Apple May Have Quietly Addressed 'Flexgate' in 2018 MacBook Pros

[cmaier]

What’s funny is instead of bitching about flexgate, butterfly keyboard gate, touchbarsucks gate, and other real problems, the vast majority of the whining “apple sucks” macrumors posters (which is now 95 percent of posters, most of whom joined two weeks ago) instead bitch about stupid stuff like their tv series strategy or “too many emojis.”

If you are going to whine, at least whine about the right stuff.
[doublepost=1551795445][/doublepost]

My 2018 MBP has had zero broken keyboards, no problems with flex, no graphical glitches (Vega 20), zero issues with the T2 chip. I must be lucky. Or maybe the minority of devices with issues reported on these forums blow the issues out of proportion?

You have a 2018 mpb. It’s still new. The keyboard problems might yet come. I don’t know anyone personally or in the iOS developer community via twitter that hasn’t had a key go bad, though the rates for 2018 machines are still not clear since most of us have 2017 or 2016.

 

[curtvaughan]

Let's see...all these "problems" were only mentioned by a few people here and there online, and never gained any traction, sign that are probably issues that occur very very rarely, nothing systemic. So I would venture to say that 99% of MacBook "Pro" are probably working properly? Mine is, and the ten of thousands my company provides to its employees are at least, we all use Touch Bar MBP at this point and I never saw people suffering these issues, aside from a couple of colleagues having issue with a key on the keyboard. I am sure someone suffered these issues, like it happens with all man made items, but pretending these are serious widespread issues...sign of the times I guess.

It has happened enough times to make me likely not to risk $2000+ on my getting one of the lemons. If 1% or .1% of the product is demonstrably defective the manufacturer should offer repair or replacement for a reasonable price. I couldn't find sales estimates for MBP's, but total Mac sales for 2018 looks to be roughly 18 million. So doing the math, 1% is about 180000, and .1% around 18000. For relatively cheap products, let's say a cheap PC running around $300 or less, I'm more likely to accept such a failure rate as an acceptable risk for price paid. I'm not inclined to be so forgiving/accepting of that rate of failure for a laptop running 2-5 thousand dollars. This is especially a problem when the failures tend to happen after the warranty has expired, and for reasons beyond the customer's control with normal use. This becomes further problematic if design forces major circuit board or subassembly replacement for failures of individual components (such as keyboards costing $400 to replace a $50 part, and with the "flexgate" issue costing $700 to fix a $6 cable).

 

[MacBH928]

My problem with this is that I feel like when Tim Cook's MBP gets broken, he over reaches to the shelves next to his desk and grab a new one of the 7 spare top of the line MBPs and think to himself "These customers are never happy..."

Its because unlike you, most people don't make your paycheck and for them to buy $2000+ laptop they probably have been saving for a couple of years, they can't have it malfunction because the richest company in the world decided to make it 2mm thinner and didn't double think about the quality control.

People have been paying top dollar for Apple brand because of the trust that historically it has been of a high grade quality that lasts a very long time (I know it did in my case). If they continue this malfunctioning path, they might face the fate of Yahoo which once meant "The internet's homepage.." to "The abomination of the internet..."

In the market for a new laptop....

This makes me reconsider.

Especially Macrumours warning that due to no Apple recognition , consumers can expect to pay full price for this known issue.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/flexgate-macbook-pro-display-issue/

I hear the Surface Laptop 2 and Dell XPS are extremely good

 

[BuCkDoG]

This is great news! About time!

 

[dantracht]

Meanwhile, my mid-2012 non-rmbp keeps chugging along.

 

[5105973]

Meanwhile, my mid-2012 non-rmbp keeps chugging along.

Mine, too. I'd wanted to update it, but after doing a bit of research decided a cheaper PC would suffice for the things I wanted to do and the old laptop is still just fine, though a bit pokey at times. I had bought that laptop and paid the "Apple tax" for it precisely because it was supposed to be as reliable and long lived as it has been.

 

[dantracht]

Mine, too. I'd wanted to update it, but after doing a bit of research decided a cheaper PC would suffice for the things I wanted to do and the old laptop is still just fine, though a bit pokey at times. I had bought that laptop and paid the "Apple tax" for it precisely because it was supposed to be as reliable and long lived as it has been.

I've replaced the HDD for an SSD and upgraded the ram to 16, and it's my daily driver and my go to to get actual work done. At my last job I had a 2017, and for a brief period, a 2018, and I always found myself preferring my good old 2012.

 

[MacLoveMacHate]

"a full 2mm longer." Well Got damn.

 

[curtvaughan]

And as long as you continue to pay for that level of quality and don't receive it, Apple has no incentive to do anything differently.

Most Apple customers are not much different than the hardcore fans. They're locked into the ecosystem and while they grumble about things like the loss of the headphone jack on the iPhone, a notch, high prices, they still buy the product. There's a current dip in iPhone sales due to the high price, but that is only temporary. Those holdouts will need to replace their iPhone... if not this past cycle, then the next. They'll bite the bullet and pay the price because there is no other option for them (and Apple will discontinue the older, cheaper models).

