Apple’s free butterfly keyboard service program for choose MacBooks fashions ended late final week, practically six and a half years after it launched.
With this system now over, it’s now not assured that clients with affected MacBook keyboards will be capable to obtain a free restore from Apple or an Apple Licensed Service Supplier. Nevertheless, exceptions might be made.
Under, we have a look again at Apple’s butterfly keyboard issues that led to this system.
The Butterfly Keyboard
For a lot of the 2000s, MacBook keyboards had a conventional scissor swap mechanism. That modified in March 2015, when Apple launched an ultra-thin 12-inch MacBook with a low-profile keyboard that used a brand new butterfly swap mechanism. Whereas the keyboard match within the 12-inch MacBook’s skinny enclosure, it’s vulnerable to points, resembling letters repeating unexpectedly or failing to seem when keys are pressed.
It was not till Apple up to date the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Professional fashions with its second-generation butterfly keyboard in October 2016 that clients started to complain about sticky and unresponsive keys in earnest. Apple expanded the butterfly keyboard to the MacBook Air a number of years later, resulting in much more complaints.
The scenario got here to a head in Could 2018, when Apple was hit with a category motion lawsuit within the U.S. alleging that the corporate knew the butterfly keyboard was faulty. A web based petition concerning the points that 12 months gained practically 43,000 signatures.
The Program
In June 2018, Apple launched a “Keyboard Service Program” worldwide after it decided {that a} “small proportion” of keyboards in sure MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Professional fashions could exhibit a number of of the next behaviors:
- Letters or characters repeat unexpectedly
- Letters or characters don’t seem
- Key(s) really feel “sticky” or don’t reply in a constant method
Apple and Apple Licensed Service Suppliers had been repairing eligible MacBook keyboards, freed from cost, for as much as 4 years after the primary retail sale of the affected laptop computer. That window is now closed, as all eligible fashions had been discontinued greater than 4 years in the past.
The butterfly swap mechanism for a 2018 MacBook Professional keyboard (iFixit)The checklist of all fashions that had been eligible:
- MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015)
- MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2016)
- MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, 2017)
- MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018)
- MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2019)
- MacBook Professional (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Professional (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Professional (13-inch, 2019, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
- MacBook Professional (13-inch, 2016, 4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Professional (13-inch, 2017, 4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Professional (15-inch, 2016)
- MacBook Professional (15-inch, 2017)
- MacBook Professional (13-inch, 2018, 4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Professional (15-inch, 2018)
- MacBook Professional (13-inch, 2019, 4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Professional (15-inch, 2019)
The Apology
In March 2019, Apple lastly apologized concerning the keyboards.
“We’re conscious {that a} small variety of customers are having points with their third-generation butterfly keyboard and for that we’re sorry,” an Apple spokesperson stated, in a press release shared with The Wall Road Journal‘s Joanna Stern. “The overwhelming majority of Mac pocket book clients are having a optimistic expertise with the brand new keyboard.”
The Repair
Beginning with the 16-inch MacBook Professional in November 2019, Apple ditched the butterfly keyboard and returned to utilizing a scissor swap mechanism. The change was prolonged to the MacBook Air in March 2020, and to the 13-inch MacBook Professional in Could 2020, marking the finish of the problematic butterfly keyboard period for the Mac. All fashions of MacBooks with Apple silicon chips have continued to make use of scissor swap keyboards.
The Settlement
In July 2022, Apple agreed to pay $50 million to settle the U.S. class motion lawsuit associated to the butterfly keyboard points. Affected clients who submitted a legitimate declare by the March 2023 deadline acquired a fee of between $50 and $395.
