Titan technology and industrial innovation tumbled down one small speck of dust. Last week,
Apple quietly announced that it would extend the warranty on the keyboard of its flagship laptop for
four years . As it turned out, these keyboards, originally characterized by Johnny Ive as thin, precise and “strong”, often fail.
Chronology
- March 2015: Apple introduces the butterfly system key on a MacBook 2015 .
- October 2016: Apple introduces the second version of the “butterflies” on the 2016 MacBook Pro. In our analysis, we note: “The key caps are slightly higher around the edges, so that the fingers are easier to find. Switches also slightly raised. "
- End of 2017: A wave of complaints about the keyboard.
- June 2018: Apple announces keyboard replacement program .
The keyboard of the butterfly system of the first generation appeared in 2015, but the real root of the problem goes back to 2012, to the very first Retina MacBook Pro. This radical redesign has replaced their solid modular workhorse. Instead, it came a reduced body and the first of its kind Retina display.
And the battery glued to the keyboard.
The new laptop received universal approval from technophiles, with one notable exception: our group at iFixit. Unlike other technical media, we do not judge products by their usability or aesthetics. We concentrate on what happens when a device (inevitably) goes down. How much time (and therefore funds) does it require opening? Can I replace broken components individually, or will I have to change more expensive large modules? Our assessment gives the consumer a reasonable assumption about the cost of repairs before he buys the product.
In our eyes, the new design was a failure on maintainability. We lowered the Apple rating from seven on a ten-point scale to
two . A subsequent 2013 update sent the MacBook line into free-fall with a rating of 1/10: the lowest score for laptops in history. Since then, it has not risen.
Apple has released two versions of the butterfly mechanism. Version 2.0 seems to handle dust a little better. She was on the market for a year before the volume of complaints reached a critical level. Anyone who paid Apple for replacing the upper case (upper case) for the last two years, most likely, received an updated version. As far as we know, Apple’s new warranty terms wouldn’t have changed - if they had improved, Apple probably would have mentioned it. But we have not analyzed the technique, which was released in the past few weeks. (If we get an instance, I will update the information).
No margin for error
The main disadvantage is that these ultra-thin buttons are easily paralyzed by hard particles. Dust may prevent the key from pressing the switch or may disable the reset mechanism. In a minute I will show how this happens.
The heroine of this story is
Casey Johnston , editor of The Outline, which has covered this topic in detail since her laptop
ran into a problem last year. Her study showed that "while some buttons can be very carefully removed, the space breaks every time someone, including a professional, tries to remove it."
Thus, you can not change the key caps. And it gets worse. The keyboard itself cannot be simply replaced. You can not even remove the upper part of the body with the keyboard. You should replace the glued battery, trackpad and speakers at the same time. For the Apple service team, the entire upper half of the case is one component. That's why Apple has been so slow with these repairs. And this is why it is so important - for customers and for shareholders - that Apple extends the warranty. It's a damn expensive dust.
Let's see what really happens. We put the keyboard under the microscope and entered a grain of sand. The particle is located in the lower right corner and completely blocks the keystroke. Removing it with compressed air is very difficult.
The particle wedges under the butterfly lever, preventing its reversal. In the case of a space, it is almost impossible to remove the key cap without destroying the mechanism. And since the keyboard is part of the monolithic upper part of the case, one speck can make the computer useless.
Traditional key caps are more resistant to debris: they can be removed individually and repaired as needed. But, of course, they are not 40% thinner.
Small thickness is fine, but everything has a compromise. Ask any Touch Bar owner if he would change a tenth of a millimeter to a robust keyboard. Shaking a laptop at an angle of 75 ° and waving accurate zigzag movements in the air will not stick to a slightly thicker design.
This is design anorexia: the product is increasingly thinning due to its
utility ,
functionality ,
maintainability and
the environment .
Get a professional maintainable laptop - not a fantastic request. There are great keyboards in Apple history - they know how to make them. There are very successful laptop makers who
continuously get 10/10 in our maintainability tests. Apple fans are already noisy about the lack of new Macs, especially with the ability to upgrade for professionals. Apple seems to be listening to the opinion of the audience, as can be seen from the new warranty program.
Which brings us to the point. Why did it take so much time and so many complaints to introduce a repair program? Why repair takes more than a week? The answer is simple: because Apple has made its product difficult to repair. New warranty program costs the company a lot of money.
The new program destroys the profits that Apple planned to make on each machine. Unsuitable for repair product design caused specific financial damage. Samsung recently had a similar experience with
Note7 . Yes, the battery problem was a manufacturing defect. But if it were easy to replace, they could only recall the batteries instead of the whole phone. This is a design error worth $ 5 billion.
The point is not only in the cost of the guarantee - there is an explicit request for reliable, durable, upgradeable machines. Just examine the
market demand for the six-year MacBook Pro 2012 - the latest Apple laptop that fully supports the upgrade. I myself have one, and I like it.
Apple may work better. Let's start with a slightly thicker, more reliable keyboard. Butterfly 3.0, we are waiting for you.
For now let's give a chance to other companies. Dell and HP have great, reliable, maintainable flagship laptops that get
rave reviews . I think at the moment they are more worthy producers than Apple.