Has anyone had any keyboard issues with the MacBook Air 2018?

[ryan mark]

Will experiment with a different shortcut... but tbh, if I have to learn new shortcuts, I'm just going to switch to something else.

We're discussing internally where we want to go as a company / institution. But I'll tell ya this: I'm not ordering 60+ new MacBooks for our employees if the keyboards don't work.

That's understandable. See how changing the shortcut works, and if it's something you can live with.

I really hope Apple come up with a proper solution to this though. I wish they'd kept the scissor switch keyboard to be honest - that was perfect! And you don't fix something that's perfect, in my book. Yes the machines might've been slightly bulkier, but I still thought my MacBook Pro 2012 was thin, and that was with the disk drive!

Alas, there seems to be an obsession with making things thinner and thinner these days - but when it's having a negative impact on consumers that's when you should hold your hands up and admit that it might not have been a great idea.

 

[jpn]

personal update:
bought the new 2018 Macbook Air Dec 9 2018.
4 months of heavy, daily usage. about 17 hours of use per day, every day.
no problems yet.

 

[vaugha]

I have a friend who’s been using his mba daily for 5 months so far. No issues.

 

[photoj2754]

Was looking to buy my niece a 2018 Air for her graduation present then read this while researching this problem-

“David Heinemeier Hansson, the chief technology officer at Basecamp and the creator of the popular web-application framework Ruby on Rails, tweeted about the issues his company has been facing in regard to Apple's butterfly keyboard.

"Nearly half of all the 3rd-generation, membrane-enhanced keyboards in the 2018+ MacBooks are failing at Basecamp," he wrote. "This is not a 'small number.' It's a catastrophe and Apple should do a total recall."

Hansson followed up by conducting a Twitter survey, which indicated that 53% of the 7,577 respondents said they are experiencing keyboard issues but are "living with it." Eleven percent of respondents said they encountered problems but Apple repaired them, and 36% reported that their keyboard is perfect.”

Now not so sure. This is from an April 5, 2019 Business Insider article.

 

[joeswamp]

The IT guy at my wife's new company said the same thing -- tons of problems with butterfly keyboards (all generations). She was issued a pre-butterfly 2017 MB Air.

 

[photoj2754]

The IT guy at my wife's new company said the same thing -- tons of problems with butterfly keyboards (all generations). She was issued a pre-butterfly 2017 MB Air.

This was a recurring theme in articles I've read while researching. Companies, big and small, using these laptops having keyboard problems (one has had problems on all 20 laptops) and school systems who use these seriously reconsidering renewing their usage leases because they, too, are hearing and reading about these problems.

 

[PaladinGuy]

I’ve been plagued with keyboard issues with my space bar, and I’ve used the laptop very infrequently since buying it in December.

I have a Genius Bar appointment tonight. If they ship it out and leave me with no computer, I may start considering a PC like the Dell XPS. It’s just unacceptable for me to have something as basic as the keyboard being so unreliable.

 

[ssmed]

I have a Genius Bar appointment tonight. If they ship it out and leave me with no computer, I may start considering a PC like the Dell XPS. It’s just unacceptable for me to have something as basic as the keyboard being so unreliable.

A computer is only as good as its keyboard – Apple don't seem to have got that. Interestingly we have only had problems with MBPs, but not our single MB. I am not at all keen to buy anything else at this stage and so we have not bought any new machines for 2 years and we have had staff keeping computers for much longer periods. 2015 13 and 15 inch MBPs are the machines I leave the office with to have confidence. And don't even get me started on dongles!!

 

[PaladinGuy]

Had my Genius Bar appointment last night. The genius said my MBA 2018 was the first she’d seen with a keyboard issue. Seems hard to believe. She said parts haven’t really even started coming in to the stores very much yet because it’s still such a new model.

Had to leave it with them to replace the whole keyboard. Bit of a bummer, since I’ve only had the computer for 4 months. Makes me regret not getting AppleCare+. Hopefully I won’t end up eating a big repair cost down the road!

 

[PaladinGuy]

So much for next day repair. My MBA 2018 has been at the Apple store since Monday. I’m guessing the next day service only applies to the MacbookPro models on the repair program.

 

[PaladinGuy]

I need other's opinions on this. I am not sure if I am just over-exaggerating this in my head. So, I got my MacBook Air back, and the keyboard seems to work fine now. However, the trackpad is now very misaligned. I know it's probably not going to be perfect, but this seems way off.

Thoughts?

 

[vaugha]

Well my friend's 2018 mba which is now almost 6 months old had a weird screen artifact the other day. It happened only once and he thought it was a weird glitch. I advised him to take it in and get a diagnostics from a genius bar. Other than that, he hasn't experienced any keyboard issues so far.