in 2015 app will introduce a completely
redesigned MacBook with a full-size but
super thin keyboard this keyboard
utilized an all-new mechanism dubbed by
Apple as the butterfly switch this
keyboard design was adopted by the
MacBook Pro line the following year and
continues to be used to this day in late
2017 complaints started appearing online
about the keyboards having numerous
problems everything from unresponsive
keys to keys getting stuck causing
repeated characters in an article on the
outline Casey Johnston recounted her
story of dealing with a failing keyboard
Apple's response to her was that a
simple piece of dust could be causing
all of her grief and to make matters
worse the butterfly mechanism below the
keys is extremely difficult and easy to
break and the entire keyboard is
integrated into the upper case which
means there's no way to replace just the
keyboard the entire upper case must be
replaced that's right
according to Apple a piece of dust can
break your keyboard and to get it
replaced you'll have to replace the
entire upper case sometimes a battery
below it which should cost you almost
$700 if you're out of warranty since
then despite Apple releasing a
recommended way of cleaning the keyboard
cries from consumers have gotten worse
and recently boiled over into a
class-action lawsuit last week Apple
finally responded with a keyboard
replacement program which might sound
nice but doesn't solve the problem at
all these keyboards are flawed by design
so a new Butterfly keyboard will break
just as easily as your old one did why
well first of all they're inspired by a
delicate butterfly which you know seems
like an ideal inspiration for a device
that gets button matched to death day
after day but that's not the root cause
underneath the keys you can see the dome
switch that triggers the key strike and
surrounding it is the butterfly
mechanism you can see just how shallow
the key strike is when you introduce
some particles of dirt they can get
lodged in between the butterfly
mechanism and prevent it from moving
properly interestingly Apple revamp this
butterfly mechanism in 2016 increasing
the size of the dome switch while we
think this updated version is better at
handling dust it had been on the market
for over a year before the volume of
complaints reached a fever pitch so it
doesn't seem like the design changes
solve the problem so
it's just a little dirt causing the
issue then why can't you just pop off
the key and clean what's underneath
well the key caps and butterfly
mechanisms are extremely fragile and
they're easily broken during individual
replacement according to Kasey Johnson's
research even a professional repair
person breaks a space bar when trying to
remove it every single time so you can't
replace the individual keys and those
keys are integrated into the upper case
which sometimes has a battery glutton
behind it making the entire upper half
of that laptop one component Apple has
to do a phenomenal amount of extensive
repair work to replace these keyboards
and we hate to say we told you so but
we've been making noise about this since
the first retina MacBook Pro but maybe
that's what it will take for Apple to
consider repair when they design their
next MacBook keyboard
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