A recent article on the subject, which may have undercounted repairs, showed that for 2017, 1 in 8 Macbook Pros had keyboard repairs - many had 2 or 3 repairs in a row, and for 2018 so far, the rate is even higher. So not everyone will have a keyboard issue (at least in year one), but this is far from insignificant numbers. I wonder if this is why the discounts on 2016 Macbook Pros are double normal?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MBP keyboard article
- Thread starter maflynn
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You are defending Apple and the point your missing is, this is exactly what Apple wants, why it never releases any figures. The keyboard has a clear and obvious design issue, sooner or later it will bite Apple in the ass. The longer that Apple can defer that point in time, the better for Apple. This is a factor of business plain and simple, as it saves Apple money, equally it's customers will still be paying out.
I was in the same situation as you with the 2011 15" MBP dGPU, I completely believed in Apple, and look how well that worked out
The Butterfly Keyboard in the new MBP keyboard is plainly unreliable simple as that period.Stop excusing Apple, as a professional user above all, you should be holding Apple to far higher standards. Not giving them a "free pass" just because you like the aesthetic. Don't think about the personal investment, consider the bigger picture or the same ****** keyboard or worse in all future Mac's, and the general consumers who will suffer the most...
Q-6
Last edited:
Possibly. The article says 'All data has been collected from assorted Apple Genius Bars in the U.S. that we have been working with for several years, as well as Apple-authorized third-party repair shops.' Because this is just a subset of repairs in the US, it could be that there were lots more in 2016/2017 than in 2014/15 at other Genius Bars and Apple-authorized third-party repair shops.
Anyway, to my mind, the take-home from the from the data is that keyboard failures are a relatively small proportion of total problems requiring repair. As a prospective buyer, I am somewhat reassured by this.
If there would be anything that would be prone to failure, I'd actually rather it be the keyboard... not that this is ok, mind you, but I can at least hook up a Bluetooth or wired keyboard and get back to work if a key fails.
The take home is the new MBP keyboards are unreliable simple as that, nor is it going to get any better for the 2016/2017 MBP, anyone who can search the web and read can figure this one...
Q-6
Lol SMH at this thread. Unsubscribed. Good luck with these guys Queen.
I'd rather the keyboards didn't fail in the first place, nor is it an easy fix, enjoy your kickbacks...
Q-6
[doublepost=1525203541][/doublepost]
Ludicrous at best, almost lost for words. No small wonder the PC guy's ridicule Mac fans, having remarks like this in our own community
Honestly it's just insulting peoples intelligence...Might just drop this one myself, before they try to force this as yet another Apple feature to advance our computing experience - Fools and their money as my father would say.
Q-6
Last edited:
Sorry to hurt your feelings big guy. I just meant that in the sense that I'd rather it be the keyboard than the logic board... not that it's perfectly ok for it to be either.
[doublepost=1525206412][/doublepost]
Thanks... well my cover's blown. How did you know?
Holey crap... the response to your statement. DAMN! I can't believe it. Look, I realize being Pro-Apple here is highly discouraged and all but what @smirking said was that he'd rather it be the keyboard than the GPU or something serious that completely disables the laptop. Daayuummn. lol. Lump me in the group with the kickbacks and the unintelligent mac community
Yeah, I'd rather it not be ANYTHING either and for the price, it really shouldn't, but no product is perfect - I've been alive long enough to see that. Hey, whatever works for ya'll - go for it. Each boat is a different type and floats differently. Go for it and best wishes in ya'lls travels/sails
.
Ludicrous at best, almost lost for words. No small wonder the PC guy's ridicule Mac fans, having remarks like this in our own community
Q-6
What you just wrote was very rude to a lot of people. Day in and day out you're here to ridicule anyone who disagrees with you. The amount of negativity you sprout with every post is astonishing. Seriously, why do you care what people decide to use? Are you really out here on a mission to try and improve Apple? Or the industry?
[doublepost=1525212393][/doublepost]
I really fail to see how I'm defending anyone just because I don't see things in black & white. And as for the free pass, that is my prerogative. I simply think the alternatives are worse - for me. I could very well be wrong. If that is the case, I'll live with it.
To be clear, I'm really disappointed with this keyboard situation. But, I still prefer iPhones to Galaxies, I still prefer iPads to Surfaces and I still prefer macOS to Windows. I'm not convincing you of anything - you found better alternatives? Good for you. Really. But if you could stop insulting people who haven't done the same and join the discussion without the "snobs" and "insulting intelligence" comments - then maybe we could actually talk.
Criticize Apple all you want, but not the customers.
