Slashdot Mirror
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).
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
Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro
https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/
Ah, yes... The Macbook Bro, I remember it fondly.
No sig today...
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.