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Apple Launches Repair Program for Faulty MacBook and MacBook Pro Keyboards
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The keyboard you’re referring to is a different generation than the one I was referring to. Yes, it is also elegible for the repair, but it is not the same keyboard as the one found in the MBPs.
Now buy them from Apple and recheck. The USB-C to USB-A is $19 alone.
Always get AppleCare (now+) for portables, and the highest end desktops like MacPro and iMac/iMac pro - the cost of repairs is astounding.
I guess you are asking about future purchases, not the 2010 MBP.
No. Before announcement, it was about $400 to repair the keyboard. What about four years later? Same price or more expensive for Apple to make up of that they are going to do the next four years??
They could make it even thinner yet by only relying on eGPU. But why stop there? Imagine how thin they could make it if they relied only on eRAM and eCPU. And when they don't have RAM, CPU or GPU in there, there's hardly any need for power delivery anymore. Plus no need for much else either actually. And maybe TB4 will be wireless, so no need for ports either. Wet dream of a minimalist laptop designer?
love how they always prefix issues with 'a small percentage' of affected units. pretty sure design defects exist across all units
I don't know, I kind of like the new one. I like how clicky it is.
love how they always prefix issues with 'a small percentage' of affected units. pretty sure design defects exist across all units
At Apple, it's always "a small percentage" with ****ups, and "biggest ever" with sales.
No, it will be the same keyboard. They would have to redesign the entire machine to have a different keyboard. They can’t just swap them with the 2015 MBP since there is just no clearance. I’m guessing they will release a 3rd generation butterfly mechanism with slightly higher key travel at least on the MBPs. The 2nd gen design is already much better than what shipped on the original 2015 12” MacBook.
That statements gives the impression that aiming for 2-3% failure of anything is a good figure to aspire to. Just imagine if a new drug killed 2-3% of the population...
If they're making a profit on service and repairs like they must have up to now, a higher failure rate would actually be desirable as long as it doesn't hurt sales too much.
As someone who repairs laptops for a living, it would be interesting to see some more specific data provided on the faulty keyboards. For example...
I've worked in some very large environments where hundreds of laptops are deployed each year, 400+, mostly HP Elitebooks and Lenovo Thinkpad T series, but also some MacBook Pros. The problem with faulty equipment is that while, there is a failure on some level because of design, sometimes the design issues may not have failed, but do so in an accelerated fashion because of the "type" of user. In 15yrs of repairing laptops, I've seen many come back after the 2-3 lease period in absolutely mint pristine condition, almost like it was never used. But I've also seen laptops come back after the 2-3 years, and in some cases even 6 months, where the user must just beat the crap out of the laptop. They eat so much food over it, you could make a meal from what's under the keyboard. I've witnessed how many user's carry their laptops by the top of the screen when walking down the halls, I've seen user's just bash the keyboard on every keystroke, wild abuse to their equipment. And this doesn't just apply corporate equipment, I've seen equal done to personal laptops.
In reading the numbers, which I've heard everything from 4-8% up to 20-40%, it would be very interesting to know if you layered each user type overtop of the failures, how many keyboards failed not just because of the design, but where it may never have given a problem, the user's abuse accelerated the failure. And I will also add, I think the user's environment should be considered, eg; very duster, dirty, clean office, factory, etc... And just because someone use's a 15" top end Pro, doesn't mean they are any less likely to abuse the thing, I see it happen everyday.
Now for sure, many of the keyboard failures, "just happened". The user's typed on it like grandma, or they treat their MacBook like a god and carry it around on a silk pillow, and still it just failed. There's a percentage of the MacBooks that will never experience this issue, and then their's a percentage of MacBooks that will definitely experience the failure, and some "may". But it's those the "may" fail, and those that did fail, I'd be really interesting in knowing if the user was a keyboard basher, and it accelerated the issue, or caused it to happened on their device in which it may never have happened, but due to the user's abuse it did fail (design fault included).
The other issue I have with all the negative feedback towards the issue is that PC's actually do tend to be far worst in QA, and failures, but it seems Apple always takes the shots. Maybe because they are much larger and people just expect quality. Can't falter that... but I'll explain...
