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Comment by CDSlice | Hacker News Reader

I think that because the keyboard is connected to the logic board it is literally impossible for Apple to give you a newer keyboard without also giving you a logic board for a later gen pro which won't work with the later gen MacBook. That's also (part of) the reason why repairs are so expensive, most of the parts are connected into a few large chunks that have to be replaced all at once.

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Completely Apple's own fault, too. A rating of only 1 on iFixit's "Laptop Repairability Scores":

"The top case assembly, including the keyboard, battery, speakers, and Touch Bar, is glued together—making all those components impractical to replace separately."

https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability

Apple was also one of the first companies to solder in the RAM so it couldn’t be upgraded. I miss being able to make my laptop significantly faster without upgrading it completely.

There are still companies which allow that. Support them instead.

Anti consumer policies should be punished, especially if it matters to you.

I could never handle this kind of abuse.

They should not have constructed it this way in the first place.

For how long will they replace those keyboards for free?

They're covered for four years after first retail sale from Apple [0].

[0] https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n...

Connected to the logic board? On mine they just replaced the whole top case assembly. My understanding is that the replacement swapped out everything other than the display and the logic board, including the battery.

Same on my model from around 2016. One key cap came off. Got back essentially a new laptop (as far as I can tell) from repair with new body - the display stayed the same. I wonder how many people will scam them this way now.

How is this a scam? They made a defective product that is intentionally difficult to service. If Apple is the one being most affected by their own poor design decisions their finances surely don't show it.

I meant how many people will break one key in a trivial way to get a bigger replacement they actually would have to pay for otherwise. (because the warranty ran out)

Its a defective keyboard design, it will fail sooner or later. The only difference is whether Apple replaces the keyboard now or a few months down the road.

Alternately, Apple could make a keyboard that doesn't trivially break. Then they wouldn't be under class action pressure to repair and replace them.

To whatever extent it's possible for an end user to "trigger" a failure covered under the extended warranty; it's 100% Apple's fault for making it the way they did. If the keyboards could be trivially swapped (say tool less) and cheaply produced then this would be far less of an issue.

It's a bad keyboard, but it's issues are made far far worse due to the lack of a serviceable design. Hopefully this experience of shooting themselves in the foot will make them reconsider repairable hardware.

Unless they redesigned the part, to fix the problem, which is what they should do.

This is not correct, the top case replacement does not include the logic board.

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