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MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

macrumors.com

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Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#11

Post by zamalek »

drivebycomment wrote: post #8

I'm not sure I fully understand the rationale behind this lawsuit. I hated butterfly keyboard the moment I tried it, which is why I stopped upgrading/buying MacBook Pro entirely. People who bought had all the chances to try and decide not to buy, or to even return after trying. They stuck to it. What's the ground for the class action ? Did Apple make any misleading presentation ? Otherwise, this feels like suing simp…

> Did Apple make any misleading presentation ?

Apple stuck to the message that the problem was the users, not the switches. For multiple product iterations. They even suggested buying air duster.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#12

Post by trimbo »

drivebycomment wrote: post #8

I'm not sure I fully understand the rationale behind this lawsuit. I hated butterfly keyboard the moment I tried it, which is why I stopped upgrading/buying MacBook Pro entirely. People who bought had all the chances to try and decide not to buy, or to even return after trying. They stuck to it. What's the ground for the class action ? Did Apple make any misleading presentation ? Otherwise, this feels like suing simp…

> People who bought had all the chances to try and decide not to buy, or to even return after trying

Random missed keystrokes long after the return period are the problem. Mine is 3 years old and I just had the keyboard[1] swapped out by Apple under the extended warranty. It was sometimes missing arrow key strokes for a while, but when it started missing spacebar, that was when I got it replaced. They only extended the warranty to 4 years so I figured now was my window.

Apple also claimed several times to have fixed the issue with this keyboard. I believe every year up until 2019 they made these claims. It was never the case. My 2019 MBP from work is in the initial "occasional dust-under-the-key" stage of failure.

[1] - Because the MBP is so unrepairable, they have to replace the battery when they swap the keyboard. So for anyone with one of these, get it replaced for an additional free battery refresh.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#13

Post by drivebycomment »

detaro wrote: post #10
drivebycomment wrote: post #8

I'm not sure I fully understand the rationale behind this lawsuit. I hated butterfly keyboard the moment I tried it, which is why I stopped upgrading/buying MacBook Pro entirely. People who bought had all the chances to try and decide not to buy, or to even return after trying. They stuck to it. What's the ground for the class action ? Did Apple make any misleading presentation ? Otherwise, this feels like suing simp…

The article states the answers to your questions.

I hate butterfly keyboard and I think it's one of the worst mistakes Apple ever made, but I'm afraid I didn't find anything in the article that mentions what "consumer protection law" that Apple violated.

As far as I know, Apple followed through with their warranty. There's no safety issues with keyboard failures. Where/when does the company's liability end with their product ?

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#14

Post by samatman »

_ph_ wrote: post #9

Keyboards shouldn't fail as often as the butterfly keyboards did (and the fact that the most commonly used letters tended to fail first points rather to a wear issue than just breadcrumbs), but most of all, it shouldn't take more than $100 to exchange a failed keyboard. But with the "repair" costs charged for the laptops, they become a write-off basically as soon as they fail out of warranty.

Apple extended no-questions-asked replacement for butterfly keyboards for something like four years after sale.

Don't recall if they refunded replacements before they put that policy in place though.

Mostly mentioning this in case someone is sitting on an out-of-warranty MacBook with a failed keyboard.

My left command key quitting on one of those MBPs brought me right up to the edge of bailing on the whole ecosystem; switching back to scissors for the 16" MBP kept me in the garden, for now.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#15

Post by wintermutestwin »

So what does this class action mean in real terms? I have an impacted MacBook and it will run out of the repair date in a few months. Is that going to get extended? If not, am I going to get the massive loss in resale?

I am assuming it means the lawyers will make bank and I'll get a check for a hundred or so.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#16

Post by pivo »

rbanffy wrote: post #3
batterylow wrote: post #2

It's the worst typing experience I've had to date https://datacrayon.com/posts/tools/misc/macbook-butterfly-ke...

I actually like the very tactile nature. I think it's a shame to have to return to the previous model, where key travel is longer, but the tactility is meh.

I have a 2019 model with the fixed (hopefully) version of the keyboard that added the debris-protecting membrane. It hasn't failed me yet, knock wood. I really love how fast I can type on it and how light the keypresses need be. I'm less accurate but my increased typing speed more than makes up for the the slight loss in accuracy.

Some of my colleagues complain of muscle pain from the short key travel on these models. From sitting next to them in pre-Covid days I can only imagine that's due to how hard they used to pound their poor keyboards.

