3 ms·

Keyboards shouldn't fail as often as the butterfly keyboards did (and the fact that the most commonly used letters tended to fail first points rather to a wear

by _ph_ 6y ago

Keyboards shouldn't fail as often as the butterfly keyboards did (and the fact that the most commonly used letters tended to fail first points rather to a wear issue than just breadcrumbs), but most of all, it shouldn't take more than $100 to exchange a failed keyboard. But with the "repair" costs charged for the laptops, they become a write-off basically as soon as they fail out of warranty.

samatman 6y ago
Apple extended no-questions-asked replacement for butterfly keyboards for something like four years after sale. Don't recall if they refunded replacements before they put that policy in place though. Mostly mentioning this in case someone is sitting on an out-of-warranty MacBook with a failed keyboard. My left command key quitting on one of those MBPs brought me right up to the edge of bailing on the whole ecosystem; switching back to scissors for the 16" MBP kept me in the garden, for now.
- alex504 6y ago
  4 years seems like a bit of an insult in this scenario. These laptops are very expensive bought new and this is a defect; you would think they would repair them for life or at least as long as the life of the laptop. I've been using the same MBR laptop since 2013 for personal use and haven't found any reason to switch. I would be pretty mad if I owned one of these and had to get it fixed, or wanted to resell it and had a lower resell value because of the keyboard. It also feels worse because they continued manufacturing them for years after they knew there was a problem. 4 years smells similar to the planned obsolescence scandal in iPhones, as it implies that the lifetime of one of these is 4 years which is just not the case in my experience. They are hoping people will say "my laptop needs a new battery and a new keyboard, might as well drop another 2 grand for a new one" instead of keeping their perfectly good laptop.
  - samatman 6y ago
    The most plausible theory for why they stuck with the butterfly board that long, is that Jony Ive didn't leave the company until 2019. Word is, it was his baby, and he was convinced that if they just kept tweaking it, they would get it right eventually. The keyboard I'm typing on feels identical to every other MacBook keyboard I've owned, going back to the titanium PowerBook G4. I expect it will prove comparably durable: never had a key skip or double-press on any of them, and I go hard on my equipment. I actually liked the crispness of the butterfly keys, but absolute reliability is a hard requirement and they just weren't.
- protomyth 6y ago
  Don't recall if they refunded replacements before they put that policy in place though. From Apple https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n... If you believe your Mac notebook was affected by this issue, and you paid to have your keyboard repaired, you can contact Apple about a refund. https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=erep&PRKEYS=PF2&category_id=SC0998&symptom_id=99980 https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=erep&PRKEYS=PF2&categor...
- _ph_ 6y ago
  4 years is not very much when you consider the laptop a total loss, if the keyboard fails after that time. And we don't know how many laptops already have been trashed when their keyboard failed before this extended repair program was started. This is the problem with any device which cannot be repaired for a reasonable sum in the case of a defect.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  > Apple extended no-questions-asked replacement for butterfly keyboards for something like four years after sale. That's only a 1-year extension for people who bought AppleCare. And after you drop out of the warranty period, your machine is basically one speck of dust away from being useless. A fairer policy would be to give AppleCare customers longer for no-cost fixes, and to offer everyone a reasonably-priced repair for the life of the machine (I was told it would be something north of $700 after the warranty period).
bluedino 6y ago
$199 battery replacement will get you a new topcase which includes the keyboard
- _ph_ 6y ago
  Can you get a battery replacement for that price, even if the battery is still fine? And if you can, why is a keyboard replacement so much more expensive, especially as it is known to fail?

by _ph_ 6y ago

samatman 6y ago

Apple extended no-questions-asked replacement for butterfly keyboards for something like four years after sale. Don't recall if they refunded replacements before they put that policy in place though. Mostly mentioning this in case someone is sitting on an out-of-warranty MacBook with a failed keyboard. My left command key quitting on one of those MBPs brought me right up to the edge of bailing on the whole ecosystem; switching back to scissors for the 16" MBP kept me in the garden, for now.

alex504 6y ago
4 years seems like a bit of an insult in this scenario. These laptops are very expensive bought new and this is a defect; you would think they would repair them for life or at least as long as the life of the laptop. I've been using the same MBR laptop since 2013 for personal use and haven't found any reason to switch. I would be pretty mad if I owned one of these and had to get it fixed, or wanted to resell it and had a lower resell value because of the keyboard. It also feels worse because they continued manufacturing them for years after they knew there was a problem. 4 years smells similar to the planned obsolescence scandal in iPhones, as it implies that the lifetime of one of these is 4 years which is just not the case in my experience. They are hoping people will say "my laptop needs a new battery and a new keyboard, might as well drop another 2 grand for a new one" instead of keeping their perfectly good laptop.
- samatman 6y ago
  The most plausible theory for why they stuck with the butterfly board that long, is that Jony Ive didn't leave the company until 2019. Word is, it was his baby, and he was convinced that if they just kept tweaking it, they would get it right eventually. The keyboard I'm typing on feels identical to every other MacBook keyboard I've owned, going back to the titanium PowerBook G4. I expect it will prove comparably durable: never had a key skip or double-press on any of them, and I go hard on my equipment. I actually liked the crispness of the butterfly keys, but absolute reliability is a hard requirement and they just weren't.
protomyth 6y ago
Don't recall if they refunded replacements before they put that policy in place though. From Apple https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n... If you believe your Mac notebook was affected by this issue, and you paid to have your keyboard repaired, you can contact Apple about a refund. https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=erep&PRKEYS=PF2&category_id=SC0998&symptom_id=99980 https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=erep&PRKEYS=PF2&categor...
_ph_ 6y ago
4 years is not very much when you consider the laptop a total loss, if the keyboard fails after that time. And we don't know how many laptops already have been trashed when their keyboard failed before this extended repair program was started. This is the problem with any device which cannot be repaired for a reasonable sum in the case of a defect.
gnicholas 6y ago
> Apple extended no-questions-asked replacement for butterfly keyboards for something like four years after sale. That's only a 1-year extension for people who bought AppleCare. And after you drop out of the warranty period, your machine is basically one speck of dust away from being useless. A fairer policy would be to give AppleCare customers longer for no-cost fixes, and to offer everyone a reasonably-priced repair for the life of the machine (I was told it would be something north of $700 after the warranty period).

bluedino 6y ago

$199 battery replacement will get you a new topcase which includes the keyboard

_ph_ 6y ago
Can you get a battery replacement for that price, even if the battery is still fine? And if you can, why is a keyboard replacement so much more expensive, especially as it is known to fail?