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Comment by moonman272 | Hacker News Reader

I personally think this issue is overblown in terms of frequency in the internet outrage echo chamber. So so many of these devices among the people I work with professionally, not a single failure out of anyone I’ve ever met. Yet, reading Apple posts online, you would think every MacBook Pro sold has a failing keyboard.

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This issue is not overblown. I've used nothing but Macs since 2001, and am now at the third company I've worked at that maintains a substantial fleet of Macbooks. This most recent keyboard debacle is the worst thing that ever happened to the Macbook platform.

Literally every single MBP in our office has failed, some of them more than once. The failure mode is always the same: the keyboard gets flaky, then you lose a key for a couple hours until you manage to finagle it back into working, then you lose 1-2 more keys and they never work properly again. The only fix is to turn it over to Apple for several days, which means you can't count on a single MBP per employee, because at any given moment --- with near certainty --- someone's laptop will be taken out for several days.

On the plus side, it's a little bit like Chaos Monkey for backups, since you always know you're probably just a day or two away from needing to swap machines.

It sounds like a minor thing, I get it! "Sticking keys, oh no!" The problem is: you can't type. The only way to be typing again on your machine is to have it sent away for several days. That's a disaster.

All the modifier keys on the left side of my MBP 2017 are starting to get flaky. I have to press them longer and harder to get them to register and they often register a key up while they key is still down. I’m dreading finding a service center and being without a machine for who knows how long while I’m doing the digital nomad thing.

Between this and the mostly useless touch bar I’d gladly take a MBP 2015 design with an updated CPU any day. I get that Apple likes to take chances on new ideas and that often pays off spectacularly for them but not this time.

I brought my MBP (late 2016) in for repair because 2 keys‘ notches had broken off - thank god they could replace the keys on the spot, and also cleaned the whole keyboard with pressurized air. I must say, the thorough cleaning did restore most of the problematic keys back to normal. They only forgot the / key which is a bit annoying, but I might just buy a pressurized air can for a couple Euros and fix that myself.

I wonder if it could be prone to happenening to laptops ordered from a particular manufacturing center, or from a certain timeframe?

I work at a 300+ person company full of 2016/2017 macbooks and personally own a 2017 macbook pro, and I've not witnessed a single problem from that sample size.

Just like your sibling comment finds my claim (on a substantially smaller number of laptops) hard to believe, I find your claim impossible to believe. So either you're right and it's somehow regionalized, or people just aren't reporting the problem.

The latter wouldn't surprise me! Lots of people use external keyboards, or just deal with the petty frustration of having to hit certain keys much harder or backspace out the repeats.

For what it's worth, we have about a dozen Mac laptops with the new keyboard in my office and none have keyboard problems (I've asked).

It's obviously a serious issue because Apple has created a special program for it. But, it also seems obvious that only some machines are affected, for whatever reason. Maybe some people just type harder than others.

My laptop makes a case for the opposite. I hardly ever use the built in keyboard on my mbp 2017, but some of my keys are not functioning properly. A colleague of mine has a similar but worse case and had to return it about half a year ago. In total we have three of the mbp's in this office that qualify to be serviced.

Perhaps it's the dusty office? We are located in a old ship hangar.

> regionalized

What if it’s just climate? Dust and humidity are regionalized. Companies in drier, less dusty, less “sticky” climates might see few to no sticky keyboards.

Or their office is just located in a haunted old sawmill that was previously attached to an abattoir.

There have been three generations of the new keyboard already, it's quite feasible you both have different versions.

You might also find different working environments have an effect, is their aircon filtering more dust?

> is their aircon filtering more dust?

Wait, this laptop portable machine can only be used in environments with filtered air?

This "you're holding it wrong" shit is weird.

we’re trying to narrow down why some people have issues and some don’t, not make excuses for it.

In my office we have no issues across about 20 2016 and 2016 models.

I didn't say or imply that.

I wonder if it is like some of the automobile airbag failures and recalls--latitude matters since problems turn out aggravated by heat/humidity.