[doublepost=1525212902][/doublepost]
Holey crap... the response to your statement. DAMN! I can't believe it. Look, I realize being Pro-Apple here is highly discouraged and all but what @smirking said was that he'd rather it be the keyboard than the GPU or something serious that completely disables the laptop. Daayuummn. lol. Lump me in the group with the kickbacks and the unintelligent mac community
Yeah, I'd rather it not be ANYTHING either and for the price, it really shouldn't, but no product is perfect - I've been alive long enough to see that. Hey, whatever works for ya'll - go for it. Each boat is a different type and floats differently. Go for it and best wishes in ya'lls travels/sails
No, friend, you're wrong. Here, you're either on a holy war against Apple, or you're an ignorant snob of low intelligence. But it's not too late to change your wicked ways! Just write how 'Tim Cook needs to be fired' or how 'Apple hates their customers' on five random threads each day and you may become worthy of a pardon. Bonus points if you mention the obsession with thinness or how the headphone jack is a symbol of liberty and free thought.
Last edited:
The data seems to show that the keyboard failure rate went up. The data is merely suggestive that the total failure rate might have actually decreased for the 2016 MBP. It seems that we are missing the whole picture. The data does not show the total parts per million failure rate. Did Apple ship fewer 2016 MBP than 2015 or 2014 MBP's?
Well. The financial results show that whatever Apple has been doing, is pretty damn successful. This is of course only a “quarterly view” rather than a long term view but hey... this is what keeps up the sentiment amongst Apple loyalists.
If Apple was not evil (not selling legacy Mac Pros and minis, reliable keyboards, modular Pros, refined software), I would have felt so happy for them at their record results. In their current state, I am disgusted with their performance. I am also angry at my fellow humans for continuing to encourage such bad behaviour.
(Yes, I am shallow and live in a shell)
If Apple was not evil (not selling legacy Mac Pros and minis, reliable keyboards, modular Pros, refined software), I would have felt so happy for them at their record results. In their current state, I am disgusted with their performance. I am also angry at my fellow humans for continuing to encourage such bad behaviour.
(Yes, I am shallow and live in a shell)
I scanned through the article and can't find any other details than what's already there, maybe I missed and someone can help me out on this one.
Anyway, it looks like these are present year data for all these years' machines. This implies:
(1) That means the probability of failure is inherently larger for older machines as they age and their components fail. In your medical analogy - the probability of illness increases as you age.
(2) That this data is not normalized to number of machines sold, even in the service area. This means that the data is not "per capita", so the total numbers are not very meaningful when comparing between different year models. So for example, 2014 and 2015 models are perhaps over-represented, because they sold better overall, or sold better in a large portion of the service areas, so you are seeing more of these machines in the service shops.
What I can take away given my present understanding of their statistics and methodologies is that - you can only compare % failures per machine type between years and draw conclusions about how they fail, but not easily compare which machine is overall more reliable, because we don't know how many machines were sold in those service areas.
So the only meaningful thing for me so far, is that when these machines DO FAIL - the newer ones fail with a certain ratio of keyboard- to non-keyboard-types of failures.
Feel free to chime in!
I think you misread it a bit - here's a quote from the text: "The 2014 MacBook Pro model year saw 2120 service events in the first year"
So, they are citing numbers from the first year of each laptop. For the 2014 MBP, there were 2120 service events in 2014. Age of the laptop does not affect this poll.
I think the article is not well written, and the headline is misleading. Once again - that doesn't mean the keyboards don't have issues, it just means the data in the article does not match the click-baity headline.
Okay, that makes sense about point (1) then. Thanks for correcting me. I also wish we can extrapolate for the remainder of the year, but they don't say when they started counting the exact year and date and when they stopped.
Apple is not providing any details on the failure rate, so I agree we do not see the whole picture. The article I linked too, mentions a failure rate of under 5%. Just consider 5% of all macs sold in a quarter which is 200,000 and we know this is only affecting subset of the 4 million they sold last quarter. My point is that without apple providing hard numbers we all left to own devices on how wide spread this really is. We can make educated guesses based on the circumstancial evidenses, i.e., many people complaining about the keyboard failures, apple repair people mentioning they're getting flooded with repairs etc etc.
Last edited:
I’d be angry if I hadn’t sniped my 512ssd/560gpu 15” new off of eBay for $1850, no it’s not fake or stolen. I have apple care on it, though I’d never buy any of these MacBooks pros at full price without it. I think it’s very likely they will hold a redesign until fall 2019, and will only drop the quad into the 13 and the hexa into the 15 and ignore the keyboard all together. Boy do I hate this ****** touch bar.
Holey crap... the response to your statement. DAMN! I can't believe it. Look, I realize being Pro-Apple here is highly discouraged and all but what @smirking said was that he'd rather it be the keyboard than the GPU or something serious that completely disables the laptop. Daayuummn. lol. Lump me in the group with the kickbacks and the unintelligent mac community
Yeah, I'd rather it not be ANYTHING either and for the price, it really shouldn't, but no product is perfect - I've been alive long enough to see that. Hey, whatever works for ya'll - go for it. Each boat is a different type and floats differently. Go for it and best wishes in ya'lls travels/sails
BigMcGuire, I hope start a new thread with you and your wife's observations after getting your new Macbook Pros. I would be interested after reading many of your comments to hear what you think of the machines once you get them and have used them.
