Apple's $50 Million Settlement Over Faulty MacBook Keyboards: What to Know

[buckwheet]

I hope you're right!

Just "listening to consumers", however, isn't fully a path forward.
A lot of what they're doing on hardware right now is just "fixing mistakes since 2015"

Well, that's one way of looking at it, but the Apple Silicon transition, for example, clearly has nothing to do with fixing mistakes. Now I do realize that this has little to do with Cook, who was probably just executing on a very long-term strategy, initiated by Jobs. But it would be easy to argue that this was not a safe and incremental strategy. Moving off Intel is a bold move, and so far it seems to have served them well. (I was concerned at first, but I'm very happy with my M1 machine, so I'm convinced now.)

Hopefully they can bring in some new product visionaries and also dramatically overhaul what's going on with software. I'm very worried about the software side, particularly for a company like Apple, where the smooth integration of hardware & software is so core to why people have loved the products.

Yeah, I understand the concern. However, one area where they have been extremely active is on the API side. They're released a ton of very useful APIs over the last few years and as those begin to get utilized I think we'll start to see some pretty great software products emerge. I don't know honestly what their level of interest is in exploiting these underlying technologies themselves, but they are giving devs a lot of power. I actually wish they'd slow down a little, since it's almost impossible for small companies to keep up.

Additionally, I really wish they'd bring back great products that are great for their customers .... but that might not be "mini industries on their own".

Broadly speaking, I agree. I do think the Cook era has been about ensuring that the business could survive Jobs' death. He's put them in a very solid place, financially, and in that sense probably bought them some time to innovate. I'm just not sure he's the one to be leading that innovation.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Moving off Intel is a bold move, and so far it seems to have served them well. (I was concerned at first, but I'm very happy with my M1 machine, so I'm convinced now.)

I honestly don't find it that bold -- it was necessary for them to accomplish their goals and will ultimately (while providing better performance) lead to more control -- which Apple loves

Whether that ends up being good or bad for consumers in the long run is very much an unwritten story still.

 

[boyarka]

Not necessarily. The US, as weird as it is, has quite decent protection. At the least, return policies were quite decent. The problem here is, Apple doesn't think it's a problem despite the obvious design flaw and Apple trying to fix it multiple times. It's well studies in business case studies how Apple behave here. Never admit any faults, but do repair programs silently to address those with issues. The thing is, in the past, Apple did care about people with issues, and it shows with their repair programs having covers quite an extended length of time. People having problems going to Apple stores was helped, and stores were much liberal in giving customer satisfaction in the past. As such, Apple gained such good reputation in support.

But the current Apple seems to be penny pinching left and right. I feel this was the remaining effect when the Burberry lady was in charge and wanting the genius/support division to also be profitable. And the trend is obvious, with the supposedly repair programs getting shorter and shorter in duration, and Apple being more often denying consumers any help. It's Apple's own doing that forced lawsuits to happen in this case, imo.

My point still stands: EU warranty laws surpass that of US, EU laws also have a clause roughly explained as "expected reasonable service life" that goes well beyond even the best extended warranty US has, in both time ans coverage. Hence - you will never ever, but EVER, read of such lawsuits in EU. Because they are not necessary.

 

[buckwheet]

I honestly don't find it that bold -- it was necessary for them to accomplish their goals and will ultimately (while providing better performance) lead to more control -- which Apple loves

Whether that ends up being good or bad for consumers in the long run is very much an unwritten story still.

Well, the fact that there are obvious benefits doesn't make a decision less bold, it just swings the balance in favour of adopting the change.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Well, the fact that there are obvious benefits doesn't make a decision less bold, it just swings the balance in favour of adopting the change.

We have different standards for bold I guess

...It would have been truly bold (for me) if it hadn't been in the shadow of years of intel stagnation. Going all in on ASi felt almost necessary .. and with tremendous control and upside for doing so..

"Bold" for me was more like when Apple nuked their own exceptionally successful iPod Mini

anyhow --we are in the weeds and off topic now (I take my share of blame - lol)

 

[mrochester]

We have different standards for bold I guess

...It would have been truly bold (for me) if it hadn't been in the shadow of years of intel stagnation. Going all in on ASi felt almost necessary .. and with tremendous control and upside for doing so..

"Bold" for me was more like when Apple nuked their own exceptionally successful iPod Mini

anyhow --we are in the weeds and off topic now (I take my share of blame - lol)

The mini was already replaced with the nano. It wasn’t a bold move to get rid of the mini from that perspective.