Yes, you are absolutely right that I may not know of situations, and I definitely meant my experience to be anecdotal, not scientific.

I am not even trying to downplay the fact that it's happening a lot; It just seems so strange to read so many people on hacker news talking about extremely high rates of failure in their sample size, when neither myself nor anyone I've talked to has experienced it.

I read most of the problems are about the 2016 model and not the 2017 model. It could be that people have different versions of the keyboard.

Pedantic note: No matter the failure rate, the expected number of required laptops will always be greater than the number of employees who need one.

The important question, given N employees, is: "How large can N get before we need N+2 MBPs to reliably keep everyone computing?"

Generally it's not like you can just swap someone's machine out without any downtime.

> Literally every single MBP in our office has failed

I respect you and your posts generally, but I can guarantee that’s a hyperbolic statement if sample size is greater than maybe a small handful.

It’s precise and factual, and several people have had they’re laptops replaced more than once. It is not hyperbole.

My sample size is 1 and I’ve witnessed this exact failure mode.

This computer is far and away the worst machine I’ve had in my professional career.

That settles it then! We have now proven that the amount of devices that fail is 100% with an uncertainty of about 100%.

You could just give them real keyboards to use. Except macbooks don't have any usable ports these days...

There’s literally a MacBook available with 4 ports. Just because there’s one with a single port doesn’t mean all of them only have one.

Like it or not, USB-C ports don't qualify as usable.

Apple unofficially / officially said the failure rate was less then 5%. There was later some investigative work by a few Apple media that repair at Apple Retail and third party to confirm that figure. Failure ( Or Repair Rate ) or roughly 3 - 4%.

You see, that is the problem. I expect Keyboard failure to be LESS then 0.03% - 0.04%. Thanks to Apple, people finally realise how important the keyboard is, especially in these days and age, where Mac / PC are more for professional and business / work usage. 4% Repair meant 4 in every 100 Mac, even 0.04% is 4 in every 10,000. For Keyboard!

For every IBM / Lenovo, Dell, HP single Keyboard failure I have seen in the past decade of my professional career, there is like 10 MacBook Keyboard failed in the past 2-3 years. It doesn't mean other brand don't fail, but they are much less often, 5 times cheaper to repair, and many had three year warranty included. While All Mac only comes with a single year warranty.

I wish Apple bump the price by a small percentage, and include at least 2 years warranty, or even Apple Care by default. ( I know in EU this is included already ) We don't upgrade our Mac every 2 - 3 years any more. They have much longer life time. This will hopefully force Apple to think about design that is easier to repair for themselves, and much higher reliability so they do less repair.

It’s included in New Zealand too, due to the consumer guarantees act, a fantastic piece of legislation. Possibly summarising to the point of error “a purchase should last as long as a reasonable person would expect”.

That’s great, but I do I get from that to a number that I as a business (to know my obligations) or I as a consumer (to know my rights) can use?

Does every instance need to be tested in court? Seems ripe for unpredictable outcomes.

I don’t know the answer to that. Electronics like phones seem to get a minimum of 2 years and extended warranties are generally not worth buying here, though some do extend for 10+ years.

> While All Mac only comes with a single year warranty. > I wish Apple bump the price by a small percentage, and include at least 2 years warranty, or even Apple Care by default.

Unlikely to happen. People seem to love shelling out extra for AppleCare+ just like how they love to tip. They think they're getting a lot of extra bonus value because of it but really it's just like most extended warranties only this time it's for an expesive product that's not expected to last (in relation to its price).

Go to another country, like Australia https://www.apple.com/au/legal/statutory-warranty/

How long does Apple provide warranty for devices in Australia?

> A reasonable period from date of delivery until the failure becomes apparent

> Without limiting consumers’ rights, Apple will provide its own remedies equivalent to those remedies in the consumer guarantee provisions of the Australian Consumer Law at any time within 24 months of the date of purchase. For the avoidance of doubt, Apple acknowledges that the Australian Consumer Law may provide for remedies beyond 24 months for a number of its products.

