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

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

#251

Post by vintagedave »

nine_k wrote: post #100
vintagedave wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run into bugs every day. It wakes, and has a black screen not wallpaper. Change spaces and the focus is wrong for half a second. Login screen is a pain because it collapses all users together. Notifications don’t scroll if they stop scrolling when the cursor is over a gap between them. Something on the system constantly eats disk space, and I think it’s the system updates. If I dock two apps in one space, sometimes…

Unless these problems only started after an upgrade to Tahoe, I would strongly suspect defective hardware in your case.

Yes, these got a lot worse after Tahoe. The past few versions have all had issues on multiple machines.

None of this sounds like a hardware error. Something like notification scrolling is simple bad programming and bad QA. You scroll the list of them, but when the mouse cursor ends up on a gap between them, the new scroll event doesn't apply. They're all individual even though shown together.

Or a black screen on wake - that has the mouse cursor and login prompt, it just sometimes doesn't load the wallpaper or does it slowly. Not hardware - just something buggy. It's unbelievable when I compare to Leopard or whichever version it was introduced the rotating 'cube' of login screens, which always had wallpaper and loaded fast. Here we are fifteen years later with incredibly better hardware and the thing lags.

Same for the rest.

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

#252

Post by ywvcbk »

abc123abc123 wrote: post #233
Gigachad wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decades of HN users finger wagging and suggesting FOSS hardware has progressed society nowhere. 12 months from EU mandatory replaceable batteries and products across the industry are being redesigned with repairability, usb-c, and user friendly designs. It’s time to accept regulation actually does work when you have a competent government.

Nope. What the real effect has been is a waste of billions of billions that have gone into changing stuff that never needed changing. Future development has now been slowed down as well in the EU. All it takes to see that government regulation never works, is to look at how far behind the EU is in terms of GDP growth compared with the US and China who both have a significantly lighter touch when it comes to regulatio…

It's not self evident this is caused by regulation.

And regulation generally certainly works when it come to regulating and splitting up monopolies and oligopolies, workers right and etc. (US has plenty of both even if its occasionally idiosyncratic)

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

#253

Post by rglynn »

streetfighter64 wrote: post #245
999900000999 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my first thought too. Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. MacBooks are great as long as you have the money. OP could keep looking for 3rd party repairs, etc.

> Not everything you personally dislike needs to be illegal. I'm having a hard time seeing why making stuff more difficult to repair just so that people are incentivized to throw it away and buy a new one, should not be illegal. If not for the anti-customer attitude, at least for the amount of waste and environmental destruction it results in.

I guess you can make the argument that legislating repairability will raise the price floor for devices because it increases the cost to the manufacturer. This isn't a problem for most of us in tech, but affordability can be an issue for many.

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

#254

Post by wolvoleo »

I'm sure this is failure by design. A lot of customers will think "Hey well, this one's got a few years on it, good reason to upgrade"

It's worth mentioning that the Neo finally does away with the pairing of topcase and keyboard that has been present ever since the launch of the plastic and unibody macbooks! Probably to comply with upcoming EU regulations.

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

#255

Post by knivets »

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…

What if your screen breaks or logic board? Top of the line MacBooks cost ~4-5k. I recently had to service a battery and they replaced a top case and a keyboard free of charge. I will continue paying for AppleCare as long as they will allow me

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

#256

Post by wolvoleo »

MostlyStable wrote: post #42

>Here’s hoping governments regulate laptop manufacturers to actually make repairable machines in the future. No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework, but there are other options that aren't that far down the spectrum either. One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device…

> No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one.

It's a good solution. Even if you don't want to repair your meachine, it would be worth more on the second-hand market meaning less ewaste for society in general.

> One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device, lack of flex, etc. These quality features are, in part, achieved by the same choices that make it hard to repair. Ease of repair and "build quality", are to some degree (although not entirely) tradeoffs against each other.

The neo gets pretty glossy build quality reviews and is one of the most repairable macs in decades.

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

#257

Post by wolvoleo »

egeozcan wrote: post #214
hnfong wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s time to accept regulation actually does work when you have a competent government. Given that it's the EU making those regulations, it looks like the government only has to be semi-competent. Maybe the only requirement is that they're not totally in bed with the big corps making money.

> Given that it's the EU making those regulations, it looks like the government only has to be semi-competent Context: I'm not a EU-native, I've migrated to here. It disturbs me a lot when people keep repeating the "incompetent government" narrative when it comes to the EU, but when you compare it to the dictatorship that I escaped from, they still seem way more competent, surprising when the big advantage of a dicta…

Even here in Europe, most of Southern Europe was a bunch of Dictatorships up into the late 70s! Spain, Portugal, Greece...

Not to mention Eastern Europe until the wall fell. All dictatorships in different forms. So yeah we've had our share as well.

The problem with the EU is that it seems to be becoming more susceptible to industry lobbying. As of late they are reducing environmental laws (the banning of ICE cars), weakening GDPR and DMA/DSA etc. Not very happy with that. Ursula herself was all about her 'green deal' during her first administration and now she's breaking it all down.

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

#258

Post by dxdm »

egeozcan wrote: post #223
hnfong wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah it was kinda a tongue in cheek snipe at the EU which may or may not be justified. Appreciate the counter-point.

Oh, okay. Sorry for the wall of text against the small snipe :) It's just that these things stick.

No, thank you for posting it. Things like this need to be said.

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

#259

Post by 10729287 »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #194
MostlyStable wrote: post #42

>Here’s hoping governments regulate laptop manufacturers to actually make repairable machines in the future. No, this is a bad solution. If you want a repairable machine, buy one. They exist. Others have already mentioned Framework, but there are other options that aren't that far down the spectrum either. One of the things macbook users praise the most is "build quality", which often means the solidity of the device…

The MacBook neo keyboard is replaceable with a sticker and a bunch of screws. This was always possible. Apple just doesnt care.

Bunch of screws : 41.

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

#260

Post by Daneel_ »

ayewo wrote: post #240
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…

Mind sharing an Amazon link to the electric screw driver you used in your video?

I'm fairly sure that's the iFixit precision electric screwdriver: https://www.ifixit.com/products/precision-electric-screwdriv...
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