Hacker News Reader

Comment by adrianhel | Hacker News Reader

What is happening with Macs?

My butterfly keyboard repeats keys. This easily halves my typing speed. (Or rather "Itt easily halves my ttyping speed")

Yesterday my machine got stuck booting with a black screen after running out of battery with the backlight turned off.

Also, the keyboards have gone from making virtually no sound to making loud clicking sounds.

I have also had a glitch where the sound gets distorted.

View on HN

Depending on your Macbook's age and your location, you may be able to get the keyboard replaced due to sticking keys. I ended up getting a brand new MBP when they repeatedly fucked up repairing my sticking keyboard.

Obviously it would be better if the keyboards didn't break so easily to begin with, but at least you may not have to put up with it :)

Once I entered an Apple store with a cracked case (white MacBook fell from the table). I left with a brand new lower part (hard disk excepted - they moved mine to the new machine) for free. There was a recall for the case, IIRC, one for the upper palm rest (something to do with magnets that made the plastic crack) and they replaced the keyboard for no reason.

I have to say Apple's support experience is stellar. I can't imagine having that with a Dell or Lenovo.

With Lenovo you would get the 3 years onsite warranty with accidental damage protection at the time of purchase. Then a technician will come to your office or home and to replace the broken parts of your Thinkpad. That beats having to go to an Apple store IMO.

There is no Apple stores in some countries or only in some cities. Often, Apple costs even more there. You can order parts from aliexpress and replace on your own if it's Lenovo.

I've had a Dell technician come to my office within a day of reporting an issue and replace the screen on my XPS 13 there and then, that was just with the standard warranty.

The problem is, many of us with this problem cant afford to give up the device for the amount of time it takes Apple to fix it.

I've owned a 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2018 MBP (most of them through work).

I'm typing this message on a 2018 MBP, which wasp urchased 3 months ago, and I've decided that I'm not . going to go back and fix all of the sticky spaces that it errantly injects. I could take it in, but then I'd h ave to give up the device for a few days, and its my work machine.

The 2017 had a similar . issue where keys would more visibly just get stuck down. Sent it . in twice; four months later the issue cropped up again. My company decided to just upgrade to the 2018.

The 2016 had a host of issues. Ironically the keyboard was fine, but the battery pretty quickly started failing (there's a recall program for them now, which started a year after mine started showing symptoms and I was t old by a rep that "there's nothing we can do here, we can send it to Cupertino but you'll be without it for about 2 weeks"). The single fan in the machine eventually stopped working.

I know that expecting better service than that is asking a lot, because no one else does much better (except maybe Microsoft, if you have a MS Store nearby their on-site support is far better than Apple's as they're authorized to do device replacements surprisingly often). But that's not what I expect; what I expect is for these things to stop failing so often such that support is necessary. Its not that hard; they had a perfect formula with the 2013-era devices. But they won't admit . that they made a strategic mistake with these new body designs and revert back to something that actually works.

> many of us with this problem cant afford to give up the device for the amount of time it takes Apple to fix it.

This is my current situation. I am eligible for a free keyboard repair (2017 MBP), and I need one owing to sticky keys, but last I checked the estimated repair time was over a week. I would be hard pressed to go one day without this device. I cannot suspend my livelihood for 7+ days.

The more this problem festers the more I am tempted to buy a solid laptop and dip my toe back into development on Windows, or try my hand at Linux. That transition would be at least as disruptive as the keyboard repair, but it would enable me to untether myself from this decreasingly reliable maker of tools.

Last time my MBP (mid-2015 15'') was in the shop, I just "purchased" the latest model, only to return it when my old machine was sent back. The 14 days no questions asked return policy makes it possible even if the turnaround time is 7+ days. I did communicate my intent very clearly prior to the "purchase" (really just a loner), and multiple Apple Store employees I talked to were very supportive.

Incidentally I got to live with the new butterfly keyboard for a week or so. I've been hearing horror stories about it for years at that point, but turns out it was okay. Not gonna win any awards, but after a few hours I got used to it like any other keyboard, had no problem touch typing, and didn't notice any increased rate of errors. The arrow keys did take some getting used to, though, and the lack of physical Esc and function keys was a nuisance in a small number of scenarios.

>Also, the keyboards have gone from making virtually no sound to making loud clicking sounds.

I was on a film shoot recently and actually felt so self-conscious that the noise of my butterfly keyboard would show up on the recording that I just stopped working all together that day.

Been on loads of shoots with my pre-butterfly macbook and never worried about that.

Jony Ive.

Form over Function. I'd bet that most OSX devs probaby use an iMac now.

God, happy to see I’m not the only one with repeating keys issues in my MacBook Pro.

Seriously, it’s maddening. It has halved my typing speed.

Apple will fix you keyboard free of charge, i got mine replaced by apple two weeks ago and had zero issues ever since.

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-m...

I'm not looking forward to my laptop being "refreshed" by my org in the next few weeks. I will be getting a brand new 2018 Macbook Pro and all I can think is "if the stupid keyboard breaks, I'll be without a laptop for 2 months because Indonesia SUCKS for getting things done quickly".

That plus this audio bug makes me REALLY hope they let me keep this one as a back up.

Simply that Macs are one of the smallest sources of revenue for Apple. Around 10% if I remember correctly.

I understand that. But to be completely honest, for my sake they could bring back the 2013 model, keep patching bugs and just spec it up. Zero new features needed. They perfected the art. Just leave it be.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com