I'm in Australia and the statutory warranty doesn't specify 24 months - it can be longer (whatever the customer thinks is reasonable and is willing to push on).

The 24 months that Apple provides is really a minimum as far as the law is concerned. For expensive "high quality" products such as the MacBook Pro, it's fair to expect that coverage should last longer than the 24 months that Apple tries to impose.

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/11/most-electronics-store...

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/3znx69/manufactu...

https://www.choice.com.au/shopping/consumer-rights-and-advic...

Contrary to popular belief, 2 years is not a hard limit and claiming such is borderline "illegal". See in particular the video (or transcript) within the last link there.

Which is exactly what Apple says in its first and last line.

> For the avoidance of doubt, Apple acknowledges that the Australian Consumer Law may provide for remedies beyond 24 months for a number of its products

There's no doubt that saying there is a 24-month hard limit is illegal. Nothing borderline about it.

I worked at the Genius Bar in Sydney while Apple was going through all this trouble with the ACCC and they really stepped up their game in a big way, especially compared to other retailers in the country.

So based on your second hand observations?

Not overblown at all. I sold my MacBook Pro and stopped using Macs all together after my third trip in two months to the "genius" bar due to sticking keys.

I think a few hours of wasted time for something so basic and fundamental as being able use your keyboard more than justifies some "outrage."

One of the keys on my MacBook Air keyboard broke about 6 months ago. The busted key made it unusable as a laptop, and I don't need/want a desktop (aka attach it to a keyboard & monitor). Authorized Apple repairs were a few hudred bucks. I was strongly considering buying another Mac, but that seemed like such a waste over a single busted key. I decided to try one of those aftermarket key repair kits, and it actually worked. I spent less than $20 to fix it. I'm glad I tried! If I hadn't been able to fix it, I would have been super vocal about how I had to trash my laptop over a busted key on a keyboard, so I can understand why people who sound upset.

I’m in the same boat. Despite owning 10+ of the affected models directly and working in firms with thousands of affected models, i’ve never heard / seen the problem first hand. I didn’t doubt it’s happening, but wondered how my network has been so lucky. Glad to see Apple acknowledge it, just hope it doesn’t mean a worse keyboard is on the horizon, as I really love the current style.

I have personally had my keyboard fixed 4 times and across my company it's been nearly a dozen. It's a huge pain to have to be out of computer for that repair time and deal with it in the first place. It's a huge problem.

It's anecdotal but everyone I work with who has a new mbp has had at least one keyboard failure...

I don't know if adding another post will convince you. But for what it's worth, I'm also a long time Mac user, and this new MacBook has had multiple keyboard failures, just as tptacek describes. I've had about 5 different keys fail on me, each time for a few days, until a didn't key takes their place.

The failure rate may be low, but anecdotally it's significantly higher than previous models.

It seems very much like a usage issue. My friends that take their macbooks to the coffee shop, traveling, use it on the train, etc. all have had keyboard issues.

I work from home with an external keyboard and monitor and honestly might as well have a desktop for all the MBP leaves my room (and ancedatally) others with a similar usage pattern aren't having the issues.

So people who actually use the keyboard tend to have more issues with said keyboard. Shocking.

I actually use it very very rarely, and still my B key is borked.

Believe me, these keyboards are just terrible.

While this is incredibly anecdotal (e.g., a sample of one), I use my "MacBook Escape" (the non-touchbar 13") at home and in coffee shops and have not had a problem. I've also had two touchbar MBPs at two different jobs and so far have had no issues, although they tend to remain closed except for meetings.

We use Escapes almost exclusively, and all of them have failed. Mine failed 3 times; in protest, I haven't taken it in for a 3rd repair, but rather switched back to a '15-15".

Yikes. I may have just been lucky with mine, then. (I'd pretend I've just been extremely careful, but that is totally not true.)

Do you think it is the coffee shop usage that keeps it problem free?

Yeah, this is what it has been in our experience as well. They seem to fail pretty predictably after a lot of heavy usage, but many laptops don't reach that.

Right, the people that are using their notebook keyboards end up with issues and those that don't...don't

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