So say in my deployments of hundreds of laptops, we deployed the HP Elitebook 840 G3, which isn't a cheap laptop either, around $2500+ taxes configured with warranty. We probably saw 1 in 10 laptops with issues where a key fell off. And knowing the user's that it did happen to, I know they were not laptop "abusers". I'd also say 4-5 out of 10 Elitebook's saw the SSD drop dead within the first 1yr, and 6+ within the 3 years. Now we were deploying 400+/year, and if you take all the massive banks & large institutions that deploy HP, Lenovo, and Dell equipment, and then you start adding up numbers, you have large failure rates as well but no class action law suits like against Apple. And the numbers for failures on PC manufacture laptops are probably far north of what this keyboard failure % is with the MacBooks.
I own a Lenovo T450s, and as nice as it is to use, good luck opening the thing. The bottom case it secured to the top by tiny cheap plastic hooks and clips, that no matter how careful you are, you'll break. And since the clips are part of the top case that house the guts, you'll then have to replace the entire top cover. A complete failure of design.
I also *owned a Dell XPS 13" 9370 (2018 model) that had severe coil whine, but apparently to Dell, and the Microsoft Store, some laptops may experience coil whine and it's normal. Normal?!? Yeah, I paid $2k to listen to coil whine. And even after having it exchanged, the replacement was just as bad, but the Dell XPS line are apparently prone to coil whine. Ridiculous.
And finally I current own and use the 2017 MacBook Pro 13" nTB, and which I'm probably in the minority but I love the keyboard and the audible noise from typing. I use it equally with my T450s. Both are great laptops. (If you can look past the Lenovo design faults too).
It just would be nice to have all the data, not just a % failure rate number tossed out, because there are other variables that may have participated in the actual failure, even if it's a flawed design. User interaction, environment, etc.
I've worked in some very large environments where hundreds of laptops are deployed each year, 400+, mostly HP Elitebooks and Lenovo Thinkpad T series, but also some MacBook Pros. The problem with faulty equipment is that while, there is a failure on some level because of design, sometimes the design issues may not have failed, but do so in an accelerated fashion because of the "type" of user. In 15yrs of repairing laptops, I've seen many come back after the 2-3 lease period in absolutely mint pristine condition, almost like it was never used. But I've also seen laptops come back after the 2-3 years, and in some cases even 6 months, where the user must just beat the crap out of the laptop. They eat so much food over it, you could make a meal from what's under the keyboard. I've witnessed how many user's carry their laptops by the top of the screen when walking down the halls, I've seen user's just bash the keyboard on every keystroke, wild abuse to their equipment. And this doesn't just apply corporate equipment, I've seen equal done to personal laptops.
In reading the numbers, which I've heard everything from 4-8% up to 20-40%, it would be very interesting to know if you layered each user type overtop of the failures, how many keyboards failed not just because of the design, but where it may never have given a problem, the user's abuse accelerated the failure. And I will also add, I think the user's environment should be considered, eg; very duster, dirty, clean office, factory, etc... And just because someone use's a 15" top end Pro, doesn't mean they are any less likely to abuse the thing, I see it happen everyday.
Now for sure, many of the keyboard failures, "just happened". The user's typed on it like grandma, or they treat their MacBook like a god and carry it around on a silk pillow, and still it just failed. There's a percentage of the MacBooks that will never experience this issue, and then their's a percentage of MacBooks that will definitely experience the failure, and some "may". But it's those the "may" fail, and those that did fail, I'd be really interesting in knowing if the user was a keyboard basher, and it accelerated the issue, or caused it to happened on their device in which it may never have happened, but due to the user's abuse it did fail (design fault included).
The other issue I have with all the negative feedback towards the issue is that PC's actually do tend to be far worst in QA, and failures, but it seems Apple always takes the shots. Maybe because they are much larger and people just expect quality. Can't falter that... but I'll explain...
