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Apple Still Hasn't Fixed Its MacBook Keyboard Problem (wsj.com)
Joanna Stern, writing for the Wall Street Journal [the link may be paywalled]: Why is the breaking of my MacBook Air keyboard so insanely maddening? Let's take a trip down Memory Lane.
April 2015: Apple releases the all-new MacBook with a "butterfly" keyboard. In order to achieve extreme thinness, the keys are much flatter than older generations but the butterfly mechanism underneath, for which the keyboard is named, aims to replicate the bounce of a more traditional keyboard.
October 2016: The MacBook Pro arrives with a second-generation butterfly keyboard. A few months later, some begin to report that letters or characters don't appear, that keys get stuck or that letters unexpectedly repeat.
June 2018: Apple launches a keyboard repair program for what the company says is a "small percentage" of MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards impacted.
July 2018: Apple releases a new high-end MacBook Pro with the third-generation of the keyboard that's said to fix the issues.
October 2018: Apple's new MacBook Air also has the third-generation keyboard. I recommend it, and even get one for myself.
Which brings us to the grand year 2019 and my MacBook Air's faulty E and R keys. Others have had problems with Apple's latest laptops, too. A proposed nationwide class-action suit alleges that Apple has been aware of the defective nature of these keyboards since 2015 yet sold affected laptops without disclosing the problem. "We are aware that a small number of users are having issues with their third-generation butterfly keyboard and for that we are sorry," an Apple spokesman said in a statement. "The vast majority of Mac notebook customers are having a positive experience with the new keyboard." If you have a problem, contact Apple customer service, he added. John Gruber, a long time Apple columnist: I consider these keyboards the worst products in Apple history. MacBooks should have the best keyboards in the industry; instead they're the worst. They're doing lasting harm to the reputation of the MacBook brand.
April 2015: Apple releases the all-new MacBook with a "butterfly" keyboard. In order to achieve extreme thinness, the keys are much flatter than older generations but the butterfly mechanism underneath, for which the keyboard is named, aims to replicate the bounce of a more traditional keyboard.
October 2016: The MacBook Pro arrives with a second-generation butterfly keyboard. A few months later, some begin to report that letters or characters don't appear, that keys get stuck or that letters unexpectedly repeat.
June 2018: Apple launches a keyboard repair program for what the company says is a "small percentage" of MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards impacted.
July 2018: Apple releases a new high-end MacBook Pro with the third-generation of the keyboard that's said to fix the issues.
October 2018: Apple's new MacBook Air also has the third-generation keyboard. I recommend it, and even get one for myself.
Which brings us to the grand year 2019 and my MacBook Air's faulty E and R keys. Others have had problems with Apple's latest laptops, too. A proposed nationwide class-action suit alleges that Apple has been aware of the defective nature of these keyboards since 2015 yet sold affected laptops without disclosing the problem. "We are aware that a small number of users are having issues with their third-generation butterfly keyboard and for that we are sorry," an Apple spokesman said in a statement. "The vast majority of Mac notebook customers are having a positive experience with the new keyboard." If you have a problem, contact Apple customer service, he added. John Gruber, a long time Apple columnist: I consider these keyboards the worst products in Apple history. MacBooks should have the best keyboards in the industry; instead they're the worst. They're doing lasting harm to the reputation of the MacBook brand.
when appearance is prioritized over function. When it came out, all the reviewers went into paroxysms of ecstacy about how thin it was. Now we see what happens when it''s not as thick as it needs to be.
We all know that Apple never makes mistakes. It must be you.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Chug some more Kool-Aid and it'll be all right.
I mean I don't mind paying twice as much for three year old technology when it's backed up by the Apple brand. Like hey, it's part of my hipster uniform. That and avacado toast and dorky eyeglasses.
Why would they? Suckers keep buying them and then they can make extra on the repairs.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Apple users whining about stuck keys.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
when appearance is prioritized over function.
That's not at all the case though.
I really like how the newer keyboard feels. Yes there's absolutely some fun to typing on a big old clacking keyboard with a long draw, but I find that flatter low travel keyboards are quicker to type on.
