Apple is Working To Speed Up Repairs of Its Bad MacBook Keyboards

Apple is now conducting repairs of MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro keyboards on-site at its stores, and it's promising a next-day turnaround for pickup in many cases. From a report: The company previously sent machines out to its repair depot, but it's now telling its Genius Bar employees to handle "most" keyboard-related repairs at the store "until further notice." The company wrote in a service memo that "additional service parts have been shipped to stores to support the increased volume." Apple's attempt to expedite the keyboard repair process is just the latest development in the ongoing saga of the much-maligned butterfly keyboards that are found on all modern Mac laptops. The keys are vulnerable to sudden failure and unpredictable behavior if dust or outside debris makes its way into the mechanism.

There's so much wrong with new MacBooks

[Lucas123]

I have a 2017 MacBook Pro and it's the worst of the five models I've owned. It's slow, lacks anything but USB Type-C ports (and no $49.99 USB Type-A adapters come with it), has a keyboard that it difficult to navigate because the keys are flat without any profile... and then there's the "virtual touchbar" -- a technology looking for a purpose.

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[ilsaloving]

Agreed. I am using a 2015 MBP and it was the last version that was borderline reasonable. Still leaves a lot to be desired, but it's just before the "jump the shark" moment when Apple shoved their heads so far up their asses that their heads popped back out of their shoulders.

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[93 Escort Wagon]

My main computer is a 2015 MacBook Pro, and I actually think it's a great laptop.

The more recent ones, though... I had to use one for a few weeks, back in 2017 or thereabouts (back before the keyboard failures were becoming an issue). I disliked that keyboard when I started, and absolutely hated it after having used it for those weeks. I don't know what their designers were thinking - it certainly wasn't about a good typing experience.

And the Touch Bar... what a ridiculous thing. All the negatives of using

Re: To me the new ones are OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple could sell you a rock and you'd praise them.

"I really love this new rock, it's unlike any rock I've seen before. Even tho this rock cost me $2000, I say money well spent because, well because it's an apple rock. Of course.

Re:To me the new ones are OK

[fluffernutter]

It's really amusing that you are lamenting that Apple doesn't make MORE things to sell to you rather than making the (expensive) device itself fully capable.

Re:To me the new ones are OK

[Penguinisto]

Dunno, man... I personally feel as if I dodged a bullet with the 2017+ models. My last personal laptop, a 2012 model, was awesome. I beat the crap out of it all the way up until this past September, modded it with a 2nd HDD and bumped it as high as I could go, spec-wise... then gave it to my daughter, who tells me even now that she uses it near-daily.

My original reason for going with the Acer Aspire I have now was Apple's lack of an nVidia GPU, let alone a decent one (most render engines I play with these days are iRay/CUDA-based). Wasn't in much mood to drop $2.5k on a laptop then $800 more on a decent external GPU... not happening.

And then... my work laptop (2015-ish MBP) finally died, and the replacement I got from work, while operating just fine so far, is a raging pain in the ass. The touch bar gets in the way more than it helps, the 3-acre trackpad gets in the way even more, and the tiny-assed keyboard keys have like zero travel. Now I have to use an external bluetooth mouse and keyboard to get any real work done on the thing.

Apple really needs to either step up their laptop game (to their previous zenith at least) or they need to just drop all pretense, stop making computers, and call themselves a phone maker.

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[ilsaloving]

I'm in the same boat. I've used a 2017 model briefly and took an immediate dislike to it. I'm currently on a 2015 and, as I mentioned in another post, it's the last model Apple put out before they went off their medication.

Make no mistake, I'm not happy with the 2015. Totally unupgradable and I need a dongle just to use ethernet. But at least it still has USB-A ports and an HDMI port, so I'm able to connect almost everything I need. If this thing dies I dunno what I'm gonna do.

I've been using Linux on

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[tsqr]

I mostly really like mine, too; but I think my reasons are different than yours.

1. 1. It was free (provided by the company I work for).
2. 2. I don't care about the ports; the company I work for provided all the adapters I need.
3. 3. I don't care about the keyboard or the touchbar, because I use it with the lid closed, connected to an external keyboard and a large external monitor.
4. 4. When I take it home, I use the adapter, external keyboard, and large external monitor provided for me by the company I work for,

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[Agripa]

I even like really flat keyboards. I think if Apple could really resolve the design issues that lead to the keyboards breaking for some people, they would go back to being more generally loved.

