MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification
macrumors.com
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Look no further than the 12" Macbook. One port (also needed for power), lower power CPU and (I believe?) the start of the dreaded butterfly keyboard. IIRC the butterfly keyboard's raison d'etre was to shave half a millimeter off the thickness of a Macbook. That's... it. Oh and that same crusade is probably a big part of why we lost the MagSafe adapter.
Compare the 12" Macbook to the (2010 and onwards) Macbook Air. A good compromise of thinness, power, ports and price point. For years, many (including myself) just wanted an upgrade to the Macbook Air with a retina display (and more modern ports). But we didn't, we got the "no compromises" Macbook instead.. until that was (thankfully) killed and the macbook Air came back.
And sure Ive designed the 2008 Macbook Air and he deserves credit for his design but... he clearly went off the deep end at some point after that.
The M1 Air even got rid of the stupid touch bar (thank God).
I strongly dislike the Touch Bar. I'm typing this on a 2019 MacBook Pro whose Touch Bar died yesterday, leaving me with no escape key, no volume buttons, no keyboard brightness buttons, and no play/pause button -- leaving me to do all of those in software -- including escape.
I never found a single useful purpose for the Touch Bar's main mode, so from about two weeks after I bought it, it's been set to simply show function keys ("expanded control strip"). This means I have function keys that accidentally activate when I'm trying to type numbers, that timeout and disappear to save battery, that can't be 'hovered' (touching without pressing) and that have no tactile feedback, slowing you down by forcing you to look away from the screen. And now - I've lost the entire row.
This is also why I dread having to get a new car with all the fancy electronics, they might be cool and useful now but apart from touchscreens being inferior to handle without looking on them (something I prefer to avoid while driving), that’s one thing that will both break and in general be worse than my phone, probably already when it comes out and by the next generation at the latest. (Quite ironically Bluetooth as the interface to my car was the first thing that broke and would cost EUR 900 to replace, which makes me happy I didn’t take the navigation)
I wish I could just pay a premium for longer lasting design. It also shows how silly it is when companies say they want to be net zero on emissions, then produce something that could easily work well for almost a decade were it not for some ridiculously expensive part breaking.
The physical keyboard eventually became totally unusable so I now use an external keyboard 100% of the time, which solves the problem once and for all. Thanks Apple!
Here's a windows utility you might find useful: https://github.com/susam/uncap
And here's an editor that's accommodating to your newly trained typing skills ;) https://www.vim.org/
Good work.
It's been so many years that I can't remember how it is not having these combos.
I can see programmers hating it though.
And its not noticeably thicker than the macbook either. I can understand the pursuit of thinness or at least weight reduction in mobile devices. If the iPad was any heavier, you wouldn't be able to use it while standing. But on a laptop there is a lot more room for weight and thickness. As log as its comfortable to carry, that's good enough.
Recently I tried to convert to a windows laptop from my 16 inch mbp. Upon switching I was constantly annoyed by the fan noise & using my pinkie to press the 'control' key opposed to macbook thumb on 'command' key.
The point is, I realized native port selection was not a metric to consider when purchasing a laptop. I am fine bringing an adapter to the meeting room.
I guess it comes down to what you value. I am just trying to play 'devil's advocate' with my anecdotal experience compared to your experience.
There are far more things that made the dell xps a better choice and ports was just one of them but still a very important one. USB-C adapters are pretty cheap but USB-C hubs are $100+ and have been a constant source of frustration when they keep failing unless you buy the most expensive ones.
It's a big laptop by XPS13 standards sure, but one that's appropriately cooled. I hadn't been aware, up to that point, how much the fans bothered me. This thing is quick but at the same time real quiet. After some time I turned the NUC on for some reason, the funs launched into overdrive and I suddenly got annoyed.
Sadly, they mimic the macOS UI very poorly, and it remains not-possible in Linux to universally remap keyboard shortcuts to match macOS built-in sanity.
