Apple Still Hasn't Fixed Its MacBook Keyboard Problem

Joanna Stern, writing for the Wall Street Journal [the link may be paywalled]: Why is the breaking of my MacBook Air keyboard so insanely maddening? Let's take a trip down Memory Lane. April 2015: Apple releases the all-new MacBook with a 'butterfly' keyboard. In order to achieve extreme thinness, the keys are much flatter than older generations but the butterfly mechanism underneath, for which the keyboard is named, aims to replicate the bounce of a more traditional keyboard. October 2016: The MacBook Pro arrives with a second-generation butterfly keyboard. A few months later, some begin to report that letters or characters don't appear, that keys get stuck or that letters unexpectedly repeat. June 2018: Apple launches a keyboard repair program for what the company says is a 'small percentage' of MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards impacted. July 2018: Apple releases a new high-end MacBook Pro with the third-generation of the keyboard that's said to fix the issues. October 2018: Apple's new MacBook Air also has the third-generation keyboard. I recommend it, and even get one for myself.

Which brings us to the grand year 2019 and my MacBook Air's faulty E and R keys. Others have had problems with Apple's latest laptops, too. A proposed nationwide class-action suit alleges that Apple has been aware of the defective nature of these keyboards since 2015 yet sold affected laptops without disclosing the problem. 'We are aware that a small number of users are having issues with their third-generation butterfly keyboard and for that we are sorry,' an Apple spokesman said in a statement. 'The vast majority of Mac notebook customers are having a positive experience with the new keyboard.' If you have a problem, contact Apple customer service, he added. John Gruber, a long time Apple columnist: I consider these keyboards the worst products in Apple history. MacBooks should have the best keyboards in the industry; instead they're the worst. They're doing lasting harm to the reputation of the MacBook brand.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.