bruinsrme
macrumors 604
Apple employees, really?
Yeah the person working the Genius Bar makes the repair policies.
Did you know the store employees also set the prices of the product?
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So Apple are a bunch of liars now?
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Apple employees, really?
Yeah the person working the Genius Bar makes the repair policies.
Did you know the store employees also set the prices of the product?
AZhappyjack
Suspended
As with most things of this ilk, it's all about how Apple perceived 'risk' vs 'reward'. You are correct in that only Apple knows the true scope of the problem, and, given the overall cost to reputation, has determined that the cost of a repair program will (may) buy them some grace with their customer base.
With that said, I am suspicious that 'correcting' the problem without a true 'correction' to the design is a bandaid on a bullet wound. It might stop the bleeding for a minute, not I'm not convinced that it will do much to resolve the ultimate issue. I am also highly convinced that the 'thin is in' mantra is a large part of the overall issue - in order to make the laptops as thin as they can/do, a new keyboard switch was required. It is also my opinion that Apple has fornicated with the canine on this one.
For the record, I do not have the problem, as I am still rocking a 2013 MBA and a 2015 iMac... however one of my sons-in-law does have the issue, and has pretty much been frustrated by Apple at every turn. This 'repair program' has given him hope, but it's tempered with "what happens the next time this design fails?"...
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Queen6
macrumors G5
I fully expect Apple to replace "like for like" as this is how Apple has always dealt with it's defective designs, nor is Apple giving any indications of any change with such behaviour.
IMHO Apple is simply making too many compromises to maintain being the King of Thin, however my peers and my own opinion is very far from Apple's target audience. Apple has been shifting it's demographic for years with the Mac, obvious much to the chagrin of many, equally Apple seeks the market of the mass consumer being easier to please and more importantly easier to produce for.
To all intents and purposes Apple is now producing appliances to meet the average consumer's needs, who are willing to pay a premium for what Apple offers...
Q-6
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Count Blah
macrumors 68040
My 2006 MBP battery swelled up and impacted the track pad. I replaced it, since it was pre-glued in days, and was back up and running in no time. I don’t recall multiple class action lawsuits about the 2006 MBP.
Neither situation seems to have a lot in common with the keyboard issue of today, but whatever.
Actually, the battery had reached the end of its life. It is not a design defect, on other a kb should not be be ome defective in just one year or two
Ma2k5
macrumors 68030
Horrible, if you use tap to click. I personally always use tap to click - I mean I am sure if you don't use tap to click it won't create any issues. I don't find "just disable tap to click" as a good solution to the problem.
Dr_Charles_Forbin
macrumors 6502a
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
No, but its year 3 of a design, and so one should expect to have a stable product by now.
Dr_Charles_Forbin
macrumors 6502a
Agreed completely. But it’s a design issue and Apple is notably slow to respond to these, especially if only a small percentage of customers complain. They should have been releasing a fix in late 2016/early 2017 latest. Look at all the people that had to fight over the dGPU’s in 2014/2015.
dont worry if you hate the bleeding edge of technology currently Apple is the company for you.
Can i Interest you in a "state of the art" 2013 Mac pro that was already obsolete when it was newly released?
how about 2018's best offering for a non pro desktop...
that's right the 2014 mac mini, but dont worry it performs worse than the top of the line 2012 mac mini.
dual core vs the old quad core.
thats half the edges to bleed on
😉😛
but remember "innovation my ass" and "apple is committed to the mac, no need to worry"
Dr_Charles_Forbin
macrumors 6502a
Tell me about it. I have a late 2014 mini, w/soldered RAM. Apple should spin off the Mac to a company that actually cares about it and not selling expensive watchbands and other consumer products. I would upgrade my Mini if something better came along, but it won't. What I'd like to see is MacOS on a nuc... that's probably the next gen mini.
pier
macrumors 6502a
The 2015 model is not free of guilt either.
I needed to replace the battery of my 2014 recently. Apple told me I needed to pay for the whole top panel since the battery is glued to it. That means replacing the trackpad, keyboard, etc.
What's more ridiculous is that the battery itself can be replaced, but Apple won't do it, at least in my country.
Dr_Charles_Forbin
macrumors 6502a
I was lucky, I had my MacBook in a couple of weeks ago for a bad thunderbolt port and they replaced the battery and the top panel free of charge. Thank God for AppleCare. That being said, I hate Apple. I'm probably going to have to upgrade the SSD on my daughters 13" 2015 rMBP and I have a choice of using a kludgy Sintech adapter or used SSD on eBay. If it were my laptop, I'd use the sintech card no problem. Not hers. Damn you Apple.
Fishrrman
macrumors Nehalem
smirking wrote in reply 42:
"Keyboards are not as simple as people think they are."
No they aren't -- you're correct.
BUT... it's possible to design a keyboard that is rugged and reliable, vis-a-vis one that is not.
Apple chose the latter for the 2016/17 MBP's, whether they knew it or not at the time.
Their primary concern seemed to be "thinner".