Yeah, I really wish I could map Alt+Down to open files in Nautilus so that I can then use the Enter key to rename them like any sane person
Also use waterfox instead of firefox if you want the browser to give you a proper global menu, or use chrome.
I can get a "looks like OSX" theme for KDE easily, but KDE will still be weirdly unstable, and have tons of impedance mismatch between it's components. You can't make a Ferrari out of a Ford by painting it the right shade of red.
I also don't understand how people say Macs are stable. I get the spinny thing that locks up the entire system about once a week.
Jesus, how loud was the Windows laptop? I just sold my 16" MBP for an M1 Air almost entirely because the fan noise on the 16" was unbearable.
I replaced the case, trackpad, and keyboard, but Dell won't sell me a battery and their batteries have DRM so you can't use a 3rd party unit.
My top of the line, i7, 32gb ram, 2gb gpu, 1tb nvme drive laptop is now no better than a paperweight. When plugged into shore power you can't get max CPU or GPU power and it's an annoying mess to deal with so it's just sitting.
I now own an X1 Carbon 7th gen and a 2020 i5 MBP and love them both. I'm traveling more than ever (bought a camper van to get out of the city center) and they are typically more abused than the XPS ever was. No problems at all. Shit, my 8 and 10 year old MBPs are still running after giving them away to friends in need.
I have a thin Anker dongle that has type a ports, ethernet, hdmi, and type c and a couple cheap backups in various bags. It's a small price to pay and all of our devices save the iPhone are type C now so I am slowing moving to one cord for everything.
Anyway...I'll never buy another Dell for the rest of my life. End rant
Are you sure you can't use a third party battery? Plenty of hits on Amazon for Chinese branded ones.
I replaced a XPS 9570 battery with a Chinese one a few months ago, seems fine to me.
Yes. I've tried flashing older BIOS versions. Multiple new chargers. I've tried 5 different batteries from Amazon and eBay. 2 have worked for a hot minute before failing to be recognized. I've popped in the swollen battery to test to make sure something else wasn't working and the swollen battery stays recognized.
Reading Reddit/talking to others in similar positions it's hit or miss whether the specific machine will work. I can't find a pattern with BIOS version, model, dates, etc. To date I've probably spent 30 hours troubleshooting and I've given up :(
Dell is horrible for this type of stuff. Had to retire a server early because of this type of policy. I wouldn't recommend them at all.
The trackpad is terrible, the sound is terrible, the screen is worse, the webcam is not as good. I cannot use windows so I have to use Linux, which brings a good bunch of its problems such as external screen with different resolutions, having to setup scaling for many applications individually, and always being the last guy to join meetings because every day I have a different problems switching to my usb headset, etc. I ended up going back to a macbook pro. The XPS hardware might look as good in the specs, but it won't last for more than 2 years, it crackles everywhere and the paint (in the trackpad, for example) wears off pretty easily if you use it every day.
So, yes, I'd love macbooks to have more ports, but by no metric that problem alone would lead me to prefer it over an XPS.
Just my preference/experience anyway.
I bought one cause I prefer Linux, my wife got one because it was 1k$ cheaper than the comparable MacBook. She's a designer and the screen is 100% Adobe RGB coverage.
The XPS and MacBook, from a hardware perspective, are basically equivalent. Its a shame they both took the ports out.
Enjoy it while it lasts, the current XPS generation is USB-C only.
Which XPS? My XPS 13 9300 has just 2 USB-C ports and a micro-SD slot (I don't mind carrying a small USB-C to everything adapter TBH, you can even have ethernet and VGA with that)
It is hard to say how much post-Jobs was really Ive. But it was clear that Apple got really lost. And it does suggest that Ive was rather mediocre all along. After all, he sinned against one of the most basic principles when you design something: it has to deserve to exist.
In the latter half of the 2010s it got really bad and dare I say: Apple didn't do very well in designing laptops. They really lost touch with reality.
So they were a kind of a subtractive synthesizer, one could say.
