“Apple today extended its Keyboard Service Program to all MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models equipped with any generation of its butterfly mechanism keyboard, not long after apologizing over the issues,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors.
“This means 2018 MacBook Air, 2018 MacBook Pro, or just-announced 2019 MacBook Pro models that experience keyboard issues such as sticky or inconsistently responding keys now qualify for free repairs up to four years after the original purchase date worldwide, regardless of warranty status,” Rossignol reports. “To address the underlying issues, Apple said it has changed the material in the 2019 MacBook Pro keyboard’s butterfly mechanism to ‘substantially reduce problems that some users have seen,’ according to The Loop.”
Read more in the full article here.
“You will not be able to just take your MacBook in to have its keyboard replaced if you don’t trust it, of course; it will need to exhibit issues for Apple to fix it,” Dieter Bohn reports for The Verge. “Apple has been put through the wringer over the reliability of its butterfly keyboards for the past few years, and rightly so.”
“Although the company stressed again in a call today that the ‘vast majority’ of customers don’t have a problem,” Bohn reports. “The amount of evidence we’re seeing on social media, among writers, and on our own laptops is getting to the point where you can’t call it anecdotal anymore, though. So simply expanding the repair program won’t be enough.”
“Apple says that it is using ‘new materials’ in the switch mechanism that should significantly reduce the occurrence of double and missed key presses. It will ship on the new MacBook Pro 15-inch and MacBook Pro 13-inch with Touch Bar that it just announced,” Bohn reports. “”Some current MacBook Pro 13-inch with Touch Bar and 15-inch customers that bring in their keyboards for repair will actually have their keyboards replaced with ones that have these new materials, Apple says. That will only happen for MacBooks that have the third-generation butterfly keyboard today: the 2018 models of the MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It is certainly very good to see Apple finally addressing this problem more fully and offering to replace 2018 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models with faulty keyboards with the newest design (which we hope proves to be as rock solid as we expect of Apple products).
Eligible models:
• MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015)
• MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2016)
• MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, 2017)
• MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2019)More information about Apple’s Keyboard Service Program for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro here.
Related articles:
Apple refreshes MacBook Pro with updated butterfly keyboard – May 21, 2019
Apple introduces first 8-core MacBook Pro, the fastest Mac notebook ever – May 21, 2019
For awhile I was feeling behind the times, but I’m so glad my workhorse 15″ MBP is from 2015, the last model before these keyboards came got put in. 100% reliability for 4 years.
Okay, now this is awesome – so if they can actually replace the old crappy keyboards with the new (new alloy) keyboards, the Genius Bar complaints will eventually fade away.
You make a grant assumption that the new alloy corrects the issue I wouldn’t bank on it. They believe they had it fixed last year with the ridiculous membrane. These new keyboards are garbage and they need to go back to the way they were. This product is being ruined.
They left out those of us who actually bought a desktop and got the stupid butterfly keyboard.
Supposedly part of the problem on MBP keyboards is caused by heat rising from the other computer components. Desktop butterfly keyboards wouldn’t have that as a factor, at least.