole truth.
PS: the serial number of her laptop is printed on the bottom of the case - which should address this very, very strange story implying the Apple staff slipped her a dodgy beat-up old laptop. The number should match her invoice and the box (but I guess your friend doesn’t have an invoice or a box, or probably any other way of identifying her laptop other than ‘stickers’)
Ok in that case your story must be 100% true and no at all made-up for cheap HN upvotes. Thanks for the clarification.
PS: get back to us when you’ve checked the “switched” laptop serial numbers against the “friend” invoice, box and other ways to verify the identity of the device.
I never said the laptop was switched. She was expecting to not pay and have her files instead she had to pay, lost her files, lost her stickers and her laptop and screen is scratched (Apple said they will replace the screen when they get the part).
The story is so full of inconsistencies and the poster is backtracking fast on the clear initial implication that the laptop was somehow switched for an inferior replacement - but you're downvoting people for being "Apple fanboys" when they call it out.
I don't downvote people for posting negative experiences and constructive criticisms. If anything is "pathetic", then I would suggest doing such a thing is.
I think the "friend" story is dubious, but to hop onto your point, one can also log into https://appleid.apple.com and verify a device's serial number, in case of loss or theft.
> Are you seriously saying that Apple wiped all your “friend’s” files
Why is it so hard to believe? The machines aren't modular or repairable, everything is soldered on the main board. The T2 security prevents cloning of the SSD.
Ironically I had a covered device that failed prematurely but not for the recall reason. I was suspicious of the keyboard redesign so I bought and used a keyboard cover from day one, and I never had a problem with any of the keys.
Instead the ribbon connecting the screen failed. I took it to a reputable repair shop, who told me based on their experience the failure rate on these for other display-related reasons was high enough that in their opinion I'd be throwing good money after bad. So I told them to just use mine for parts or recycle it. (It was old enough by then that the latest OS X no longer supported it, thus defeating its purpose for software development. In return I decided to simply no longer support Mac versions of software I write.)
I had ribbon cable break on my 2017 MacBook Pro w/ TouchBar. They replaced the entire top shell of the computer and also fixed the keyboard at the same time.
This was about 4 years ago. Keyboard started going bad again this last year, cmd key falling off, ‘O’ key always has multiple inputs for a single keystroke.
> It was old enough by then that the latest OS X no longer supported it, thus defeating its purpose for software development.
For what it's worth, the very first butterfly keyboard MacBook is the only one that's fallen off of being supported by the latest macOS, and that only happened in October. So at least you got a good 6 years out of it, I guess?
Which is extremely annoying. Many new iOS features, like E2E encrypted backups and the shared photostream, require all devices to be on the latest OS.
Apple is forcing me to replace my otherwise functional device. I'll have to look into putting linux on it, because I won't be able to sign into my apple id on it.
You might want to try using OpenCore Legacy Patcher [1]. It basically turns your old unsupported mac into a hackintosh via a custom bootloader. I got Ventura running on my late 2012 MBP using the patcher.
Work had a stash of 2015 vintage mbps so I made do with that. Poor battery, magsafe, and slow as molasses - I was 'real' productive while waiting for the darn new laptop to be repaired and discussing the eta with various apple 'care experts'.
These generations of MacBook does not only have faulty keyboard design, everything is just wrong.
My 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro is constantly overheating. The heat significantly degrades the battery, resulting a battery warning at the one-year mark; and the screen was also burned yellowish/pinkish after a few months’ use.
I was lucky to have that Apple Care, I went to Apple Store, they replace the whole body — everything except the board because they don’t take off the screen / battery at the store.
So no, I don’t have a receipt for keyboard replacement, even if the keyboard get stuck once a while, that is not the worst issue for me. It is just the tip of the iceberg. But for that, I won’t get compensated for whatsoever.
Last spring, I replaced it with a M1-Pro MacBook Pro and never looked back.
Yeah I worked in an organization that bought a lot of Macs. They always bought Apple Care for the laptops. They had enough experience to feel it was worth the cost. I have always bought Apple Care for the MacBooks I have bought personally.
Been having to stutter through typing on a 2018 MBP right now with four broken butterfly keys, one of which is entirely missing now. Attempting to organize a repair from rural east africa not easy.