 

[keldorn]

I'm more appreciative of my MBP 13 Early 2015, the keyboard is perfect and has held up all these years. I wonder how the new MBPs will hold up?

 

[Glenny2lappies]

Now, what about Flex-gate? The 2015 to 2019 machines having a poor flexible cable design that eventually breaks meaning the screen fails.

 

[Piggie]

The old Atari 400 never had any issues, and 100% cheeto dust proof also

 

[bellis1]

This was a lawsuit that needed to happen. I still have one of these laptops and barely use it because that keyboard has been atrocious. It was repaired once and took over three weeks. But months of typing on a janky keyboard is enough to go mad.. The only apple product that was close to as janky as this was my performa 6400.

 

[flofixer]

Brilliantly articulated and, from what I can tell, extremely ac

I agree. But this happens with every issue. I'm having a difficult time recalling a time when there was an issue reported by customers that turned out NOT to be a legitimate issue.


I'm officially declaring this GateCon... RESOLVED.

Here's the typical cycle for problems reported on Apple products:
1. A few members post reports of the problem, report it to Apple
2. No response from Apple
3. Increased number of people report the issue
4. No response from Apple
5. Apple apologists dismiss the reports as very rare, the result of trolling, or exaggeration by drama queens
6. Even more reports of the problem
7. No response from Apple
8. News of the problem hits blogs
9. Apple apologists dismiss the blogs as simply engaging in clickbait
10. No response from Apple
11. Those affected by the issue threaten a class-action lawsuit
12. Apple apologists decry the "sue happy" nature of American consumers
13. Apple acknowledges the legitimacy of the problem
14. Apple apologists are silent
15. Apple release an update to correct the problem
or
15. They set up a "program" to address the problem.
16. Apple gains some positive publicity
17. Apple apologists applaud Apple for doing the "right thing". (for an issue that they said from day-1 was not actually an issue)
18. First hand experience with the “program” reveals very strict guidelines and restrictions that greatly reduce the number of affected customers that can participate in the program.

There have been many times where software issues were reported by many users and the problem was resolved without going thru the above mentioned "cycle". Some software issues did take forever to fix however.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

It seems like Apple is getting off way too easy here.

Apple's issue is that they:

1. Sold defective products.
2. Didn't fix the defective products.
3. Charged people for non-fixes (which is the only thing resolved by this lawsuit.)

Apple should be forced to actually fix this for every single buyer. Apple exchanges any of the impacted laptops for the nearest equivalent from newer model year where the issue is fixed. Some people might complain this is way too generous. Is it, though? It's a punishment of the same magnitude as the crime that Apple committed. Over the course of 5 years they sold 16 different defective models of laptop. One defective model in one year would be pretty awful, but Apple didn't stop there - they just kept on selling these fundamentally flawed devices. Normally punishments are supposed to be 3x as costly as the crime was. My proposal only causes Apple to lose about 1 laptop sell for every defective laptop they sold. Is it costly for Apple? Absolutely. And it should be.

But heck, fine, I'll back off on that punishment despite it already being only one third of a reasonable punishment. Apple should send out everyone a free external keyboard. I don't know how anyone could argue against that (except arguing it's not good enough and that they should actually get a laptop with a working keyboard from Apple.)

 

[FreedomPenguin]

It seems like Apple is getting off way too easy here.

Apple's issue is that they:

1. Sold defective products.
2. Didn't fix the defective products.
3. Charged people for non-fixes (which is the only thing resolved by this lawsuit.)

Apple should be forced to actually fix this for every single buyer. Apple exchanges any of the impacted laptops for the nearest equivalent from newer model year where the issue is fixed. Some people might complain this is way too generous. Is it, though? It's a punishment of the same magnitude as the crime that Apple committed. Over the course of 5 years they sold 16 different defective models of laptop. One defective model in one year would be pretty awful, but Apple didn't stop there - they just kept on selling these fundamentally flawed devices. Normally punishments are supposed to be 3x as costly as the crime was. My proposal only causes Apple to lose about 1 laptop sell for every defective laptop they sold. Is it costly for Apple? Absolutely. And it should be.

But heck, fine, I'll back off on that punishment despite it already being only one third of a reasonable punishment. Apple should send out everyone a free external keyboard. I don't know how anyone could argue against that (except arguing it's not good enough and that they should actually get a laptop with a working keyboard from Apple.)

They swapped mine for me after several repairs years later

Store gave me a new gen MacBook Air for my MacBook 12 inch.

