I am the proud, possibly stupid owner of Apple’s worst computer, a MacBook Pro I bought in 2018. Every time I open it, I whisper a tiny prayer at the keyboard that today will not be the day the notoriously faulty design will come for me and select keys will stop working entirely, requiring me to replace the entire thing. So far, so good. But many other owners have not been so lucky. (Casey Johnston over at the Outline has been documenting her plight since October 2017.) On Tuesday, Apple finally said it’s going to do something about the problem in the next generation of MacBooks.
From TechCrunch:
Apple also told me that it is making three announcements about the MacBook Pro keyboard situation. Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’re aware that the current generation of MacBook Pro (and MacBook Air) models have had issues with keys either not firing or firing twice, resulting in no letter or double letters typed. The industry term for this is ‘make or double make.’
In previous versions of Apple’s promises to fix the keyboard, the company tried adding a “membrane” to keep dust from settling into devices, rendering the keyboard useless. Apple never formally announced the change, which didn’t really fix the problem anyway. The company didn’t provide specifics on what is physically different about the new keyboard design, just that it is, well, different. If you own an older model (Pro or Air) with the faulty butterfly keyboard, the company will repair it for free, even if your warranty has expired. (This applies if you buy a computer today, rather than waiting until Apple rolls out something new.) Which is great, assuming Apple is able to do the third thing it promised TechCrunch: vowing to speed up repair wait times for customers. Excuse me while I go chant quietly at my keyboard and will it not to break.