How much and how quickly do you type?

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[Solandri]

A client needed to upgrade his Macs (2008 iMac and 2012 Macbook Pro). All he does is dump photos from his DSLR to the Mac, occasionally editing one. I looked at his workload and the current models... and recommended we just upgrade his 2012 MBP to 8 GB and a 2 TB SSD for less than $300. 1 TB probably would've been enough, but his current storage use was at 600 GB and I didn't want him to have to start juggling files between internal and external storage if he passed 900 GB in the next 5 years (hopefully A

Re:

[wafflemonger]

The touchbar would be nice if you could pin one application's functions there. For example, if you could leave the controls for your video conferencing application on the taskbar and interact with a browser. The mute/unmute function is right there ready to be used, and you can keep working on your stuff for the meeting.

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[dgatwood]

There should also be a way to disable it in certain apps. In some apps, where I have to do weird key combinations involving holding down modifier keys and hitting number keys between clicks, the false-triggering rate is staggering.

That said, I haven't sworn at it lately; I'm not sure if I'm getting more accurate or if they've reduced the false triggering problems. Either way, if I could switch to a real keyboard without the touchbar, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[bob4u2c]

My last job was at a place that had a group of Apple only users, so all web development work had to support Safari with no ui glitches. So I had a 3 monitor setup with one of them dedicated to a VM of OSX just for testing Safari. My motto was code for Chrome, tweak for IE, and adjust for Safari.

I often had people who would see the OSX screen and ask how I got two computers. I'd have to show them I was really running a beige box. Then the explanation that OSX was just a program, like Word or Powerpoint

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[Leslie43]

It's slow and lacking functions because Apple essentially gutted the Mac development.
Mac makes up 10% of Apple profits (as per a quarterly report I looked at), has some of the highest development costs and doesn't translate to app and music sales ($$) as much as the Iphones do, as such the device and OS has languished. It doesn't take full advantage of newer processor tech and increased ram as well as it should so while it's faster than the older models, it's not nearly the jump you would have seen on Win

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[ilsaloving]

I think you'll find that most Mac diehards *have* figured it out already. At least on the tech side, I don't know one single person that is happy with the direction Apple has gone. Not a single one.

And here's where it gets truely sad... The primary reason to continue using Apple? "It's not Windows". And that is a perfectly fair argument. Apple takes your wallet and has a nice old gangbang with it. But at least once that happens, it's over. Windows screws over your time, your productivity, your priva

Re: I have a Butterfly keyboard...

[Anonymous Coward]

The MacBook keyboards from 2017 just need to be thrown in the trash. You couldn't pay me to use one for any reason

2009 macbook keyboard is fine - what happened

[beckett]

typing this on a 2009 macbook. It has an easily replaceable battery, SSD, and ram. its the first one with aluminum body, so the keyboard feels extremely solid. every key still works great even with a decade of nacho grease and the occasional coffee spill. the command key picked up a small toke burn, but keeps going like a champ. i've never looked at this computer and thought "this could be thinner".

Apple used to make easy to repair computers. Apple had bulletproof case/keyboard designs for their notebooks 10 years ago. What the fuck happened, you burks?

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[ilsaloving]

A non-engineer took over the company, that's what. This is so predictable at this point that you can almost set your watch to it. HP used to make really good stuff too until their founders stepped aside.

Unfortunately Apple won't be able to bring Jobs back a 3rd time without a seance, so there's no one to pull their asses out of the fire. That's probably why Tim Cook is building such a massive war chest... so Apple can enjoy a much longer slide to irrelevance.

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[ilsaloving]

I realize your are an AC so by definition a clueless moron, but I'll indulge:

A CEO who is an engineer has an eye to the products the company makes. They can see how the product will impact users. They see how the product fits into the ecosystem of other products and (generally speaking) can make sane choices regarding product direction.

A CEO who is an accountant is only able to do one thing: Make money. The product is just an inconvenient tool for the accumulation of profit, and if he can accomplish the

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[alvinrod]

Jobs was the one constantly pushing for thinner, less user accessible/repairable hardware, etc. If Cook is guilty of anything, it's that he has no distinct vision of his own and just blindly carries on doing what he thinks Jobs would have done. This isn't necessarily a bad idea if you believe that Jobs had a perfect vision or the best one (in terms of maximizing value) but you still run into the problem that no one else is Jobs and they'll occasionally guess wrong.