But to be fair, the comment you're replying to is talking specifically about the 12" MacBook's keyboard, which is indeed awful. I'm typing on one right now, and even after years on the thing, it's a perpetual reminder of how they're slower to type on, and kind of make your fingers hurt.
Remove the butterfly keyboard, add a second port, and the 12" MacBook gets unequivocally better.
Once in a while I'd wind up with the sticky keys, but was lucky enough to avoid anything permanent.
It's a sad coincidence they decided to discontinue it before their M1 CPU was ready because the M1 would've been right at home in the power & thermal envelope of the 12-inch Macbook.
The 13 inch Air is too big. But I suspect we're going to see chassis redesigns for everything given the new thermal windows, so maybe that will be the opportunity.
The M1 Air is a bit bigger, but that two centimetres of width does go to good use with a bigger screen (with more pixels), a bigger trackpad, and a bigger battery.
And nowadays everything is an electron app. So... I am considering updating.
I love the form factor though and I don’t really care about the ports or the keyboard. (it broke once, I fixed it)
The 12" MacBook made a great set of compromises (other than keyboard reliability) for the goal it intended to achieve. I had one for several years and loved it.
The mistake was taking the compromises from the 12" and applying them to the rest of the lineup, where they made no sense at all.
All companies screw up. Much worse than Apple screwing up is that they continued to obfuscate and prevaricate and deny.
Repeatedly. For years.
In other words, they doubled down (actually tripled down, 3 editions of butterfly) on stupidity.
I have a few custom keys, one which runs a script that finds my airpods, connects, turns on eq (boom), starts spotify, sets volume my normal level, hits play.
I do hate it when the touchbar crashes and requires a reboot, but I've gotten so much milage out of my script keys that I'd rather keep it.
I have buttons to open notes files, open my jira with tap, a strip with scrollable weather, screenshot buttons, automated settings control (like the security screen) and finger gestures.
Swipe left and right with 2 fingers for volume control, 3 for brightness, 4 for keyboard backlight. It feels so smooth and natural to change the volume that way.
It can do a ton though. best 7 bucks I've spent, and makes me want a touchbar on all my laptops from now own, surprisingly.
I don't even want to consider the possibility of my keyboard crashing. Imagine if that happened on iOS! Input devices have to be 100% rock-solid.
Rip iPod
I ended up paying Apple more money for an external keyboard and trackpad when the Apple store employee told me that it would take me weeks to get my keyboard fixed. I used to love Apple products, but after my struggle with this issue I absolutely despise them.
Initially, I was skeptical of all the reports about how frequently the issue was happening, and I was starting to believe that it was just hysterics by the anti-Apple crowd. But it was eventually just a matter of time.
First my personal laptop had issues, and I was thankfully able to take advantage of the free keyboard replacement. Then my work laptop began experiencing the same issue, and it's gotten so bad that I had to connect an external keyboard in order to be able to login because I have no way to see which characters are getting screwed up as I type my password.
I keep meaning to take it to the Apple store, but the latest estimates are 5 to 7 days to replace the keyboard and I haven't yet had the opportunity to be without my work machine for that long.
It works. Fixed my 'e' key, fixed my spacebar, fixed all of them. You have to hold it at weird angles but it works.
Apple put out one of the least reliable keyboards in any laptop that was simultaneously the most expensive to repair. It took them 3 years of gouging customers with obscenely expensive repairs before they were willing to actually admit to the defective design. There's plenty of users on HN alone who suffered from it when it broke right after the warranty ended. If you didn't decide to purchase AppleCare, you got to pay Apple hundreds of dollars to fix their own design defect on a relatively new machine while Apple staff pretended to be completely unaware that this was a common problem.
I'm glad their canned air trick worked for you, many others weren't so lucky. Even today, best case scenario if your keyboard is far gone enough to need replacement instead of canned air, it gets replaced with a new keyboard that's just as defective as the original.
If I'm coding with an external screen connected (always hot, regardless of activity), and doing anything that requires the CPU (that never fails to bring the temperature tup massively and the fans to come on all the way up) I will make too many mistakes. Missing letters, things I need to press harder or for longer, etc. It's a massive pain.