I was chiding myself for causing it because I snacked on crackers too close to the keyboard, and crumbs got in causing the key breaks. I didn't realize this was a widely known failure mode and design flaw. I feel a little less sheepish about it now.
In this case I praise the act relating to consumer purchases in Norway. I bought a butterfly MacBook Pro in January 2017. After numerous repairs and complaints to the reseller, I decided to make my case to the consumer council in January 2020, and boy did that resolve the problem: It took the reseller less than 24 hours to replace the old faulty MacBook with a new one with a post butterfly keyboard. I did spend some time going through the consumer law to make my case, and the resellers' poor customer relations and inability to resolve the issue ended up working in my favor. It's bonkers that this issue still isn't resolved for many people.
It's amazing how fast many private companies will fix something when regulators or courts get involved. I've actually found Apple to be very responsive to problems, including the keyboard issue for Intel MBPs from the late teens (mine was replaced and they also gave me a nice loaner for a week, an M1).
Other large companies - not so much, until the authorities get involved.
For instance, I had a bad experience with a telco in my U.S. state some years ago. As soon as I called the state regulator about being strung along over a bait and switch, the telco bent over backwards to clear up the issue.
There was also the time I took an airline to small claims court after repeated customer service calls and a demand notice failed to get their attention; the airline's chief counsel called me up at work after they received the notice from the court. They still failed to resolve the problem and also didn't show up for the hearing, so it was a summary judgement in my favor with damages multiplied x3.
Tip if you do escalate to a court or regulator: Keep copies of everything including postage receipts with tracking info and records of phone calls (screenshots of call logs, notes about each call, etc.)
If you live in the UK or the EU, I think you can follow the process I went through in 2019, provided that you bought the laptop in the last N years, where N seems to change depending on which country you're in. England is 6 years, Scotland is 5.
Hmm. I'm in England and have an affected 2017 MacBook Pro 13", purchased October 2017, which already had the keyboard replaced once by Apple under the repair programme.
But I assume this process only applies if I bought the laptop directly from Apple? Since I bought it from John Lewis, I'd have to make a claim through John Lewis, right?
Yeah, I believe so. I think you need to go to an Apple Authorised Service Provider and then take the fault report to John Lewis to kick off the process. Assuming that your laptop is on this list: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/keyboard-service-program-for...
I'd like to know that as well. My 2016 MacBook Pro is one of the worst laptops that I've ever owned and I had to have that stupid keyboard fixed 3 times during its lifespan.
I'd really like to know the answer to this too. Mine needs a replacement keyboard but I haven't been able to be without it for that long (!) and worry both about the cost and time requirement.
Only for US citizens. I received communications on the progress of this thing for years, kind of a letdown.
I have to assume there isn't a special case for that time I happened to be in the US, booked a Genius bar appointment, and the Genius promptly ruined the spacebar on my keyboard, and just straight up lied to my face about it. By far the most bizarre interaction I have ever had with another human face to face.
I took my car into a dealership near work once because it'd been hit by a coworker in the car park. While at the dealership the rear windscreen somehow was shattered, but they didn't tell me about it for a week, and didn't want to pay for fixing it. They eventually did, but left all the broken glass in my boot. Some people are shameless :)
The 'Genius' at that Maine Apple Store was absolutely intentional in his behavior. Initially he just returned from the back, plopped my machine on the table, told me I'm all set and quickly took off before I could even inspect the machine. When I found him again and showed him that the spacebar wasn't depressing at all anymore and wasn't registering keypresses, he took it to the back again, made it slightly better (by hastily ripping out the rubber dampening membrane out), I confronted him about it again, pointed out that the dampening membrane was missing, and he just said to me he doesn't see anything wrong.
I was absolutely floored, I had never seen a person behave that way before at that point. And come to think of it, not even since then.
At the Stanford shopping mall Apple Store, they told me that they don’t even try to fix space bars there because they’re so tricky, and can end up making matters worse. Whenever a space bar needs work, they literally send it to Texas.
What made the IBM ThinkPad 701 special was the butterfly keyboard designed by John Karidis solved the problem of making a portable computer with a full-size keyboard. It had a better action than modern laptops in terms typist feedback and was a compact full size keyboard. This was unheard of at the time. It was delicate the way it folded into place as one opened the lid on the laptop and robust enough to cope with travails of mobile working.