So the thinness DOES have function. Now it may be the case that you can't have a reliable keyboard that thin, but I think we have yet to prove out that theory since Apple keeps iterating and the keyboard keeps improving... and even though there are a number of people who have seen issues, I know a lot of people with the newer keyboard who have not.
the reviewers went into paroxysms of ecstacy about how thin it was
Really, who? I recall seeing zero reviews praising that aspect of the keyboard - just the overall thinness of the laptop itself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...--at least when I was working at home--was easily fixed with a USB-to-PS2 adapter and an IBM Model M keyboard. (Damned Mac keyboards are too small for my hands, anyway. Nothing but red squigglies and command line error messages using those tiny things.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
You used to be able to get halfway decent laptops with actually usable keyboards. That appears to've been shoed* away by, well, apple.
We're in a vicious circle of ever worse keyboards because you can't have all three of so stylishly thin you can shave with it, functional nevermind nice to use, and cheap enough for the manufacturer to fit in your overpriced device. You're just typing on it wrong!
* As in shoe event horizon.
So much for high resale value. The current Macbooks are ticking time bombs. They will have zero resale value 4-6 years out. Too risky that the keyboard will flip out.
I know nobody who likes it. Everyone in my office who has this latest generation, including me, avoids the built in keyboard if at all possible. Two people have had popped off, broken keys that required going to the mall to turn in the computer for over a week.
Don't you mean "News for Nerds: Stuff that Matters"?
Apple still hasn't addressed the fact that USB mics crap out when used for any length of time.
They used to be the media creators system, but now low latency audio and video platforms are not labelled "Apple".
At least it's about something technological. It could be yet another article about which politician farted upwind of an orphanage.
Just the other day I was wiping the dust off my Commodore 128D keyboard... Still works!
I'm not an Apple fan for many reasons, but if I might hijack the story for the moment, I would like to make a side note.
There aren't a whole lot of things a company can do to earn my unbridled loyalty. One of the things they can do is take responsibility for a problem, publicly, loudly, and apologetically. They can offer legitimate solutions to legitimate problems. When a company goes out of their way to say "we fucked up; we're sorry, and here is how we're going to fix it" they gain so many respect points (personally) that they're almost guaranteed I will make it worth their while in the end.
I sometimes wonder if I'm the outlier, or if people are just really bad at business.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Which brings us to the grand year 2019 and my MacBook Air's faulty E and R keys.
I hav noticd simila poblms with my kyboad. It's causing numous os.
There is no MacBook "keyboard problem". This is fake news.
This is exactly "news" for geeks, as exemplified by the hipster apple fanboi.
Nerds, the pocket protector-sporting kind, not so much.
I'm guessing the current crop of editors are millennials, and entirely unfamiliar with pocket protectors.
If you think the laptop keyboard sucks just use one of the "newer" type for the iMac. Mind you even for a All-one iMac that has 27" display Apple thought it was absolutely important to use the slimmest design and use stupid Lightning port for charging. I mean a 27" iMac isn't really what I'll call portable. I've never seen such a unreliable keyboard. Constant connectivity issues (display-keyboard distance of less than 30 cm), constant dropping of keys or spamming of a certain key. Just complete crap. I had to switch to wired keyboard just to get some work done.
Go out, get a proper mechanical keyboard and shut up.
With the new Apple credit card, you can pay to have your MBP fixed, or buy a new one every six months.
At least before you got the feeling that you bought a premium product. Now other laptop manufacturers are building solid products and Apple keeps raising the price and lowering the quality.
OS X and macs clearly isnâ(TM)t something they care much about anymore, they just want to milk it for what they can until their reputation of selling overpriced crap.
I tried building a hackintosh but then I realised that what I liked about my mac was that I didnâ(TM)t have to deal with drivers updates, configurations etc. Iâ(TM)ll keep my iMac running as long as I can for fcpx and then Iâ(TM)ll have to figure out what to do.
L'Idiot
I've had these problems on various Dell, Lenovo, HP, and other laptops. Failure rate is probably under 5% but it happens. Fix it or replace it and move on. Stop whining.
Not true. This article is about Apple still having hardware issues. It's useful information for those that use Apple products.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Where we at one time did things the right way and now do things in service to our corporate overlords while telling you we are good and everyone else is evil.
Isn't Apple on the way to just having everyone use the touchpad? Open your laptop and it's one big touchpad. I
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
It's DAMN true
... over two decades.
I remember the keyboards that came with the first iMacs, with the fancy coloured plastic.
Just a tiny splash of liquid would render keys permanently inoperable most of the time.
Nothing improved from that time onward. In my hardware graveyard, I have 6 Mac keyboards, suffering from missing keys, keys that don't work and just from good old shit to type on reasons.