I dreaded moving to the chiclet keyboards and then I dreaded moving to the butterfly, but at least for me they both turned out to be pleasantly surprising upgrades.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#17

Post by alex504 »

samatman wrote: post #14
_ph_ wrote: post #9

Keyboards shouldn't fail as often as the butterfly keyboards did (and the fact that the most commonly used letters tended to fail first points rather to a wear issue than just breadcrumbs), but most of all, it shouldn't take more than $100 to exchange a failed keyboard. But with the "repair" costs charged for the laptops, they become a write-off basically as soon as they fail out of warranty.

Apple extended no-questions-asked replacement for butterfly keyboards for something like four years after sale. Don't recall if they refunded replacements before they put that policy in place though. Mostly mentioning this in case someone is sitting on an out-of-warranty MacBook with a failed keyboard. My left command key quitting on one of those MBPs brought me right up to the edge of bailing on the whole ecosystem;…

4 years seems like a bit of an insult in this scenario. These laptops are very expensive bought new and this is a defect; you would think they would repair them for life or at least as long as the life of the laptop.

I've been using the same MBR laptop since 2013 for personal use and haven't found any reason to switch. I would be pretty mad if I owned one of these and had to get it fixed, or wanted to resell it and had a lower resell value because of the keyboard.

It also feels worse because they continued manufacturing them for years after they knew there was a problem. 4 years smells similar to the planned obsolescence scandal in iPhones, as it implies that the lifetime of one of these is 4 years which is just not the case in my experience. They are hoping people will say "my laptop needs a new battery and a new keyboard, might as well drop another 2 grand for a new one" instead of keeping their perfectly good laptop.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#18

Post by cletus »

I actually blame Johnny Ive for this clusterf*ck. Ive famously pursued a crusade for thinness. It's said that design is the art of compromise. Well, Ive took a no compromises approach to thinness and it showed.

Look no further than the 12" Macbook. One port (also needed for power), lower power CPU and (I believe?) the start of the dreaded butterfly keyboard. IIRC the butterfly keyboard's raison d'etre was to shave half a millimeter off the thickness of a Macbook. That's... it. Oh and that same crusade is probably a big part of why we lost the MagSafe adapter.

Compare the 12" Macbook to the (2010 and onwards) Macbook Air. A good compromise of thinness, power, ports and price point. For years, many (including myself) just wanted an upgrade to the Macbook Air with a retina display (and more modern ports). But we didn't, we got the "no compromises" Macbook instead.. until that was (thankfully) killed and the macbook Air came back.

And sure Ive designed the 2008 Macbook Air and he deserves credit for his design but... he clearly went off the deep end at some point after that.

The M1 Air even got rid of the stupid touch bar (thank God).

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#19

Post by headmelted »

rbanffy wrote: post #7
post_break wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not I just wanted to buy a Mac that didn’t have a ticking time bomb of a repair. Thank god the M1 macs don’t have the keyboard. It’s the reason I haven’t bought a new Mac since 2013.

I completely understand that. Still, it's a shame not even the mechanical design wizards at Apple couldn't make it reliable. I have a couple scissor keyboards (the pre-magic ones) and, alternating between the laptop and the desktop one just makes it clear how much the butterfly feels better.

Im pretty sure they did make it reliable, but the ship had sailed by then.

I haven’t heard of any trouble with the fourth gen (the last one before moving back to scissor-switches) at all.

It’s really unfortunate - a lot of people really liked the butterfly keyboard - but the reliability issues in earlier versions combined with the criticisms on key travel meant those voices just didn’t win out.

Re: MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

#20

Post by SilverRed »

cletus wrote: post #18

I actually blame Johnny Ive for this clusterf*ck. Ive famously pursued a crusade for thinness. It's said that design is the art of compromise. Well, Ive took a no compromises approach to thinness and it showed. Look no further than the 12" Macbook. One port (also needed for power), lower power CPU and (I believe?) the start of the dreaded butterfly keyboard. IIRC the butterfly keyboard's raison d'etre was to shave ha…

I recently had the choice between a macbook pro and a dell xps. Saw the dell xps had HDMI, USB-C _and_ USB-A and was sold. Its nice to be able to bring my laptop in to a meeting room and just be able to plug in the hdmi cable without needing an adapter. Its also really nice to be able to use all my usb c accessories but without having to go usb C only.

And its not noticeably thicker than the macbook either. I can understand the pursuit of thinness or at least weight reduction in mobile devices. If the iPad was any heavier, you wouldn't be able to use it while standing. But on a laptop there is a lot more room for weight and thickness. As log as its comfortable to carry, that's good enough.

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