Apple Offers New Butterfly Switch Keyboard Repairs Program

Lately, Apple has announced that it will provide a free replacement for all butterfly switch keyboards, including those of the new 8-core MacBook Pro published on May 21.

Apple revealed its keyboard replacement program to repair all keyboard from the first model in the 2015 MacBook. There are many complains about duplicating when typing and sticky keys. For some cases, users report that they even are unable to type at all.

To deal with the matter of double-typing, Apple claims that it would change the butterfly switch keyboard material. However, no detailed information on the chosen materials remains undisclosed. One thing Apple did assure us that the repairs will take place faster than before.

This design of the butterfly switch keyboard was first released with computer redesign in 2015. Apple was trying to make its products lighter and thinner than before by this improvement. The redesign was supposed to bring out a more responsive, comfortable, and stable keyboard compared to the traditional “scissor” mechanism under every key. But for all that change, MacBook users said the keyboards would be damaged easily by dust, not to mention the fact that the keyboard’s touch feeling wasn’t so good.

When it comes to the repairs, users usually had to wait for a whole week for not just the unresponsive key fix but an important part fix. Moreover, the repairs would cost users around $700 if the MacBook were out of warranty.

The Butterfly Switch Keyboard Problems

In June 2018, Apple announced that it would repair “a small percentage of the keyboards in certain MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models” with these issues: “Letters or characters repeat unexpectedly”, “Letters or characters do not appear” and “Key(s) feel "sticky" or do not respond in a consistent manner”. MacBook models released from 2015 to 2017 would be covered in this program.

In the repair program, Apple redesigned the firstly released butterfly switch keyboard and came up with the third generation of it. This version was hoped to solve all the previous issues, however, it failed with new feedbacks.

Here was what it said in the apology two months ago:

The fact that now Apple offers a replacement program for all butterfly switch keyboard shows Apple’s care of this issue as it would certainly affect the sale revenues. So when this program comes up, users can be more comfortable with the problem since the keyboard will be fixed for free for four years after purchase.

In terms of replacement time, Apple also claims to reduce the time for each keyboard to be fixed and to prioritize this replacement; however, no specific length of time is provided. Furthermore, the new keyboard will be used in this replacement, which means you will get a new design keyboard if yours is broken.

Updates On 2019 MacBook Pro

Besides the declaration of keyboard replacement, Apple also revealed new information on the MacBook Pro 2019. According to the post:

Whereas, the 15-inch computer has six- and eight-core Intel processors with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.7GHZ; the 13-inch computer will have quad-core processors, delivering Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.7 GHz.