I continue to be perplexed as to why so many come to Apple's defense whenever the awareness of a defect is raised. Looking at the trackrecord of such customer reports, when was the last time that such a report of a hardware issue turned out to be nothing?

Well, I'm one former Apple "believer" who has gradually fallen out of the walled garden. I quit buying iPhones when the headphone jack was dropped - I still like my music over high quality wired headphones/speakers. Combine that act of bravery by Apple with the decision to force face id over touch id, and that decision is further reinforced. My last iPad was an iPad Pro 12, 2017 model, which sported a headphone jack, touch id, and no flexion problems - the latest models no longer have those features. I won't buy anymore Apple laptops until they come with standard ports such as USB 2/3 ports, SD card readers, reliable keyboards and displays, and adequate cooling. I still have a late 2017 iMac which is working fine, but fear it will exhibit cooling issues in another year or so, as all of my last three iMacs did - its design makes it difficult to clean, so after 3 years or so all of my iMacs begin to exhibit excessive fan noise and heat problems. The jury's out as to whether I'll purchase a new iMac if my current one falls into the same pattern - it depends on whether the designs in the future address the issue. All of this stuff, combined with high prices and expensive costs of repairs, have led me to move away from most Apple products. I don't think I'm unique among long time Apple customers who have become disappointed with Apple's product designs and quality control over the last 3 years. The new high end PC laptops and Android phones have improved enough to be very competitive with Apple's offers, especially when I can still avoid Microsoft by using Linux on PCs. I miss the relative security Apple phones have compared to Android, but recent publicity regarding snooping by App Store applications makes even that a bit sketchy. A shame, really, but it's the direction Apple has taken. I think a new generation of younger consumers will have much less incentive to purchase Apple phone and computer hardware. They will have no reason to give Apple the benefit of the doubt regarding its stellar reputation, as they have no memory of the decades of excellence upon which that reputation was based.

 

[BWhaler]

Maybe Apple can quietly fix the junk keyboards too?

A full replacement with something reliably and joyful to type of would be great.

 

[pmau]

Maybe Apple can quietly fix the junk keyboards too?

A full replacement with something reliably and joyful to type of would be great.

They did publicly change the keyboard to a new generation to explicitly exclude these MacBooks from any damage claims.
They did admit the keyboard issue, they did not however address flexgate.

Components of suppliers are probably updated all the time, just because they improve on the manufacturing or make it cheaper. As long as it is not a design change, which the keyboard was, Apple can do as they please.

PS: Yes. I argue that a different cable is not a design change, because Apple will argue the same way.

 

[citysnaps]

My 2017 13-inch - less than a year in: spacebar is starting to be sticky, graphics is going crazy in Fusion/Resolve.
The worst is the glitches are being rendered, not only displayed
Counting Powerbooks I'm probably on my Apple laptop #20. Absolutely no problems before.
They are not only completely not reliable anymore, they are more expensive every year.
As someone mentioned in another thread - you can get 64GB of RAM in a Lenovo P1 for almost the same money
Apple wants for 32GB (64GB not available). 32GB in Lenovo is 3x less expensive. Same RAM.
We are talking probably the most expensive PC brand.
Better screens, better graphics, 64GB RAM. All that for much less money.
When MBP was a great reliable machine, I paid the Apple tax. Now - it simply makes zero sense.

By all means, purchase that Lenovo laptop. Godspeed and courage moving forward. Since all of my Apple laptops/desktops have been super reliable* over the years, I'll continue to purchase Apple computers.

* With the exception of my two cheese grater MacPros. One had a logic board failure, another its power supply. But that was under the regime of a different Apple CEO.

 

[PhilipPeake]

Most likely, this will simply extend the life a few months, just enough to get it out of the warranty period.

 

[Baymowe335]

let's see... Broken keyboards, flexgate, graphics glitches, T2 chip fiasco.
Anything is working properly in their Macbook "Pro"?

Data on how many were impacted? Overreaction, as usual.

 

[PhilipPeake]

I've replaced the HDD for an SSD and upgraded the ram to 16, and it's my daily driver and my go to to get actual work done. At my last job I had a 2017, and for a brief period, a 2018, and I always found myself preferring my good old 2012.

I used my old 2011 until recently when the video card bit the dust.
Gritted my teeth and bought a 2018.

I have a 2017 from work, so I already knew about the touch-bar. I have neutered it as much as I can, but wish I had the option of not having it.

I spent the extra money for 32GB memory and 1TB disk. I do some image processing with it.
It is much faster than the 2011 was, but ... the stupid thing has thermal problems and the processing program just dies with no indication as to why. Run it in a VERY cold environment and it works.

So I am forced to restrict the number of CPU threads that are used by the application to avoid this problem
and now its not a lot faster than the 2011 was!!

 

[zla]

This just brings me back to what the executive said about the huge research facility apple created to study how people move and exercise so that the watch would be just right....

something didn't feel right about him using that as an example.. and it's because the first apple watch was released in 2015.. 4 years ago and it was said to be one of the last things Jobs had a part in.

