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New MacBook Air and Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro Have Same Keyboard as Higher-End 2019 MacBook Pros
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Those who don’t mind buying faulty products please go ahead and buy up all remaining stock.
No thank you. This is NOT good news after being told a few days ago that there would be a new MacBook Air released later this year with redesigned SCISSOR keys. This only makes me think that either that is never coming or that it won't be until later next year, either of which pisses me off after having waited this long for them to get rid of the butterfly keys entirely.
My guess is, this keyboard issue has been bugging Apple for a while. The support costs associated with the 2015-2019 keyboard repair program can't be cheap. Refreshing MacBook so frequently is not something Apple wants to do but the battery and keyboard issues plaguing the MacBook has to stop sooner rather than later.
That was a rumour, and so I suspect it should be taken with a pinch of salt.
There's been complaints about 2019 keyboards. The fact that Apple put the 2019 keyboard on the repair program on day one suggests a significant lack of confidence. Otherwise, they would have waited for some kind of consumer feedback before deciding on including the 2019 models.
The Macbook had only the second generation Butterfly so it is good to see it get the 4th generation Butterfly. I wonder if Apple will just discontinue it rather than update it next year. It seemed more like a prototype or concept laptop that the others were based on.
Update: I just saw Apple discontinued it.
Update: I just saw Apple discontinued it.
In the non-Apple Kool-aid drinkers world the masses don’t know there’s a keyboard problem.
Can you point to an example? I’ve been watching this topic quite regularly during last few weeks as I’m on new MBP purchase. Haven’t found even one direct reliability problem compliant with this gen keyboard. It is early so it still can happen, but so far so good.
As far as I can tell, the AppleInsider data is the only decent data available. But as @nexusrule states above, even if the failure rate is only(!) 10%, it’s still a relatively large number of machines. There’s gotta be upwards of 30 million of these keyboards out there, so you’re looking at several million failures.
There do seem to be fewer problems with the newer generations, but only Apple knows for sure. If the class action lawsuits go forward, maybe we’ll see some hard data.
Macrumors has just lost the last bit of credibility calling this good news. How fake can You go ... obviously theres still room for them!
Next they will call tim hollywood a great ceo ... with a perfect product vision
Next they will call tim hollywood a great ceo ... with a perfect product vision
Good news: both the new MacBook Air and the new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro models introduced today have the same third-generation butterfly keyboard design with an updated material as the higher-end 2019 MacBook Pro models introduced in May, we've confirmed directly.
"Good news," eh? Wow.
There is nothing good about the Nu Keyboard. These are dead devices.
Apple is deathly afraid of doing the right thing because it would hurt their bottom line: full product recalls and replacements for every Mac with these defective keyboards. The $1 Trillion company would rather burn goodwill and reputation and insist its flawed design is correct than help the end-user.
The inevitable class action lawsuit will probably net users $20 in iTunes Store credits for their years of inconvenience with these DOA keyboards.
Apple should just call them something different so people have trust in the newer versions. Saying butterfly 3.0 doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. I've never had a problem on my 2016MBP or 2018MBP but others have had problems.
In our IT dept we have about a 20% failure LONG TERM rate, mostly concentrated to 2015 (rMB) and 2016/2017 (MBP). So far no 2018s.
Not counting some that were DOA right out of the box.
I’m sure you’re right, I was just stating that CR and W? are trash and with CR in particular, anything they publish tends to be the exact opposite of the truth, especially when it comes to automobiles.
I’m on my third replacement keyboard. This time, half of the space bar died, but I can’t afford to be without my work machine for another week until more keys stop working & it’s more urgent.
The first time I brought it in for repairs, they promised it in 7 days. When I came back 8 days later they hadn’t touched it. I brought it to a different Apple Store and complained about the delay, they managed to fix it in 5 days. The second time it broke, it took 4 days.
Each time, I’ve had 4-6 keys basically stop working.
I can’t answer your question about how wide spread the issues are, but for me I’ve lost thousands of dollars in lost projects and billable hours as a result of this mess. To me, that’s a disaster.
Honestly, give me a quad core 15” MacBook Pro with a new scissor keyboard and I’ll buy it, or a MacBook Air with a quad core and a scissor keyboard and 16gb of ram.
Exactly. And that in itself is a dealbreaker for me. My main use case for a laptop is writing, so a keyboard with horrible tactile feedback is an automatic fail for me.
And yes, I gave it a month, month and a half before getting rid of the Retina MacBook I had. I "got used to it" but it still sucked.
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It didn't. I can confirm it is still like typing on a two by four.