Works fine when the keyboard is cool though.
Don't recall if they refunded replacements before they put that policy in place though.
Mostly mentioning this in case someone is sitting on an out-of-warranty MacBook with a failed keyboard.
My left command key quitting on one of those MBPs brought me right up to the edge of bailing on the whole ecosystem; switching back to scissors for the 16" MBP kept me in the garden, for now.
I've been using the same MBR laptop since 2013 for personal use and haven't found any reason to switch. I would be pretty mad if I owned one of these and had to get it fixed, or wanted to resell it and had a lower resell value because of the keyboard.
It also feels worse because they continued manufacturing them for years after they knew there was a problem. 4 years smells similar to the planned obsolescence scandal in iPhones, as it implies that the lifetime of one of these is 4 years which is just not the case in my experience. They are hoping people will say "my laptop needs a new battery and a new keyboard, might as well drop another 2 grand for a new one" instead of keeping their perfectly good laptop.
Word is, it was his baby, and he was convinced that if they just kept tweaking it, they would get it right eventually.
The keyboard I'm typing on feels identical to every other MacBook keyboard I've owned, going back to the titanium PowerBook G4. I expect it will prove comparably durable: never had a key skip or double-press on any of them, and I go hard on my equipment.
I actually liked the crispness of the butterfly keys, but absolute reliability is a hard requirement and they just weren't.
That's only a 1-year extension for people who bought AppleCare. And after you drop out of the warranty period, your machine is basically one speck of dust away from being useless.
A fairer policy would be to give AppleCare customers longer for no-cost fixes, and to offer everyone a reasonably-priced repair for the life of the machine (I was told it would be something north of $700 after the warranty period).
From Apple https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n...
If you believe your Mac notebook was affected by this issue, and you paid to have your keyboard repaired, you can contact Apple about a refund. https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=erep&PRKEYS=PF2&categor...
BUT… my 2016 MBP is on its third keyboard, and seems ready for a fourth.
AND… for four years I've been wondering if my typing has been getting progressively worse worse; a couple weeks ago I picked up an M1 Air as a kind of stopgap while waiting for the M1 16".
LO AND BEHOLD: my typing accuracy got better overnight. That fraction of a millimeter between the keys makes a huge difference.
I love the butterfly keyboard. It was a disaster. RIP.
I haven't had those reliability issues, but 90% of the time work with an external keyboard and I clean my equipment more often than most.
Fwiw, I don't like any of the key systems that have a force threshold they just give up after. I had a Razer gaming keyboard that I didn't like for the same reason. It had good travel, but the keys don't move until you hit a certain force and then they totally cave and there's no resistance. They're also not really designed for typing though.
I have a couple scissor keyboards (the pre-magic ones) and, alternating between the laptop and the desktop one just makes it clear how much the butterfly feels better.
I haven’t heard of any trouble with the fourth gen (the last one before moving back to scissor-switches) at all.
It’s really unfortunate - a lot of people really liked the butterfly keyboard - but the reliability issues in earlier versions combined with the criticisms on key travel meant those voices just didn’t win out.
I’ve found that the dominant cause of RSI is wrist pose (position + orientation), which is mostly influenced by keyboard height (relative to your body), and also to a lesser extent by key pose.
Using a split, rising-away keyboard at a position where elbows are bent 90ish degrees and the wrists are in a neutral position is a game-changer.
Lower key travel/trigger times change the orientation of your wrists, but not the position. So it might make things better, but no laptop keyboard will provide the optimal typing environment.
The cherry mx brown switches in the Das Keyboard cause more pain than the proprietary scissor switches in the Magic Keyboard 2. Fatigue sets in quicker. I tried moving myself and the Contour Rollermouse up relative to the Das Keyboard keeping good ergonomics, but it still seems to have the same effect for me.
I am still shopping for a split keyboard, I definitely want to try it but I see it as a hail mary for reducing pain given that they typically use cherry switches.