Which unfortunately provides no compensation for the time lost each time a mail-in repair has to be done, which takes 2 business days minimum, usually 3-5 even when they're not behind schedule.
During 2020 I had a repair take a few weeks... It was free, but this settlement will provide some small amount of compensation for that hassle.
And of course, I recycled the laptop for a gift card at exactly the 4 year mark to buy an M1 Air - I could've sold it privately but it was defective so I had to accept Apple's valuation. Another spot where I lost money, probably more than the $300 will cover.
> And of course, I recycled the laptop for a gift card at exactly the 4 year mark to buy an M1 Air - I could've sold it privately but it was defective so I had to accept Apple's valuation. Another spot where I lost money, probably more than the $300 will cover.
I know Apple is moving to their own silicon, but out of curiosity last week I punched in my Mac Pro (cheesegrater) for a trade-in on the Studio. It was ... insulting.
12 core Xeon, 192GB memory, 8TB SSD, W5700X 16GB... I thought maybe a few thousand. Nope. $1,050.
What's insulting about this? Apple is today selling this same config for $12,799.
I received 4 new keyboards over the life of my old MacBook and swore I'd never buy a Mac again. Apple wanted to charge me $1000 for a 5th logic board/keyboard. I did end up getting a M1 Max MBP, and I guess the $395 is nice. It'd be nicer if Apple admitted it was a defective design and recalled the product.
I'm still kind of shocked I let myself work with MacBooks for years with a 1-5% chance that any given week, random commonly used built-in keys would just stop working.
"I should definitely have switched to any other vendor", I write from my MacBook Air.
I had a 2017 MBP that I just replaced with a M2 and I had a similar experience. There were some annoyances with the space bar, or the t, or randomly repeating characters... over five years. I never had a key completely go out and things would fix themselves; it became an ongoing joke about the self-healing keyboard. Though it never should have been a joke to begin with. If it would have been my primary machine it would not have been acceptable. Some people went through multiple keyboards and periods of downtime so we definitely got off easy.
Kind of funny, I'm still on my most recent replacement/repaired unit, and it's still working great since my AppleCare Protection Plan expired (knock on wood). But I guess it's only a matter of time until I'll have to buy a new one.
The really frustrating aspect of this whole story were the attacks to the users who were reporting these issues. Apple was officially ignoring them, but their army of fanboys and payroll-“journalists” were straight out making fun of people: “you don’t know how to maintain a laptop”, “you are dirty” etc
If not for Casey Johnston and Joanna Stern, who clearly have some journalistic integrity and went against the giant, we would still not have acknowledged the problem.
Sadly I never got repairs done because the wait was longer than I could afford to wait. I ended up having to replace the laptops with different laptops.
This would have been a good opportunity to use a .us TLD, to better indicate the scope, considering in this particular case they mentioned "The Settlement Class includes all persons and entities in the United States".
Too bad class-action lawsuits only (apparently) apply for that class of people in a particular legal jurisdiction. I went through two broken-keyboard leading to topcase-replacements for my 12" MacBook over the years, but I live in Canada, so I'm guessing there's no $395 coming my way.
I think the new keyboard design has issues on the post-2021 MacBooks as well. I've had keys randomly falling off. To Apple's credit, they replaced them for free. Some of them fell off after a wipe of isopropanol too even though they recommend it on their own website for cleaning.
I wish they would so something about iPad magic keyboards and sticky keys. Mine stated with one sticky key and quickly others become sticky. Cleaning didn’t help. It’s out of warranty and I can’t justify spending another $399(?) on a new one.
Now you can think about functional things; with the laptops from that era (I had the 16 inch 2019 macbook pro), I had a hard time making it barely usable, let alone being able to think what could be nicer about it; nicer could be if it actually worked properly.
I had multiple keyboard replacements but when I followed the link that was emailed to me it had me down for just one. I emailed the people and sent them my repair info, and they’re apparently looking into re-categorizing my claim to multi-repair.
Silly low compensation for not being able to type effectively on a mobile computer.
As a EU citizen, I stopped buying Apple's hardware after this keyboard fiasco. Almost immediately after buying affected MBP, I sent it for repairs and got keyboard and case replaced with the same garbage. They had no idea how to handle it in other fashion than stating that everything works as intended (bit still replaced it).
