Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

tobiasberg.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 554 posts

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#171

Post by userbinator »

They do this by riveting the entire keyboard assembly to the top case. Meaning you can’t just replace the keyboard, you have to replace the entire top case.

As others have already alluded to, drills and self-tapping screws exist, as do replacement keyboards without the top case.

In many other machines, it is common for the factory to use rivets on initial assembly, but to service you drill them out and replace with bolts or screws. This is the expected procedure and even described in the service manual. I actually did this a few weeks ago for an old fan.

I'm advocating for right to repair as anyone else, and not fond of Apple's decisions in general, but this seems like a tempest in a teapot.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#172

Post by piekvorst »

cortesoft wrote: post #168
piekvorst wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the government regulate the free market is an issue of physical force and should always be discussed as such. Are you willing to deal with men by force beyond retaliation? This issue is moral, not practical. Besides, it’s easy to sell one’s freedom to a competent government, but it’s insanely hard to get it back when it rots. This has been the case of many welfare states. “Let’s force them to do the damn thing…

Look, there is certainly a good argument to be made that regulation of this sort isn't the best way to achieve the goal. However, trying to use an argument that this is 'an issue of physical force' is a ridiculous way to make an argument for that perspective. All laws eventually come down to that, so it is pointless to debate that for every discussion on what the law should be.

Laws protect everyone’s rights, both consumers and producers. When they are targeted to favor a specific collective, it’s fair to bring up the issue of physical force. The 20th century is repleted with examples of one social group fighting the other by seeking special privileges and favors.

So I don’t think it’s ridiculous, I think it’s efficient.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#173

Post by skyberrys »

I'm glad to hear you are able to fix it with software for now. So many people can't just do that though and it is ridiculously expensive to have it repaired.

Any purchase is a gamble, macs are one of those gambles that seems more risky with its difficulty to repair, however I guess the expectation is that it's less likely to need it.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#174

Post by deaux »

bonyt wrote: post #43

I replaced the keyboard MacBook Air M1 keyboard with a $20 model from Amazon and it's been going strong for a full year. I had spilled ginger ale on the original. The board is riveted in, but there are enough screws to hold the replacement in place. Removing the board is a shockingly violent process, but it worked for me. Keyboard: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQBVMM3X (price has gone up). Video of rivets breaking: ht…

I wonder if anyone has hacked it (in the "Hacker News" sense of hack) so that the above keyboard can be used in an external casing, without inserting it into the Macbook body. I'd pay a lot of money for that. The Magic Keyboard is different.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#175

Post by FabHK »

stavros wrote: post #129
VogonPoetry wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post was fixed about 30 seconds after making it - due to the *s being interpreted as italics. It is a shame there isn't a preview button when composing posts.

Or just more sane markdown handling :/

I've started multiplying with "x" here... 10 mm x 10 mm = 100 mm^2.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#176

Post by FabHK »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #83
ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS has slid a long way down the quality ladder over the past ten years.

In what way? Tahoe's UI SNAFU aside, it seems like it's basically just a more polished version of the older macOS versions from a decade ago.

Fast user switching turned into excruciatingly slow user switching.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#177

Post by FabHK »

leptons wrote: post #159
tencentshill wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Macbook Neo is just as high-quality as any other Apple product. Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry, they can absolutely design a repairable device to their own standards.

>Apple has some of the most brilliant engineers in the industry, Did they fire the guy who designed the magic mouse? What about the one who designed the iPhone 4 antenna? Are they still working there? The butterfly keyboard? The class action Apple lost over the Macbook 2011 design flaws? Should I go on?

iPhone 4 was a tempest in a teapot. But yeah, the circular mouse and the butterfly keyboard...

Having said that, it seems obvious that there is a tradeoff between repairability, price, and compactness. And Apple offers devices on different points on that triangle.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#178

Post by klausa »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #90
justinator wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppleCare is honestly a great deal, especially for laptops. M1 Macbook Pros from 2020 are humming along just fine for regular people who see no reason to upgrade. The future is now, old man.

I just looked up Apple Care. Costs $449 AUD (~$300 USD) for 3 years of coverage on a MacBook Pro. A quick search shows that it's ~$500-$600 to fix the screen if it does break; I didn't bother looking up the keyboard but I'd assume it's much, much less. So basically, on the off chance that your MacBook does shit the bed in the most expensive way, you save ~$150 or so? But in the almost-certain case that your Macbook i…

>A quick search shows that it's ~$500-$600 to fix the screen if it does break; I didn't bother looking up the keyboard but I'd assume it's much, much less.

_The_ point of that the article you're commenting on, is that a keyboard replacement on a MacBook is very expensive. Why would you make that assumption?

The "most expensive way" to shit the bed is also not the peripherals of the computer dying, it's the logic board giving up the ghost.

Re: My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix

#180

Post by klausa »

Gigachad wrote: post #138
phil21 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppleCare is leaps and bounds better than any other insurance you can buy for mobile or laptops. For accessories I don’t see the point, those are effectively disposable wear items. Ironically a large part of deciding to migrate to an iPhone from android was final frustrations with even Google purchased devices under warranty coupled with hardware quality requiring repairs. My wife’s experience with AppleCare won me o…

Insurance for things you can afford to replace never makes sense anyway. The expected cost of insurance will always exceed the expected cost of replacement in the long run. Unless for some reason you know you will be breaking your device much more than the average person. Insurance is for things that are unlikely to ever happen but would financially ruin you if they did.

>Insurance for things you can afford to replace never makes sense anyway. The expected cost of insurance will always exceed the expected cost of replacement in the long run.

"Peace of mind" is not free.

Paying ~ten bucks a month to insure my phone and not have to worry about it getting damaged is worth it to me, even if I could afford to replace it if I broke it; because now I just _don't worry about it_.

Post reply on HN