Gen 3 butterfly keyboard

[537635]

I had my 2016 Touchbar Macbook Pro taken into Apple several times with sticking keys, missing keys etc. then late last year they replaced the unit with a brand new 2018 Macbook Pro which I was very happy about.

Unfortunately I am now in the same position with my 2018 Macbook Pro. The command key rarely works and several letters repeat.

Apple surely are just going to replace the keyboard with the same faulty version again? What is my recourse here? I am an iOS developer and coding is almost impossible on this thing.

Is there any permanent solution?

If you are in a country where Apple is present, just simply buy another Macbook while the other one is in service and return it after it is repaired. This is the only thing that sends a clear message to Apple - a financial message. Topcase replacements have to be expensive, since they are replacing almost half of the computer.

I'm confident they will change the keyboard eventually (although they've had their head in sand for 4 years now). Afterwards claim for a new replacement computer.

Getting an external keyboard is just giving up. You better just abandon ship altogether.

 

[AndyMacAndMic]

Getting an external keyboard is just giving up. You better just abandon ship altogether.

I agree, abandoning ship would also be my idea in that case, but the poster is an iOS developer and is therefore tied to Mac computers. In his/her case, buying an external keyboard to keep working is IMO a viable option.

 

[Plutonius]

except for this darn spacebar.

Hitting the key hard will probably just make the problem worse.

I would probably try Apples recommended method of blowing the keyboard with compressed air.

If you try it, be sure to post if it worked or not.

 

[537635]

I agree, abandoning ship would also be my idea in that case, but the poster is an iOS developer and is therefore tied to Mac computers. In his/her case, buying an external keyboard to keep working is IMO a viable option.

This is very much true. I am also heavily invested into Apple's ecosystem (personal devices, family devices, software...) and really hope they get it right next time.

 

[maflynn]

Getting an external keyboard is just giving up. You better just abandon ship altogether.

An external keyboard could be a viable alternative though not an ideal situation depending on the use case. For instance, if the laptop is on a desk for much of the time, well then that solution is a good idea. If someone travels a lot, lugging a keyboard is not a great idea imo.

 

[Plutonius]

An external keyboard could be a viable alternative though not an ideal situation depending on the use case. For instance, if the laptop is on a desk for much of the time, well then that solution is a good idea. If someone travels a lot, lugging a keyboard is not a great idea imo.

I usually use my laptop at specific locations so it's hooked up to an external keyboard most of the time.

 

[crawfish963]

I am now having double spacing at intermittent times with my 2018 13" base touch bar. I have only had it with the space bar and it started today. I will take it home and apply canned air to see if that helps.

EDIT: Specifically, I was typing in iMessage when I suddenly noticed that there were periods being inserted into the text on their own, basically from the feature whereby when you type the spacebar twice in rapid succession, it will auto-insert a period.

 

[jerryk]

I am now having double spacing at intermittent times with my 2018 13" base touch bar. I have only had it with the space bar and it started today. I will take it home and apply canned air to see if that helps.

Ignore

 

[crawfish963]

Ignore

What?

 

[crawfish963]

After blowing the keyboard out with canned air, I cannot reproduce the problem. I will update if there are more keyboard issues. I'm really hoping that it's ok because I love this machine and I am really not wanting to have to send it off for repair (I live 300 miles from an Apple store).

 

[CaptRB]

As one of the original "Keyboard failure deniers" I must say that Apple is crazy to still be pushing these keyboards. I had both 13 and 15" touchbar units fail and my friend just picked up a new air and that keyboard spacebar and C key have already started to fail.

When will Apple grow up and realize that the butterfly keyboard is causing too much trouble even now? My previous gen. MacBook airs are perfect and durable. I was willing to replace them with new retina versions, but I'm not going through another keyboard nightmare.