In contrast, I have a logitech wireless mac keyboard that's been going strong for 8 years, along with a few mechanical keyboards far older.
Screw how it looks, it's how it TYPES that matters - and how robust it is.
If I spill liquid on it, I expect it to work after it dries.
I've had to type on a newer mb air recently (I don't know what generation), and I can honestly say my three year old Asus Zenbook's keyboard is a far better typing experience. Still miss the older Lenovo Thinkpad keyboards though.
I do not belong to the church of the lowercase 'i'
They're "iOS devkits" and if you think any different, you haven't been following Apple for long enough.
I think that Steve Jobs, for all his faults, at least appreciated that engineering problems should be handled by engineers. Tim Cook has just let Ives run wild, and the result is a significant drop in quality.
This stupid dysfunctional and broken keyboard is the single thing that stops me from upgrading my old but perfectly working MacBook Pro'14. As Apple are going hopeless, I am going move off of Mac and MacOS. Sorry, Apple, you started failing on simple things.
I ranted in a crash report today about it too, whether or not anyone reads it or gives a rip is another question.
My Macbook Pro is really a Mac Mini. I nearly never use it without an external keyboard plugged in.
Apple users whining about stuck keys.
No you idiot, the only people whining about Apple problems are people who don't like Apple. Apple users love everything Apple does and would never complain about them. Whenever they introduce a new product iteration they always make a point to tell us "it's the best one we've ever made", they never say "it's no better than the last one" or "it's actually slightly worse than the last one" because apparently that doesn't go without saying.
This is the company that gave it's users a new iteration of their phone, jacked up the price and with a mechanism that allowed the gullible idiot (oh sorry, "the customer") to put their face on an animated piece of cartoon shit, called it a "feature" and the crowd of assembled yes-men cheered, howled and whistled in gleeful ecstasy.
It's hardly surprising to find out they aren't the sharpest or most rational bunch.
Yes, this is the reason I am still on a 2013 Mac Book Pro. I mean, I would love to upgrade so I could carry around all the Apple expensive dongles and have to live in the future with only USB-C ports.
Bottom line, Apple will not listen to it's customers and wants thin, unrepairable, expensive still that lasts 2-3 years max.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Enjoy it while you can get it, but eventually the sheeple will figure it out.
They know their mindless cultists will overpay for whatever crap apple puts out and defend apple in the process.
I own many MacBook Pros, including a 2018 model. I still use my MacBook Pro 17 because the keyboard is better. Having flatter keys with less travel is not better. I don't know who thought it was...it simply isn't better to slap your keyboard to type. And the issues have made it clear that the keys aren't better. In a world where the pentacle of keyboards are those clickly switches, why does Apple think these switches with barely any travel are what people want???
I'm an authorized Apple service technician. I can confirm that even the latest keyboards are still inherently flawed and fail plenty often. It will not get fixed unless Apple quits their misguided obsession with ever increasing thinness. Which is never. Apple still hasn't admitted to the flaw even internally to its techs.
Most users I talk to hate the keyboard even when it works due to how it feels. I also get daily complaints about the lack of ports and inability to easily and affordably replace the battery when it inevitably gets weak. I don't know a single person who gives a fuck about the touchbar or uses it. It's a stupid gimmick that did nothing but make the laptop much harder to repair and parts much more expensive.
I can't wait until the falling display cable issue starts picking up similar inertia. But of course the blindly loyal masochistic Apple disciples will just keep buying them no matter how much Apple fucks them up the ass.
Needless to say I don't own a Mac. I've never bought any Apple product, in fact. I know too much about them to make such a stupid choice. But I fix them because it pays the bills.
Who cares?
And the ones that do, are fools by choice.
Apple should do the following if it really liked the Mac:
1. Dump the stupid butterfly keyboard and go back to the previous one.
2. Dump the stupid touchbar and go back to actual function keys like before.
3. Upgrade hardware regularly (at least once a year), instead of selling "new" Macs with 3+ year old hardware.
4. Drop the Mac prices back to where they used to be; still high, but not in the stratosphere.
5. Bring back "Pro" versions of Apple software for media professionals who had been loyal to the Mac since it was first created.
6. Allow users to replace the memory and storage devices in their Macs.
This is pure schadenfreude; enjoying the suffering of rich people who choose to buy exclusive, over-priced, & over-hyped luxury consumer electronics. =)))
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.