So... they tried a new and untested design, to achieve this goal.
But... I wonder how thoroughly they tested them for durability before releasing the new design. My -guess- is that they weren't very demanding in the testing -- the primary objective was to get the new design pushed out the door so that it could be part of the "newer, thinner" MacBook Pros.
Looks like this oversight has come back to bite 'em on their behinds!
"Keyboards are not as simple as people think they are."
No they aren't -- you're correct.
BUT... it's possible to design a keyboard that is rugged and reliable, vis-a-vis one that is not.
Apple chose the latter for the 2016/17 MBP's, whether they knew it or not at the time.
Their primary concern seemed to be "thinner".
So... they tried a new and untested design, to achieve this goal.
But... I wonder how thoroughly they tested them for durability before releasing the new design. My -guess- is that they weren't very demanding in the testing -- the primary objective was to get the new design pushed out the door so that it could be part of the "newer, thinner" MacBook Pros.
Looks like this oversight has come back to bite 'em on their behinds!
pier
macrumors 6502a
Apple managed to create reliable keyboards before for... what? 30-40 years?
What about Microsoft, Dell, Google, or Lenovo Thinkpads? Do these keyboard fail with a speck of dust?
arkitect
macrumors G3
Agreed.
Apple are losing sight of the basics of computer design… all in a vain (all sense of the word) search for thinner! Thinner!
What use is an anorexically thin laptop that fails?
smirking
macrumors 601
There are very few Apple keyboards I would want to own as anything but a collector's item. They got it right a few times, but were mostly below average at it.
I think the single speck of dust thing is an exaggeration. If that were true, don't you think we'd see a 100% failure rate? Dust gets into everything.
On the other hand, a single speck of sand or food causing switch failure is something I can easily believe, but you could probably say this about a lot of switches. Creating a design where it's possible for a foreign object to get into the switching mechanism seems like a really bad oversight.
I own around three dozen keyboards. I'm a recovering keyboard nut. I've seen lots of keyboards fail and fail in different ways. I'm not being an Apple apologist when I say that keyboards are more complex than a lot of people here realize. It all seems simple until someone screws it up and then you suddenly begin to realize all the things that can go wrong with a "simple" keyboard.
We might actually be experiencing multiple methods of failure for the MBP keyboards that are exhibiting similar symptoms. It could be the switches in some cases and the circuitry in others.
Lenovo keyboards are pretty awesome. In my book, Apple's never even come close to a Thinkpad's keyboard. If I could run MacOS on a Thinkpad, I think I'd be typing on one of those right now.
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MBAir2010
macrumors G3
do you have any repair advice for an apple keyboard 2009 USB were the shift-enter-delete-opt-cmd & car keys don't work?
no biggie, just a spare or maybe of my iMac igloo if i replace the motherboard.
smirking
macrumors 601
I think the issue with these really thin and compact designs is that there's no room for error and no amount of testing is ever going to reveal to you all the different ways your product could fail. They probably had some idea that the keyboards were a weak spot in the design, but calculated wrong in how prevalent issues with the keyboard would be.
The issues with the keyboards is one of the reasons why I usually never buy the first version of any redesigned product. No amount of testing is ever going to reveal all the ways something could fail in the wild. That they still haven't figured things out by this point probably indicates either that the issue is a lot trickier than people imagine or they actually did fix it, but discovered that their fix led to different ways of failure that the previous generation wasn't susceptible to. There's more than one way you can get a keyboard to repeat.
You hit the nail on the head. Apple put unproven cutting edge tech in their products without proper testing. Furthermore, when they make mistakes, they won’t admit to it unless you poke them!
smirking
macrumors 601
Ack, sorry! I wouldn't know what to do with those keyboards. About the only repairs I've done to keyboards like that is a reseating of dislocated scissor switches. I wouldn't know what to do with one of those boards if the circuitry was hosed. Those are pretty cheap on eBay anyway.
Well... if it's just an issue that the bad keys have "flattened" you could try prying off the keycaps and check if the scissor mechanism is still intact. They can slip off of the anchor points or the two halves can become disconnected and stop responding.
Wow. really?
three data points:
- staff at Londons Covent Garden store stating that the "repair rooms are full of them"
- corporates who issue large fleets of MacBook pros saying that 40% are failing within the first year
- 3 class action lawsuits
some people are paid by PR agencies to influence and counter-narrative on social media and forums... I've seen it first hadn't as I used to work for such a company .. I left after 2 weeks as they mis-sold what the job actually was .. totally unethical.
MBAir2010
macrumors G3
I know, i know- weird a section of the keyboard does not work, i might replace the USB cord one of these years.
thanks tho!
s15119
macrumors 68000
when i had the 2012 rmbp it was $200 for a rmbp battery replacement, that was a few years ago, im in canada
unsure if its different elsewhere.
but i was told it was the same for all retina models, so far my 2015 rmbp hasnt needed a battery replacement but i will post when/if i get it done, judging by apple's offerings this will be the best MBP long after the battery craps out