Do you own a MacBook with a butterfly keyboard that requires repair? Well, you may be able to claim some of the money as part of a lawsuit settlement on behalf of the aggrieved parties, now that a California judge has granted preliminary approval to that settlement.
Apple has had a number of controversies about its hardware (often called “this gate” or “that gate”), and one of them has been which MacBook models work with the butterfly keyboard which is prone to defects and should actually be replaced.
As spotted by Macworld (Opens in a new tab)Apple’s $50 million settlement — which was initially approved in July — allows $33 million to be distributed to MacBook Pro owners who have suffered from the issue, with amounts up to $395 payable to those individuals who have to claim. (Much of the remaining money went into attorneys’ fees, as you might expect.)
To qualify as a claimant, you must own a MacBook purchased between 2015 and 2019 — a model with the butterfly keyboard, of course, and that includes the vanilla MacBook, MacBook Air, and most MacBook Pro variants. Moreover, the laptop must have been purchased in the United States, in one of these states: California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.
As mentioned, the maximum compensation is $395 which will be awarded to those who need to replace multiple keyboards. People who just replaced one keyboard will get $125, and for those who had to replace keycaps, they’ll be in line for a $50 payment.
Analysis: Replacing the keyboard was a thorny issue
It’s nice to see Apple (finally) make amends on this matter, but note that the company has not admitted any wrongdoing in this class action settlement. No doubt Apple just wants to draw a line under this episode and move forward.
Part of why this issue was so frustrating is that replacing the keyboard was far from a trivial affair, and involved taking other parts out of the MacBook as well. In fact, the laptop’s upper case assembly, namely the chassis, keyboard, and battery, had to be replaced; Eat a lot.
Needless to say, this was an expensive process, but Apple instigated the Keyboard Service Program to replace any affected keyboards for free (with multiple replacements possible—and it’s those guys who will get the biggest return here, as mentioned). By the way, the webpage of this keyboard service software (Opens in a new tab) Contains the full list of affected MacBook models.
The butterfly keyboard has gone through many revisions, but all of these keyboard surfaces have remained problematic in one way or another — even if they’re improvements over previous incarnations — so Apple eventually abandoned the design from 2020 onwards, thankfully.
via CreativeBlock (Opens in a new tab)