So say in my deployments of hundreds of laptops, we deployed the HP Elitebook 840 G3, which isn't a cheap laptop either, around $2500+ taxes configured with warranty. We probably saw 1 in 10 laptops with issues where a key fell off. And knowing the user's that it did happen to, I know they were not laptop "abusers". I'd also say 4-5 out of 10 Elitebook's saw the SSD drop dead within the first 1yr, and 6+ within the 3 years. Now we were deploying 400+/year, and if you take all the massive banks & large institutions that deploy HP, Lenovo, and Dell equipment, and then you start adding up numbers, you have large failure rates as well but no class action law suits like against Apple. And the numbers for failures on PC manufacture laptops are probably far north of what this keyboard failure % is with the MacBooks.
I own a Lenovo T450s, and as nice as it is to use, good luck opening the thing. The bottom case it secured to the top by tiny cheap plastic hooks and clips, that no matter how careful you are, you'll break. And since the clips are part of the top case that house the guts, you'll then have to replace the entire top cover. A complete failure of design.
I also *owned a Dell XPS 13" 9370 (2018 model) that had severe coil whine, but apparently to Dell, and the Microsoft Store, some laptops may experience coil whine and it's normal. Normal?!? Yeah, I paid $2k to listen to coil whine. And even after having it exchanged, the replacement was just as bad, but the Dell XPS line are apparently prone to coil whine. Ridiculous.
And finally I current own and use the 2017 MacBook Pro 13" nTB, and which I'm probably in the minority but I love the keyboard and the audible noise from typing. I use it equally with my T450s. Both are great laptops. (If you can look past the Lenovo design faults too).
It just would be nice to have all the data, not just a % failure rate number tossed out, because there are other variables that may have participated in the actual failure, even if it's a flawed design. User interaction, environment, etc.
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I second that, bbu my keeybboard seemss to diferrr
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For me -- I haven't had one of these devices, I've just been considering getting one -- the problem isn't so much that design problems happen, or that manufacturing problems happen. While undesirable, it's how our world works currently. And I have no idea what the %%'s are, or whether Apple have higher or lower failure rates than anyone else. What concerns me is how they deal with the problems once they do occur. And how they have designed a laptop where it's more or less impossible to repair or replace the keyboard without replacing half the casing. I've had many PC laptops through the years, and while none of them were design miracles, I also don't remember having or hearing about any issues that would stop you from using the device for days or weeks while it gets repaired and the repairs costing up to half of a new device. This is the main issue for me.
Now I do suspect that the whole issue is probably way overstated by users, and especially so in forums like this one. I also suspect that the issue is understated by Apple. They must have known about the potential of these issues for at least 18 months now. That's a pretty long time to not do anything about it. Not fix the design or manufacturing defect, but also not acknowledging the problem. But they seem to be doing the right thing now, so that's good.
When drawing a single conclusion from this, I would say "Never ever think of making even a single element more fragile - and have your keyboard tested by a team of professional drummers before launch"
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Ah. To be open: "Joni is beyond criticism, but firing all his subordinates is slightly complex so we decided to just throw some money on to this. Of which we have so much left that nobody wil actually notice..."It's the right move, little late equally the right thing to do. We should also look to understand the driving factors that created this situation, and not solely accept the solution blindly.
Apple needs to step up to the plate and start to be more open with it's customers. Stop being reactionary and revert to innovation. It's no longer the 1980's, Apple now needs to listen to It's professional audience. We are far more well versed, far more sophisticated. Disregarding us as not understanding our profession requirements is plainly unwise.
Bottom line Apple is far better off with us on the team, than batting for the other side. Apple wants to be recognised as provider of professional hardware and software it needs to be more open, and understanding of our needs, most importantly deliver. Are you simply satisfied with the Mac being something that looks nice with mediocre performance? I for one and many others are not...
Many current Windows notebooks are now encroaching into iMac levels of performance. Very much time for Apple to decide which side of the fence it sits, it's time to play the game or "fold" and go see what colour best complements Latte Mochachino with caramel...
Q-6
Sponsored by Asahi beer and Hendriks Gin
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Impressive.
But the Cook recipe to this: then sell at least 41% more - and we have a minor number of complaints
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Same here. I ended up tossing a $10 BT cheapo keyboard with me all day because I can't afford to miss my gear that often.
It is hilarious and cumbersome, but it keeps me at work - despite today's Apple