Another thing it mentions but doesn’t visualize is the effect of having a split keyboard. Without the split, your shoulders are in a strained position while typing. You can practice this with a “ghost” keyboard and paying attention to your shoulder muscles, it makes a big difference!
[1]: http://ergonomictrends.com/proper-ergonomic-typing-posture-a...
I came from Cherry MX blues back in the day and for whatever reason came to find the obnoxious nature of the super-clacks (which the BF keys also deliver in spades) oddly satisfying.
Some of my colleagues complain of muscle pain from the short key travel on these models. From sitting next to them in pre-Covid days I can only imagine that's due to how hard they used to pound their poor keyboards.
I dreaded moving to the chiclet keyboards and then I dreaded moving to the butterfly, but at least for me they both turned out to be pleasantly surprising upgrades.
The butterfly keyboard implementation was just too fragile, for one. Keyboards need to be able to take a beating.
I like about very low travel time keyboards is that the keys have only two states - pressed or not pressed. With mechanical and other high rise keyboards you have these awkward transitions, where the key activates around halfway through the travel time. So you either stop before the activation point and miss the keystroke, or you overpress the key, bottom out and slow your typing rate dramatically.
That said, I didn't have failures other than a couple of minor occurrences, twice I had to clean out my 2016 (with blown air), and never had any issues on my 2018.
I think it’s a great typing experience but they do break too easily.
I still have so many old keyboards, and a Lenovo laptop and a 2013 Macbook Pro. None of them have ever had a "sticky" key or cracked. 4 months in is too quick to have keyboard problems.
I am assuming it means the lawyers will make bank and I'll get a check for a hundred or so.
The issue was plastered all over the internet with people even writing apps to solve the issue by disabling key-repeat etc.
I go into the store and say "my MacBook is doing the double key press thing, same issue everyone's talking about online", and the guy says to me "oh we are not aware of this". I should have done a Google search to show him all the posts in retrospect.
It was such blatant bullshit. They repaired my MacBook under warranty, but just useless lying to customers.
It fixed many keys for me after I had just about given up.
What's the ground for the class action ? Did Apple make any misleading presentation ? Otherwise, this feels like suing simply because you don't like the product (when they had all the chances to not buy or return).
Apple stuck to the message that the problem was the users, not the switches. For multiple product iterations. They even suggested buying air duster.
Random missed keystrokes long after the return period are the problem. Mine is 3 years old and I just had the keyboard[1] swapped out by Apple under the extended warranty. It was sometimes missing arrow key strokes for a while, but when it started missing spacebar, that was when I got it replaced. They only extended the warranty to 4 years so I figured now was my window.
Apple also claimed several times to have fixed the issue with this keyboard. I believe every year up until 2019 they made these claims. It was never the case. My 2019 MBP from work is in the initial "occasional dust-under-the-key" stage of failure.
[1] - Because the MBP is so unrepairable, they have to replace the battery when they swap the keyboard. So for anyone with one of these, get it replaced for an additional free battery refresh.
The lawsuit itself is clear as to the rationale. [0]
> What's the ground for the class action ?
There are several.
> Did Apple make any misleading presentation ?
As alleged, yes, both about the product itself and what Apple would do if there was a problem (given that failing to uphold the explicit warranty in good faith is one of the claims.)
[0] https://www.girardsharp.com/assets/htmldocuments/2018-10-10%...
As far as I know, Apple followed through with their warranty. There's no safety issues with keyboard failures. Where/when does the company's liability end with their product ?
> Apple is accused of, among other things, violating California's Unfair Competition Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, and breach of express warranty.
I certainly don't know enough about the law to comment on whether they're actually in violation of anything there. But as a complete layperson the argument "Apple knowingly sold keyboards that broke unreasonably quickly, and took a weirdly long time to change that" is persuasive under some vague sense that products should be suitable for reasonable use.
They are specifically accused, among other things, of generally denying warranty service in favor of known-bad self-help recommendations, and also, when accepting units for warranty service, knowingly doing “repairs” that were temporary fixes.