Was happy w that
Then sold it and bought m1. Kicker was I bought the MacBook 12 inch as open box from bestbuy as mega discount lol. Like 250 off

I’m still going to pursue a refund on whatever settlement gives

 

[reyesmac]

For things like this Apple should not have to pay out money. What they should be forced to Do is redesign the keyboard and replace it for free for the next 5 years no questions asked. That’ll be a lesson they won’t soon forget.

 

[ikir]

Still one of the best keyboard I ever tried, clicky but slim. Many workmates using it since years without any issue. Prone to dust yes, sometimes it happened a costumer or friend had the issue, I blown air with compress and sometime with my mouth and the issue were gone. I face issue every month with keyboards in the bigger company where I work and we deploy HP and Dell.
As always if it is Apple everything is exaggerated.

 

[XXPP]

Deny all wrongdoing. Ok so Apple basically frames this settlement as “good will” rather than accepting defeat. Typical Apple fashion and this just shows they never learn.

50mln -30% 300$ average for affected customer.
116000 faulty macs. They sell it dozen of millions.

 

[XXPP]

Still one of the best keyboard I ever tried, clicky but slim. Many workmates using it since years without any issue. Prone to dust yes, sometimes it happened a costumer or friend had the issue, I blown air with compress and sometime with my mouth and the issue were gone. I face issue every month with keyboards in the bigger company where I work and we deploy HP and Dell.
As always if it is Apple everything is exaggerated.

I loved this keyboard.

 

[FreedomPenguin]

50mln -30% 300$ average for affected customer.
116000 faulty macs. They sell it dozen of millions.

How are customers going to be reached? Do we still need to have the Mac for eligibility?

 

[svish]

Apple denies!! By denying, other similar lawsuits will not be filed probably.

 

[maxoakland]

Lawyers get up to 30% so up to $15M - as usual, they’re the real winners

The real winners are everyone who buys Apple products because this hopefully forced Apple to be more careful in the future.

 

[TravelsInBlue]

I’m all about holding companies accountable for damaging the environment, lives, etc, but for all the trash talking apple I’ve done, I blame the buyers more in this case.


This is clearly a design flaw that affected longevity, and the fact this keyboard was flawed was obviously apparent. These forums were amusing because you always had some kool aid drinker like “well mine works” like they didn’t want to admit they were typing on a time bomb.


Any bit of even the slightest research would have pointed to somebody to buy another computer. In my case, I bought a Lenovo, no way was I going to subsidize the giving up of ports, the dumbass touchbar and the unreliable keyboard. This is an issue the free market *should* have sorted out except people kept buying this obvious lemon for some reason.


We shouldn’t be rewarding dumb decision making.

 

[jz0309]

The real winners are everyone who buys Apple products because this hopefully forced Apple to be more careful in the future.

The $50M settlement is a rounding error for Apple, it’ll do nothing but slightly reduce legal cost…

 

[Bustermd]

Reading through these comments here, it seems that no one is familiar with the purpose of a class action.

One's righteous indignation means very little.

Practically speaking, the purpose of a class action is this: Apple has money, other people (lawyers) want some of that money. Seeing as Apple has a whole lot of money they can throw some the lawyer's way. Lawyers get richer. The righteously indignant get a check for five bucks.

 

[buckwheet]

We have different standards for bold I guess

...It would have been truly bold (for me) if it hadn't been in the shadow of years of intel stagnation. Going all in on ASi felt almost necessary .. and with tremendous control and upside for doing so..

"Bold" for me was more like when Apple nuked their own exceptionally successful iPod Mini

Sure. Just to play along, for me "bold" was when they ditched the floppy drive and made the iMac USB only. Haha... I remember a lot of people absolutely freaking out on that one...
But I think the relative boldness of the AS move has to be seen in context of the commercial boost they got from the initial move to Intel. Also, however bold (or not) it was, I think it's obvious that the "safe" move would have been to not rock the boat and stick with Intel, warts and all. So even if it's just bold to the degree that it's not safe, it still doesn't indicate a company that's happy to follow the crowd and push out incremental upgrades and tweaks. The AS move has required significant effort, upfront expenditure, and public handholding (particularly in the pro markets, where a lot of people have been freaking out, doomsaying, and threatening to leave the platform).

anyhow --we are in the weeds and off topic now (I take my share of blame - lol)

Fair enough.

 

[maxoakland]

The $50M settlement is a rounding error for Apple, it’ll do nothing but slightly reduce legal cost…

Are you arguing Apple should’ve been fined more? How much do you think the court should’ve fined Apple?