So, the best example they can think of when it comes to dumping money into project innovation is something that Jobs had a part in.

I keep thinking back to how I always hear that Tim is a bean counter, I've worked around those types, they aren't the ones that are over-testing the products and going through great lengths of man power and financial resources to ensure everything is the best of the best.

Long story short, after Steve they stopped pouring money into extravagant testing because Cook is too stingy. What do we get?

Touch bar glitches
Graphics glitches
t2 chip issues
Keyboard failures
flex cable failures
very bendable ipad pros
blown out speakers
listening in on calls before the other person answers facetime
oh and the list goes on.

These things can all be caught with testing and some of them it is insane to think that they weren't caught. Really unbelievable. I have no interest in being a tester for apple products, which is why my last mac was a 2014 MBP. I did a "wait and see" with the 2016 macbook pro since it was the first big one without Steve and man am I glad I waited. It seems it only gets worse with each passing quarter.

 

[mike2q]

Well at least the people here who think Apple's huge profit margin is a good thing will have something to cheer about. Thanks to the Amazing T2 chip customers will be protected from reasonable repair prices ensuring even more profit for each MBP sold. At least until Apple decides it's too old to repair at which time you'll be invited to buy a brand new MBP.

 

[crawfish963]

Perhaps only for the USA ?
Since asbestos use is still legal there LOL...

MADE IN THE USA ...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-proposal-on-asbestos-critics-outraged/

I always enjoy the anti-American crowd. High on your perch, posting on a device designed by Americans on a forum started by Americans, using the internet started by Americans to be used by computers, invented by Americans. But let me know what great contributions Singapore has made to history.

 

[Val-kyrie]

let's see... Broken keyboards, flexgate, graphics glitches, T2 chip fiasco.
Anything is working properly in their Macbook "Pro"?

My 2017 13-inch - less than a year in: spacebar is starting to be sticky, graphics is going crazy in Fusion/Resolve.
The worst is the glitches are being rendered, not only displayed
Counting Powerbooks I'm probably on my Apple laptop #20. Absolutely no problems before.
They are not only completely not reliable anymore, they are more expensive every year.
As someone mentioned in another thread - you can get 64GB of RAM in a Lenovo P1 for almost the same money
Apple wants for 32GB (64GB not available). 32GB in Lenovo is 3x less expensive. Same RAM.
We are talking probably the most expensive PC brand.
Better screens, better graphics, 64GB RAM. All that for much less money.
When MBP was a great reliable machine, I paid the Apple tax. Now - it simply makes zero sense.

And this is why I am now steering my clients away from Apple laptops. It is one thing to have a flaw that affects one part of a computer and to address it subsequently; it is another to have multiple design flaws which linger through multiple generations of a product line. I won’t ruin my reputation on behalf of Apple.

 

[cmaier]

They did publicly change the keyboard to a new generation to explicitly exclude these MacBooks from any damage claims.
They did admit the keyboard issue, they did not however address flexgate.

Components of suppliers are probably updated all the time, just because they improve on the manufacturing or make it cheaper. As long as it is not a design change, which the keyboard was, Apple can do as they please.

PS: Yes. I argue that a different cable is not a design change, because Apple will argue the same way.

The “change” you refer to did not address the issues. It stuck a piece of rubber under the keys to catch dust. That is not the problem most people are experiencing, and did not address the fundamental mechanism that is failing.

 

[falainber]

Data on how many were impacted? Overreaction, as usual.

For some reason, Apple does not publish this data. Does it mean that people should never voice their opinions on the quality of Apple products?

 

[Heat_Fan89]

My 2017 13-inch - less than a year in: spacebar is starting to be sticky, graphics is going crazy in Fusion/Resolve.
The worst is the glitches are being rendered, not only displayed
Counting Powerbooks I'm probably on my Apple laptop #20. Absolutely no problems before.
They are not only completely not reliable anymore, they are more expensive every year.
As someone mentioned in another thread - you can get 64GB of RAM in a Lenovo P1 for almost the same money
Apple wants for 32GB (64GB not available). 32GB in Lenovo is 3x less expensive. Same RAM.
We are talking probably the most expensive PC brand.
Better screens, better graphics, 64GB RAM. All that for much less money.
When MBP was a great reliable machine, I paid the Apple tax. Now - it simply makes zero sense.

The Lenovo P1 is a pretty slick laptop and at a great price. It would definitely get my money over any MBP Apple is trying to sell.

 

[Baymowe335]

For some reason, Apple does not publish this data. Does it mean that people should never voice their opinions on the quality of Apple products?

It means people shouldn’t be so quick to state it’s an issue as if it’s with the entire lineup. It’s ridiculous.

 

[falainber]

It means people shouldn’t be so quick to state it’s an issue as if it’s with the entire lineup. It’s ridiculous.

But it might be an issue with the entire lineup. Without data, we can't know one way or another, right?

 

[cubbie5150]

But it might be an issue with the entire lineup. Without data, we can't know one way or another, right?

"I don't want to read nor hear about it unless it affects me personally."