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[AmiMoJo]

Apple realized that they were failing to monetize repairs properly by making them too easy. Also why allow people to buy cheaper upgrades at a later date when you can force them to pay whatever you like at the time of purchase?

It was all going great until they made the unreliable keyboard. 0.1mm thinner it may be, but having to replace the entire top half of the laptop under warranty was eating in to their profits a bit so now they are trying to reduce the cost.

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[antdude]

Greeds, controls, etc. :(

Fuck Apple

[Pezbian]

I used to respect Apple for their innovative spirit. Since Steve Jobs bit off... nope. I have my own issues with Steve's behaviour while he was among the living, but that's another story for another time. ["I like to park in Handicap spaces while handicapped people make handicapped faces."]

Apple, wake up before it's too late.

[GregMmm]

This is how Apple went down hill last time (When Steve Jobs left the first time, not when he died). Look, this is simply a keyboard. A stupid keyboard. How long did they ignore their customers on this issue. Now their replacing, but to what damage to your rep? Was the cheap little keyboard worth saving the whatever you did? Peeps would be fired if Steve Jobs was still around, or it would never have been allowed to leave the company.

This just make Apple look silly.

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[nonicknameavailable]

Well they worked for years and i didn't have to upgrade if i didn't want to now they die easily and you have to upgrade to the newest to get the newest os

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[bob4u2c]

What keyboard issue? The keyboards are awesome, they are Apple keyboards, how dare you question Apple! All this genius thing is, is just a smoke screen. They just take it in the back, wipe if off, then bring it back out. The customer sees a shiny keyboard again and says it works much better now. Never was a problem, never will be a problem with any product Apple makes; to say otherwise is heresy!

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[jwymanm]

I think Steve would've shot the manager out of a cannon and made sure he never worked in the business again. I don't get why there is no expose on this or any reporting. It's a huge industry let down. I don't think Tim takes things to heart as much as Steve did. He probably sees PCs almost lose them money and just doesn't give a shit since he's got bigger fish to fry. You keep trying to find that larger fish to fry you end up letting all your already captured fish rot and eventually you're just left with on

Difference between 737 Max and Apple keyboards

[JoeyRox]

There's a fix coming for the 737 Max.

being prepared for repairs

[v1]

When I was working at an AASP, I kept an entire box of macbook keyboards on-hand to replace damaged key caps. Unfortunately there were at least 11 different varieties, with different shaped actions and orientations, which is why we needed to have so many on-hand.

We were able to do that because at the time a "top case" was considered a low-cost cosmetic part and was NRET, meaning when one broke and we replaced it, we didn't have to send the broken one back. So if we didn't have any/enough of that model on-

My experience with a macbook pro.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a software dev and need the BSD compat layer for work. I've used apple products for over a decade and they've served me well. Bought a new 2017 macbook pro in July 2017. The first year was fine, but then ...

Apple had a recall in November 2018 to changes the SSD controller, insisted on wiping the SSD. Laptop gone for 1 week.
Received "fix" in late November with 90 day warranty.
Two keys flake out late December 2018.
Apple replaced keyboard + battery + some logic board (all one unit), and insisted on wipi

Bad keyboards have migrated to the iMac as well

[timholman]

I just got my work iMac upgraded to the latest model. The new Mac wireless keyboard, to put it plainly, sucks. For some reason Apple has decided that the same crappy minimal travel keys on their current laptops must be exactly what users want on their desktop, too. Compared to the previous keyboard from 5 years ago, I find myself constantly mistyping on it. But at least I can buy a decent keyboard to get around that.

On the plus side, I'm about to score a replacement for my beat-as-hell mid-2012 MacBook Pro. One of my neighbors has a 15" mid-2012 model that she only used for one year while in grad school, and has since been sitting in storage. With 16 GB of DRAM and a new 2 TB Samsung 860 EVO drive, I'll be back in business for at least the next two or three years. Maybe, just maybe, some degree of sanity may return to the MacBook line one day, and Apple will market a new laptop that I'll actually want to buy.