RB

 

[Queen6]

If you are in a country where Apple is present, just simply buy another Macbook while the other one is in service and return it after it is repaired. This is the only thing that sends a clear message to Apple - a financial message. Topcase replacements have to be expensive, since they are replacing almost half of the computer.

I'm confident they will change the keyboard eventually (although they've had their head in sand for 4 years now). Afterwards claim for a new replacement computer.

Getting an external keyboard is just giving up. You better just abandon ship altogether.

Just no, Apple does not offer a global return policy within 14 days, it's limited to specific countries. Which by far exacerbates the current poor design for many.

Being stuck with a failed product only to be repaired with the same poorly designed components makes little sense to me...

Q-6

 

[Pepe4life]

I don’t think Tim Cook understands the damage these keyboards are doing to apple’s reputation. I know many university students whose parents dropped $2-3k on these MBPs and the keyboards are failing less than 1 year into their university studies. Most of them swear to never purchase another Apple computer now.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I don’t think Tim Cook understands the damage these keyboards are doing to apple’s reputation. I know many university students whose parents dropped $2-3k on these MBPs and the keyboards are failing less than 1 year into their university studies. Most of them swear to never purchase another Apple computer now.

Yep..
And if Tim thinks "oh, they'll just buy an iPad instead!" he's even more mistaken.

People I know are very quickly souring on Apple "everything", for a variety of reasons, but headlined by this sort of crap with the keyboards.

Huge huge mistake to be this far down the path with a fundamentally flawed design of a critical component.
This is like Boeing or Airbus screwing up the wing design on an airplane.

 

[Mendota]

IMHO Apple should be compelled by a court of law to provide the hardware as advertised. Apple has systematically done this over and over replacing poorly designed components with exactly the same.

When this happens Apple's only concern is itself, with customers left with the same problem. Until Apple is punished in a meaningful way no doubt it will continue this poor behaviour...

Q-6

Well... The meaningful punishment for most manufactures of products is the "market". Poor quality car from Ford, get a GM next time. Brand x computer didn't quite work out... Try Brand M next time. The problem for Apple customers of course is that there are no other Apple computers or MacOS. So if you have to have Apple then you have to put up with what Apple doles out.

This is why I feel bad for people who feel "locked in" to Apple. If you are not willing to try something else, then Apple has you____. Well you fill in the blank.
[doublepost=1551497024][/doublepost]

After blowing the keyboard out with canned air, I cannot reproduce the problem. I will update if there are more keyboard issues. I'm really hoping that it's ok because I love this machine and I am really not wanting to have to send it off for repair (I live 300 miles from an Apple store).

Good luck. I am rooting for you.

 

[Queen6]

Well... The meaningful punishment for most manufactures of products is the "market". Poor quality car from Ford, get a GM next time. Brand x computer didn't quite work out... Try Brand M next time. The problem for Apple customers of course is that there are no other Apple computers or MacOS. So if you have to have Apple then you have to put up with what Apple doles out.

This is why I feel bad for people who feel "locked in" to Apple. If you are not willing to try something else, then Apple has you____. Well you fill in the blank.

Apple has simply lost my custom as it's hardware IHMO is just not up to standard. Same applies for many others as I've never seen so many professional's drop the platform as they don't want notebooks that have unreliable keyboards, are port constrained, thermally limited just to be a fraction smaller or SSD's on the logic board as it creates problems with NDA contracts etc. when the notebook has issue. Let alone the other host of issues the current MBP has.

If any of the team performed at this level the client would tell them to go home, simple as that. Very much agree Apple is taking advantage of it's position as the sole provider of hardware for the Mac. Thing is as more and more switch over to Windows they will be very unlikely to return to Apple due it's untrustworthy nature. People relying on their hardware/software for a living tend to be a lot less forgiving than casual users, as the switch costs...

Apple should be ashamed of what it's done to it's professional community, however under Tim & Co it's only about the money. Once the Mac was held in such high esteem, today it's fast becoming a point of ridicule in many professional circles. I'm also highly confident another metric Apple wont be releasing is the percentage of professionals on it's platform as that will be definitely dropping off sharply from my observations.

