8 Months After a Surge of Complaints, Apple Announces a Repair Program For Its Flawed MacBooks and MacBook Pros (theoutline.com)

Casey Johnston, writing for The Outline: At long last, Apple admitted to its customers that its MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboard designs are so flawed and prone to sticking or dead keys, as originally reported by The Outline in October, and that it will cover the cost of repairs beyond the products' normal warranty. The admission comes after the company has been hit with no fewer than three class action lawsuits concerning the computers and their ultra-thin butterfly-switch keyboards. While the repair and replacement program covers costs and notes that Apple will repair both single keys as well as whole keyboards when necessary, it doesn't note whether the replacements will be a different, improved design that will prevent the problem from happening again (and again, and again).

Comments

Will we ever get real macbooks ever again

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the Macbook pro from 2006. It's a beast compared to the "pros" we get now. A 2006 Macbook bro with 2019 Specs (that means 32GB ram) will sell like hot cakes.

Re:Will we ever get real macbooks ever again

[Joce640k]

Ah, yes... The Macbook Bro, I remember it fondly.

Re:Will we ever get real macbooks ever again

[Megane]

Spoken like someone who never owned an Aluminum-era laptop. I had one PPC and two Intel of those, all 17", so I know all about them. Those cases were shit, they came loose internally, and the worst part was when the optical drive would go out of line with the slot, you would have to take it apart to remove the disk. The metal surface in front of the keyboard reacted badly with the skin oils in my palm and pitted like crazy. The latch was weak and would barely hold the lid shut. One of them I took in to be repaired when the screen freaked out few months before the warranty expired, they replaced it with a full HD screen (obviously having run out of the regular screens), and even replaced the keyboard. And that replacement screen developed a bad column.

The best were from 2010-2012, at the end of the optical drive Unibody era, I'm still using one of those, and have spares set aside.

Re:Will we ever get real macbooks ever again

[i286NiNJA]

I had one of these too. Most expensive laptop I ever paid for on my own. Beautiful computer
Also a consistent stream of varied malfunctions. Most of the problems stemmed from the way it was built and the way that all the screws would slowly wiggle their way out as the machine flexed this way and that. Most problems went away after I started regularly tightening it's aesthetically pleasing screws. But the remaining problems were varied in causes. Not only that but there were several other reported common problems that I did not personally experience. Apple would delete discussion on their forums.
(Seriously I've never seen a more beautiful set of screws in my life)

The latest macbook pro keyboard isn't broken on mine but the tactile feedback is almost nonexistent and feels like Im typing on a grid of loose bathroom tiles. The GUI has turned into a disaster of unexpected behaviors. It's especially puzzling that a company who believes right click is too confusing to be enabled by default would think that it's ok to treat scrolling a webpage past it's left edge is a fine shortcut for the back button. The workspace and desktop paging is especially awful. I reserve it only for work.

It's clear that apple cares most about photogenic products and new feature bullet points (rendered in clean, visually pleasing fonts) for their marketing materials more than making products that work well.

Life cycle of a modern Apple product

[JoeyRox]

1) Announce a revolutionary chassis redesign that nobody asked for, which was necessary to make the product thinner, which nobody asked for
2) A few owners start complaining about a defect in the product. Other owners tell those owners to shut up and stop drinking the Hatorade or buy a Windoze product instead.
3) The owners who told the original owners to shut up start complaining about the defect themselves.
4) Apple tells owners there's nothing wrong with the product and that they must be using it wrong
5) Apple releases instructions on how to owners can avoid the defect by buying a piece of plastic or an air blower
6) More owners complain about the defect. Apple goes silent.
7) A class-action lawsuit is announced
8) More class-action lawsuits are announced
9) Apple announces they a very few number of products are affected by a defect and will be fixed by Apple on a per-case basis

Re:Life cycle of a modern Apple product

[Anonymous Coward]

you forget 10) all apple zealots rejoice and claim how amazing apple service is.

Flawed equipment!!!

[bogaboga]

So much for Apple's so called "best design" in the business.

You sometimes wonder whether technology writers are in Apple's pockets.

The question is: Have they all drank Apple's KoolAid?

Re:Flawed equipment!!!

[timholman]

So much for Apple's so called "best design" in the business.

I'd like to believe that someone at Apple learns from this debacle, and makes some significant design changes to the next generation of professional laptops. But I'm not hopeful. The latest generation of MacBook Pros has gone so far off the track that I continue to use my mid-2012 model despite the fact that I am very much in need of an upgrade just due to normal wear-and-tear.

I'd love to see the return of a professional Apple laptop with user-upgradable SSD and DRAM, a decent keyboard, a MagSafe power connector, and more ports than just USB-C. But the people in charge at Apple simply don't think that way any more. To them, appearance trumps every rational design decision.

If Google as a corporation didn't suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, they might be able to focus long enough to build a decent laptop with a UNIX-style OS, and grab marketshare (and mindshare) away from Apple with working professionals. But as it is, Apple (as bad as they have become) have no real competition. Until they do, or until there's a change of upper management at Apple, I have little hope that the situation will improve.

Link to Apple support page

[Anonymous Coward]

Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/

Re: Refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit is softer than wicker.

Re: Refunds?

[PopeRatzo]

I have had a 2016 MBP and a 2017 MBP. I've read a ton about the keyboard issue and haven't experienced it at all. I use my laptop outdoors on job sites a lot, and when I fly a DSLR drone I get dust everywhere.

I am an astronaut and I use my 2017 MBP in outer space, where no one can hear you scream. I also have not experienced the problem even though I have been using the 2017 MBP for five years now and it gets high mileage (literally, since I'm in orbit around Earth at a speed of roughly 17,150 miles per hour).

Apple needs more class action lawsuits

[ilsaloving]

We shouldn't allow Apple to get away with this shit. Just cause they *finally* introduce a repair program, doesn't negate all the hell people have had to go through. Those class action lawsuits should continue on. And the lawsuits need to stop being so stupidly toothless. If Apple doesn't get hit with a bill that's at least 5 billion, they will just treat these as the cost of doing business.

IMO Apple doesn't face enough class actions considering how breathtakingly shit their entire product lineup has become. It's very frustrating how their hardware used to be absolutely second to none, and justified their premium, but in the last decade or so they've turned into nothing but a train wreck running on momentum.

I'm so livid with the entire computer industry today. Your choices are: Buy Apple and pay extra for shit, gimmicky hardware, buy Microsoft and get ok hardware but an OS so offensively managed that your machine can stop working through no fault of your own, or buy Google and have a spy camera shoved up your ass. (Or get Linux and be prepared to put your sysadmin hat to perform an operation that every other OS has been able to handle easily for the past 2 decades)

There are literally NO good options today. It's really depressing.