My wife got hers yesterday and I’ll get mine tomorrow night. She loves it. She says she loves the keyboard but the touchpad feels weird. Compared to the air she loves the screen. I’ll update this tomorrow night.
Not surprised. The Air screen was not great when it was new. Now it is the worse screen of almost any laptop still in production.
I hope that one day, Apple brings out a keyboard that is totally reliable, and that fits the current form factor. And if there are so many failures, then surely Logitech or someone like that could bring out a replacement keyboard. If they're failing so much, there's money to be made.
i knew about the keyboard issue when I bought mine last year. I'm not sorry, but then my keyboard hasn't failed. However I typed on my MacPro classic 5.1 with an old keyboard on it - my original MacPro thin keyboard has failed and its not a butterfly - and I've had several Apple keyboards fail over the years - and the keyboard I used the other day is quite yellow in appearance, with long throw keys. And I kept making typing mistakes. It was horrible to use. It was once praised as the best out there. I came here to post about how that famous keyboard now feels horrible, because I did not realise the butterfly is so awesome to type on. When you get used to it I guess.
The amazing thing about my MacBook Pro 15" is that I can buy an external GPU in a box that allows my notebook to function as a desktop, for the same cost it would cost me to buy the same GPU card only. Although I would loose 10% due to the interface. That's darn awesome. For a Mac! Its what PC guys are doing, but those notebook PCs which do have a Thunderbolt 3 port, seem mostly only to have one T3 port ... so if that port fails, there in for some dollars. The 15" MacBook Pro Mac has four of them.
And last year, people were criticising the T3/USB 3.1 port. Now, the next iPhone will have that T3/3.1 type port. The port is glorious and that there are four of them is totally sweet.
The only negative issue for me with this machine is the keyboard, due only to its potential to fail IMO. I guess too, the top of the notebook is not water resistant. Which is a more serious failing IMO because spilling a cup of fluid onto it will be one's own fault and it will screw the motherboard, something more costly to fix than a keyboard. That issue is a more serious failing IMO.
i knew about the keyboard issue when I bought mine last year. I'm not sorry, but then my keyboard hasn't failed. However I typed on my MacPro classic 5.1 with an old keyboard on it - my original MacPro thin keyboard has failed and its not a butterfly - and I've had several Apple keyboards fail over the years - and the keyboard I used the other day is quite yellow in appearance, with long throw keys. And I kept making typing mistakes. It was horrible to use. It was once praised as the best out there. I came here to post about how that famous keyboard now feels horrible, because I did not realise the butterfly is so awesome to type on. When you get used to it I guess.
The amazing thing about my MacBook Pro 15" is that I can buy an external GPU in a box that allows my notebook to function as a desktop, for the same cost it would cost me to buy the same GPU card only. Although I would loose 10% due to the interface. That's darn awesome. For a Mac! Its what PC guys are doing, but those notebook PCs which do have a Thunderbolt 3 port, seem mostly only to have one T3 port ... so if that port fails, there in for some dollars. The 15" MacBook Pro Mac has four of them.
And last year, people were criticising the T3/USB 3.1 port. Now, the next iPhone will have that T3/3.1 type port. The port is glorious and that there are four of them is totally sweet.
The only negative issue for me with this machine is the keyboard, due only to its potential to fail IMO. I guess too, the top of the notebook is not water resistant. Which is a more serious failing IMO because spilling a cup of fluid onto it will be one's own fault and it will screw the motherboard, something more costly to fix than a keyboard. That issue is a more serious failing IMO.
Last edited:
Melbourne writes in 147 above:
"I hope that one day, Apple brings out a keyboard that is totally reliable, and that fits the current form factor."
Ummmm.... They HAD a keyboard such as the one you wish for above -- in the 2015 design MBPro. All it required was a few extra millimeters of case "thickness".
But apparently that thickness had to be "slimmed down", and the new (and unreliable) keyboard put into place.
A direct question:
Would you be willing to accept a few extra millimeters in the thickness of the case for a "keyboard that works and KEEPS working" -- or do you absolutely, positively have-to-have the "thinnest Macbook possible"....?
I chose the 2015 design over the 2016 after a side-by-side comparison...
"I hope that one day, Apple brings out a keyboard that is totally reliable, and that fits the current form factor."
Ummmm.... They HAD a keyboard such as the one you wish for above -- in the 2015 design MBPro. All it required was a few extra millimeters of case "thickness".
But apparently that thickness had to be "slimmed down", and the new (and unreliable) keyboard put into place.
A direct question:
Would you be willing to accept a few extra millimeters in the thickness of the case for a "keyboard that works and KEEPS working" -- or do you absolutely, positively have-to-have the "thinnest Macbook possible"....?
I chose the 2015 design over the 2016 after a side-by-side comparison...
I would even be willing to accept another couple of millimeters just so I didn't have to wipe the oil from my skin off the keyboard all the time. There is such little spacing between the keys and the screen that the oils that rub off on the keys are constantly smearing the screen when you close the lid.