You forgot the third option: Apple can choose to make a 44.999% margin on the machine instead of a 45% margin.
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Apple Ends Butterfly Keyboard Repair Program for MacBooks
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It’s already been four years since the last butterfly MacBook Pro was produced. It’s time to move on.
Unrepairable for an end user is not the same thing as unrepairable for Apple. Apple themselves don't pay the $400+ for a new keyboard that they would charge an end user or repair shop for the same part.
they'll pay an hour of Genius Bar worker @ $16/hr + hour of labor @ $16/hr + parts + shipping of parts + inventory storage + brand damage + lower demand for the product. for what? for a chance at a user encountering a malfunction *after* warranty ends just so that they have to upgrade to the newest product?
does not make financial sense.
The 2012 15" MBP is a great machine. Great keyboard, great trackpad, great screen, upgradeable RAM and HDD/SSD. Sure, some annoyances like tri-wing screws on the battery, but pretty much everybody has a tri-wing screwdriver any more, and phillips screws on the case are nice. I don't remember having to ever swap a logic board on one, LOTS of 2011 logic board swaps (that didn't even fix the problem with that crap video chip). I didn't even have to change many optical drives on 2012s, even those weren't awful. Broken screens, sure, but that's every laptop ever, users are klutzes. Mine has 16GB RAM, 4TB SSD, and I still use it pretty often, I'm keeping it on 10.14 so I can run 32-bit software.
The 2012 13" isn't bad either.
But wow, 2011s were awful. ALL of mine had bad graphics chips - though I really should dig them back out and see if OCLP will resurrect them, it's supposed to patch out the dGPU and just use the iGPU, if they can get as far as booting they might do fine. Not really worth bothering with the 15" ones, but I've got a couple 17", would be nice to have those working again. Hmm, might do that this evening, I wonder how well they'll run macOS 15...
For me it was 2014 MBP to a Lenovo X1E.
Came back to the 2021 16” M1 MBP.
You're wrong on both counts. They are great to type on and they're totally unreliable. I've had tons of issues with mine
Out of how many laptops? 2 can be a big or small number relative to others. Just curious.
I really didn't like the keyboard and had a "sticky" key after just a few months. Never liked that keyboard.
I like this keyboard with its hard key press feel and short key travel. But it's so unreliable and not repairable. Unfortunately butterfly keyboard didn't make it to the next generation of Magic Keyboard.
A friend had a 2015 12".
He had to return it 3 times inside of 3 months. Could not afford the downtime as he was using it for work and switched to a 2015 13" Pro.
For the record, my butterfly keyboard never developed an issue in the 4-5 years I had it. It was the third revision of the keyboard. I was more accurate typing on it than I am on my M2.
LOL. I am fully convinced that MR perhaps hire some writer to anonymously pose as fan boys to drive discussion traffic. There is no way even *after* the official repair program ends, that there are STILL deniers of the issue, right. Right??? (with a Padme face).
nope.
first, can't be *wrong* on something subjective (terrible/great to type)
secondly, you were simply part of the minority in terms of unreliability.
A keyboard shouldn’t work fine for most people, it should work for everyone. Maybe the last generation was more reliable?
Even apple aknowledged the issue, issued an apology, payed a settlement and dropped the design for good. Hardly the thing apple would do if it affected only a few people.
Somehow, people in these forums claim they had 100 MBPs with these keyboards and all of them worked…But considering the back lash, this repair program, I highly doubt those stories are true. Heard so many people with the keyboard being replaced twice at least. Same thing with some of my colleagues. Made me buy a refurbished 2015MBP instead.
I had no issues with the way the butterfly keyboard felt on my old m7 MacBook but it did fail twice and each time it was replaced by Apple.
Macbook 12 - 2015 owner here, some keys started to act weirdly, or needed to be pressed harder, I was actually quite surprised by how easy it is to remove these keys, clean them, and be good to go again.
I don't understand why so many websites say that the whole keyboard has to be replaced when it happens.
I don't understand why so many websites say that the whole keyboard has to be replaced when it happens.
Keyboard itself is fine until the problem with individual keys starts. Had mine replaced twice. And it's not a simple cheap repair. Basically the whole thing is disassembled and the top case is replaced as part of the repair. Really weird that this wasn't uncovered during durability testing. Guess the robot fingers punching these keyboards over and over again where just to soft compared to how some people hit it. Think I started typing more softly after the 2nd replacement
I know it's a matter of personal taste, but I can honestly say that the butterfly keyboard was the vilest keyboard I have ever had the misfortune to use on a laptop, so much so that I sold my 2017 MacBook Pro after less than a year and went back to using my 2015 model which I still had, I just couldn't stand it, and wouldn't have bought another MacBook had they continued to use it.
As a user of gadgets throughout my life (usually, I barely have issues with something), I can say it definitelly wasn't a small percentage.