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MacBook Owners' Butterfly Keyboard Lawsuit Gets Class Action Certification

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

#41

Post by kemayo »

drivebycomment wrote: post #13
detaro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

You have to follow the link title "filed in 2018" to get the full description of the lawsuit. It says:

> Apple is accused of, among other things, violating California's Unfair Competition Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, and breach of express warranty.

I certainly don't know enough about the law to comment on whether they're actually in violation of anything there. But as a complete layperson the argument "Apple knowingly sold keyboards that broke unreasonably quickly, and took a weirdly long time to change that" is persuasive under some vague sense that products should be suitable for reasonable use.

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

#42

Post by [deleted] »

Nextgrid wrote: post #36
mercantile wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree — the 12" is still Apple's best ever form factor. I even considered buying another one as the line was winding down. (Though was glad I didn't after the M1 came out.) But to be fair, the comment you're replying to is talking specifically about the 12" MacBook's keyboard, which is indeed awful. I'm typing on one right now, and even after years on the thing, it's a perpetual reminder of how they're slower to ty…

Surprisingly enough I quite like the keyboard. Its reliability is shit (though better in the 2017 model - haven't had to replace mine yet) but the feeling of it is fine; it took some time to get used to but after that I don't mind it at all!

[deleted]

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

#43

Post by brigandish »

gen220 wrote: post #22
birdyrooster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I don't like key travel. I guess I am in the minority of people, because my RSI symptoms are actually lessened by lowering my key travel and trigger force. How I differ though is that I really would prefer a more quiet key than the Butterfly style. It's hard to type quietly on the toilet or in a meeting.

Just trying to help, since I’ve been there! Your RSI symptoms might be correlated with but not caused by key travel / force. I’ve found that the dominant cause of RSI is wrist pose (position + orientation), which is mostly influenced by keyboard height (relative to your body), and also to a lesser extent by key pose. Using a split, rising-away keyboard at a position where elbows are bent 90ish degrees and the wrists…

Is there a picture showing this? (or these) I find it hard to be sure I'm visualising what you're describing.

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

#44

Post by Eric_WVGG »

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'm one of the rare weirdos who really likes the feel of the butterfly keyboard. I love the snappy, tappy reaction. The new "magic" keyboards feel mushy in comparison.

BUT… my 2016 MBP is on its third keyboard, and seems ready for a fourth.

AND… for four years I've been wondering if my typing has been getting progressively worse worse; a couple weeks ago I picked up an M1 Air as a kind of stopgap while waiting for the M1 16".

LO AND BEHOLD: my typing accuracy got better overnight. That fraction of a millimeter between the keys makes a huge difference.

I love the butterfly keyboard. It was a disaster. RIP.

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

#45

Post by baby »

Both my work macbook pro and my personal macbook air have keyboard issues. My personal skips or double hits the letter “e”, which has been a nightmare because I’ve been writing a book the whole time. My work laptop is worse, the command key doesn’t work most of the time. Sometimes I try to copy something, I’ll hit command-c and instead it’ll overwrite my selection with “c”. So I try to undo and hit command-z, so it’ll write “cz”, I hit a number of time which gets me “czzzzzz” (which is funny if I’m on VC and sharing my screen). Then the undo works, I try to copy again, and I hit the same issue again. Im convinced that my mental health has taken a toll in parts due to this. I’m also convinced I have many typos in my book because of this as well.

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

#46

Post by gen220 »

brigandish wrote: post #43
gen220 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just trying to help, since I’ve been there! Your RSI symptoms might be correlated with but not caused by key travel / force. I’ve found that the dominant cause of RSI is wrist pose (position + orientation), which is mostly influenced by keyboard height (relative to your body), and also to a lesser extent by key pose. Using a split, rising-away keyboard at a position where elbows are bent 90ish degrees and the wrists…

Is there a picture showing this? (or these) I find it hard to be sure I'm visualising what you're describing.

I think this article [1] does a pretty good job. (#1 result when I Google for “optimal typing posture”). Only thing I’d disagree with is I prefer to have my horizontally aligned with the midpoint of my monitor, to ease pressure on the neck.

Another thing it mentions but doesn’t visualize is the effect of having a split keyboard. Without the split, your shoulders are in a strained position while typing. You can practice this with a “ghost” keyboard and paying attention to your shoulder muscles, it makes a big difference!

[1]: http://ergonomictrends.com/proper-ergonomic-typing-posture-a...

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

#47

Post by irjustin »

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…

FWIW, I enjoy the touch bar.

I have a few custom keys, one which runs a script that finds my airpods, connects, turns on eq (boom), starts spotify, sets volume my normal level, hits play.

I do hate it when the touchbar crashes and requires a reboot, but I've gotten so much milage out of my script keys that I'd rather keep it.

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

#48

Post by DanAtC »

quesera wrote: post #31
ActorNightly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with "windows" laptops is that you can install and run Linux seamlessly out of the box, even distros that Mimic the look of OSX, and remap the keys to your hearts content.

> even distros that Mimic the look of OSX, and remap the keys to your hearts content Sadly, they mimic the macOS UI very poorly, and it remains not-possible in Linux to universally remap keyboard shortcuts to match macOS built-in sanity.

https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto is pretty good on the keyboard front

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

#49

Post by wilkystyle »

baby wrote: post #45

Both my work macbook pro and my personal macbook air have keyboard issues. My personal skips or double hits the letter “e”, which has been a nightmare because I’ve been writing a book the whole time. My work laptop is worse, the command key doesn’t work most of the time. Sometimes I try to copy something, I’ll hit command-c and instead it’ll overwrite my selection with “c”. So I try to undo and hit command-z, so it’l…

I'm in the same boat.

Initially, I was skeptical of all the reports about how frequently the issue was happening, and I was starting to believe that it was just hysterics by the anti-Apple crowd. But it was eventually just a matter of time.

First my personal laptop had issues, and I was thankfully able to take advantage of the free keyboard replacement. Then my work laptop began experiencing the same issue, and it's gotten so bad that I had to connect an external keyboard in order to be able to login because I have no way to see which characters are getting screwed up as I type my password.

I keep meaning to take it to the Apple store, but the latest estimates are 5 to 7 days to replace the keyboard and I haven't yet had the opportunity to be without my work machine for that long.

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

#50

Post by arcticbull »

SilverRed wrote: post #26
Goosee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use to have the same thought process as you: instantly sold on devices with native hdmi, usb a & usb c. By that metric xps beats macbook. Recently I tried to convert to a windows laptop from my 16 inch mbp. Upon switching I was constantly annoyed by the fan noise & using my pinkie to press the 'control' key opposed to macbook thumb on 'command' key. The point is, I realized native port selection was not a metric to…

I found the fan noise to be horrific on the 13in i5 macbook I was using. The thing was overheating constantly and since I use linux and windows at home, having the cmd key different only while working was a huge annoyance for me. On my dell xps 15 I almost never hear the fans at all and there is usually only a quick burst of fan noise when running a webpack compile or something compared to non stop 80% fans on the mb…

The M1's are dead silent, cold to the touch under all circumstances and dramatically faster. That was Intel, as it turns out, so if that was a big decision driver, I'd take another look!
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