Apple in 2019; Arrogant, Greedy & Cheap...

Q-6

 

[537635]

If any of the team performed at this level the client would tell them to go home, simple as that. Very much agree Apple is taking advantage of it's position as the sole provider of hardware for the Mac. Thing is as more and more switch over to Windows they will be very unlikely to return to Apple due it's untrustworthy nature. People relying on their hardware/software for a living tend to be a lot less forgiving than casual users, as the switch costs...

Apple should be ashamed of what it's done to it's professional community, however under Tim & Co it's only about the money. Once the Mac was held in high esteem, today it's fast becoming a point of ridicule in some professional circles. I'm also highly confident another metric Apple wont be releasing is the percentage of professionals on it's platform as that will be definitely dropping off sharply from my observations.

Apple has simply lost my custom as it's hardware IHMO is just not up to standard. Same applies for many others as I've never seen so many professional's drop the platform as they don't want notebooks that have unreliable keyboards, are port constrained, thermally limited just to be a fraction smaller or SSD's on the logic board as it creates problems with NDA contracts etc. when the notebook has issue. Let alone the other host of issues the current MBP has.

If any of the team performed at this level the client would tell them to go home, simple as that. Very much agree Apple is taking advantage of it's position as the sole provider of hardware for the Mac. Thing is as more and more switch over to Windows they will be very unlikely to return to Apple due it's untrustworthy nature. People relying on their hardware/software for a living tend to be a lot less forgiving than casual users, as the switch costs...

Apple should be ashamed of what it's done to it's professional community, however under Tim & Co it's only about the money. Once the Mac was held in high esteem, today it's fast becoming a point of ridicule in some professional circles. I'm also highly confident another metric Apple wont be releasing is the percentage of professionals on it's platform as that will be definitely dropping off sharply from my observations.

Apple in 2019; Arrogant, Greedy & Cheap...

Q-6

Very, very well put. And "cheap" even isn't about the price.

I use macs professionally and I am quite invested in the platform, not only hardware, but also software wise (fcpx, bunch of iOS software...). I really hate to see what is happening with Apple. It used to be de-facto standard for creative professionals. Now they are pushing the boundaries for... emojis? Product colors? I'll give them points for FaceID and early and well implemented USB-C. But that's it.

 

[Queen6]

Very, very well put. And "cheap" even isn't about the price.

I use macs professionally and I am quite invested in the platform, not only hardware, but also software wise (fcpx, bunch of iOS software...). I really hate to see what is happening with Apple. It used to be de-facto standard for creative professionals. Now they are pushing the boundaries for... emojis? Product colors? I'll give them points for FaceID and early and well implemented USB-C. But that's it.

TBH it's beyond disappointing...

Q-6

 

[Sterkenburg]

I don’t think Tim Cook understands the damage these keyboards are doing to apple’s reputation. I know many university students whose parents dropped $2-3k on these MBPs and the keyboards are failing less than 1 year into their university studies. Most of them swear to never purchase another Apple computer now.

Agreed, and alas the same is true in many professional circles. It's a very anecdotal fact, but in our office at least ~20% of the engineers in the R&D team has had a top case replacement at some point (including myself).

These are people who not so long ago used to swear by the Mac. Now they are ridiculing the computer, joking about the keyboard and sneering at the TouchBar. I really hope that the next redesign brings us a MBP that lives up to its previous reputation as a reliable computer, because this is what Mac users (both amateurs and professionals) deserve for the price they pay.

 

[Queen6]

Agreed, and alas the same is true in many professional circles. It's a very anecdotal fact, but in our office at least ~20% of the engineers in the R&D team has had a top case replacement at some point (including myself).

