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Faulty MacBook Butterfly Keyboards Cost Apple $50 Million in Lawsuit Settlement
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Even if the last revision of it was a large improvement, they probably came to the conclusion that absolute reliability was paramount and they had to move completely away from it, given the damage done to their reputation, certainly to their sales, and the cost of managing the repair program.
The story behind the saga will be interesting if ever told. I'm sure many heads rolled during those years.
I can't help but wonder how it passed the quality testing phase. Certainly it was a massive failure in itself.
If it's any consolation, Apple has now started paying quite a bit more attention to keyboards (in a good way). Proper key travel is back, they've actually made the function row larger, and I think reliability is back to normal levels again. And the trackpads are just crazy good, as they've always been.
Yeah the trackpads are something that have to be used to really appreciate. I used to hate trackpads, because all I had ever used were terrible Windows ones. I still hate those, in fact I hate them even more now that I’ve experienced it done correctly. Force Touch + gestures is something people don’t even realize they are missing.
Or how once it started going to hell they didn't dump it as soon as possible....
It seems like it wasn't the kind of problem that would appear when you first start using the keyboard but only after it has been used for a while in various environments. That kind of thing can be tough to test during preproduction phase. The problem was that it took Apple too long to recognize the problem and they tried to do half measures for several years before finally reverting the change. They also deployed a totally new keyboard design to all of their products without knowing its durability rather than targeting just one line for an extended test period.
I don't know, I tried one for about 30 seconds before I decided I would never be able to type on that horrible thing. Can't help but invoke the "Steve would not have allowed this" meme because seriously, did anyone on the executive team actually personally try one? Seems like they did not.
I never liked typing on the butterfly keyboards. They made too much noise to type notes during video calls and the keys were a little closer together and had less travel. I made too many typing mistakes as a result. I never could get back to normal typing speeds on the butterfly keyboard.
For some reason a number of people did like typing on the butterfly keyboard and were willing to ignore the dropped or double keystrokes. Or they were lucky.
The sad part is Apple’s legal team probably ran scenarios coming up with numbers similar to this, and Apple executives decided it wasn’t worth the additional money to recall a clearly defective product.
Because, reasons.
If the price of doing business is just a slap on the hand… well, we know how that’s turning out for the world.
Because, reasons.
If the price of doing business is just a slap on the hand… well, we know how that’s turning out for the world.
I am very interested in knowing what manufacturer you think make good keyboards then, because Apple was and is (before and after the butterfly fiasco) considered to make some of the best laptop keyboards available.
My experience with other manufacturers is limited and outdated, but IBM and SONY had good keyboards 20 years ago, neither makes laptops any more. HP still did last time I touched one about 10 years ago. Lenovo were okay when I used one about five years ago. None of these are even close to Apple though, so I am very curious about what you prefer.
If you had keys break after a few days, Apple would be obligated to fix or replace them under warranty. What were the circumstances by which they refused to honor a warranty service for you? Something sounds off about that story.
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