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Comment by Rudi9719 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the failure of the butterfly keyboard? I haven't had any issues with my 2017 macBook and it seems to keep kruft from getting under my keys (A problem I had with the older macbook keyboards)

I also live on my macbook so it's constantly in use, and much to my displeasure, around food.

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I was just like you until a couple weeks ago. No grime in the keyboard, heavy use, took it with me everywhere, used it every day since 2016. (That being said, it was/is in pristine condition--no scratches, dents, or drops.)

But one day it just happened. Nothing to provoke it--hadn't been eating over it, hadn't been treating it any rougher than usual. E key started bouncing (repeating). Rarely at first, but it got worse over the course of a week. Canned air didn't fix it--had to ship it out.

I can't really say it was a bad experience, though. They handled everything without issue. I walked into the store--no appointment--and they took a look at it immediately. I didn't pay anything despite being out of warranty and without AppleCare. Had it back in my hands a few days later.

Personally, I love the feel of Apple's butterfly keys. I like the short travel distance and the satisfying "click" they make. I've had plenty of similar issues with scissor switch keyboards; it's just that they're easier to repair. Pop off the key, give it a good blow, and it's as good as new, though you might end up inhaling some ancient crumbs in the process. Allegedly, that usually doesn't work with butterfly keys, for whatever reason, and they're hard to remove without breaking.

They're actually really easy to remove without breaking, in my experience. You just have to use a very thin piece of flexible plastic to get under them from the top.

You are very lucky. I had three students in my office hours recently and of the four of us, all with butterfly keyboard MacBook Pros (some with the updated keyboards), three of us have had keyboard issues such as the spacebar double registering presses or other keys not registering a press at all.

Within my family, everyone that has a newer MacBook Pro has had keyboard issues.

I bought a used Lenovo X1 off ebay for $300 and that has become my daily driver, despite getting the keyboard repaired on my MBP. It doesn't get close to the same battery life as my MBP, and waking from sleep is a little iffy sometimes, but in terms of reliability and usability it far exceeds my experience with the MBP.

I was happy with the feel of the 2017, however after a few months a couple keys got stuck to the point of it being unusable. I took it in for repair at the Apple Store, and after repair, touching the ID sensor would cause the machine to freeze. Soon after, more keys started getting stuck and I just put the thing in a drawer and pulled the 2015 back out, which is what I'm typing on to this day. I've been using Apple computers exclusively since the lciii in the early 90s, but my next laptop will not be a Macbook.

Nearly half of the third-gen Apple butterfly keyboards at Basecamp have failed. There are few other personal reports with similar percentages.

Second problem is that it will cost a lot of money to fix your keyboard out of warranty.

That's an amazingly high percentage, and suggests staggering incompetence at Apple HQ. A company with that kind of market cap should not be in this situation.

Yeah it will be expensive to fix out of warranty. Apple has extended the warranty to 4 years for the affected machines, but it seems like after that we’ll be screwed. The resale value of these things will suffer because it will cost $600 to get them fixed at that point.

They’ll be fine for use with external keyboards, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy a used one for use as a regular laptop.

You seem to be a rare case. I'm also a heavy user and got keys stuck a lot and actually broke two keys (I did nothing out of ordinary). I certainly like the feel of the butterfly switches, but they really are incredible frail.

Then you're lucky. We have two 2017 MBPs and one has a broken R key. Broadly speaking (a) the failure rate is really high and (b) the fact that it can only be fixed by a complete front plate replacement makes this a punishing error. In the old days if a key broke you could just replace that key most of the time. Here you need to replace half the chassis, which necessitates a trip to the Apple Store.

Same here, 2016 MacBook (so it's not even the second-gen keyboard). Still works fine, although I would prefer more key travel.

So your entire comment is based purely on anecdotal evidence?

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