These are people who not so long ago used to swear by the Mac. Now they are ridiculing the computer, joking about the keyboard and sneering at the TouchBar. I really hope that the next redesign brings us a MBP that lives up to its previous reputation as a reliable computer, because this is what Mac users (both amateurs and professionals) deserve for the price they pay.

Exactly as those who rely on the hardware have little tolerance for Apple's current nonsense. The Butterfly Keyboard was clearly not adequately qualified and yet Apple continues to foist it on the customer, amongst other issues. All I know have basically had enough as Apple's incompetence is hurting them one way or the other.

Personally I have zero expectation of the Mac, and after over 20 years on the platform that one firmly belongs to Apple.

Q-6

 

[doitdada]

Haven't Pro always meant Prosumer?

 

[Queen6]

Haven't Pro always meant Prosumer?

To me the usage dictates and Apple is all too keen to take advantage of the Halo effect of it's professionals with it's base consumers.

If Apple has no Interest in it's professional audience, then brand loyalty will only go so far. Many have already exceeded the point of saturation and once you add revenue into the equation switching becomes a fact sooner rather than later...

Q-6

 

[snowboarder]

Apple should be ashamed of what it's done to it's professional community, however under Tim & Co it's only about the money. Once the Mac was held in high esteem, today it's fast becoming a point of ridicule in some professional circles.

It's absolutely true, but unfortunately it hasn't started recently.
When iPhone became successful Apple stopped paying attention to their pro clients and this included Steve Jobs.
They did so many stupid things like buying pro software just to kill it (remember Color or even Shake?),
or spending time and energy on the new pro products and never finished (Flame competition team
in Santa Monica, working for years). They never fixed simple issues like QT gamma shift - the most annoying bug
many people had to "fix" by applying some settings on export to offset it, etc.
Then they killed FCP, probably they didn't want to pay the high salaries of the support team.

 

[doitdada]

To me the usage dictates and Apple is all too keen to take advantage of the Halo effect of it's professionals with it's base consumers.

If Apple has no Interest in it's professional audience, then brand loyalty will only go so far. Many have already exceeded the point of saturation and once you add revenue into the equation switching becomes a fact sooner rather than later...

Q-6

What the Mac did was groundbreaking in many ways for consumers, that they made it easy to import photos and film, then manipulate and make stuff look "pro" very easy. Again, FaceBook came along and made sharing photos much easier, as they had the list of friends to share it with and the upload was easy. You could share whenever and whatever you want, then the recipients could view the content when time allowed them instead that you had to send through mail or code a HTML page.

The consumer web/app world is very much Apple/*nix centric, but I guess the Mac is in a personality crisis. I almost prefer to type on my iPhone, now that I've had the touch screen for ten years in my hands for many hours each day. Most of my mails are short, so I don't need a laptop for that. Of course there are solutions out there that need custom code, and the last programming job I did was on a Windows 10 desktop. It look a little bit dirtier, but when you are in the codezone, you don't care about the platform, it is about the code.

The Surface series trackpad sucks, but the keyboard is brilliant. The opposite of is true of the MacBook series. I some times like the keyboard, but it is not what I would really want. The packaging, which is 80% of a product, lacks. You don't know what you get when a new Mac is released, and there is more colors and bells than features and stability. It's hard to build a steady relationship with the Mac, since the release cycles are uneven, the features are so different across the hardware. In fact the Lenovo C930 looks more futuristic than any MacBook. I have to admit, I am sometimes envious of Windows users.

 

[jdiamond]

Quick update. As most of you now know, the 2018 keyboards with the silicone underneath are not perceptibly quieter than before (sadly). What I would recommend for anyone with pre-2018 butterflys is to buy one of those super thin silicone keyboard covers as a dust defense. You're basically doing the same patch - just putting the layer above instead of below. It costs just $10-$30, and gives you piece of mind. Plus, I'm sure the keyboard issue is one of the reasons you can save up to $1,700 on these models while they last.