Casey Johnston was the first major tech journalist to call Apple out on this issue in a serious and sustained way, beginning with a 2017 article in The Outline titled “The new MacBook keyboard is ruining my life.” A March 2019 editorial from Joanna Stern at The Wall Street Journal also made a huge splash, taking the idea that these keyboards are fundamentally flawed to the mainstream. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion. A plastic overlay covers the gaps between the keys, creating a smooth, virtually seamless surface. It kicked off a new design language, complete with USB-C ports and that butterfly keyboard. See our ethics statement. That MacBook was discontinued in July 2019, replaced by the refreshed MacBook Air. That’s doubly important now, with Apple’s stores shut down in most countries during the pandemic and no clear way of knowing when you might be able to get a repair done. Here's what I did: After thoroughly spraying the space bar with air, I placed my MacBook Pro back on my kitchen table and happily discovered that its space bar was again fully operational. Apple obstinately stuck with this keyboard design for much too long, hurting its image and causing wholly unnecessary hassle and cost for its customers. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. More than anything else, though, the whole butterfly keyboard saga has been a huge reputation hit for Apple. I called my local Apple Store and asked a technician for an estimate for the repair cost I'm facing if I'm no longer under warranty and my space bar goes kaput and stays that way. Others have responded to this comment with profuse thanks saying it worked for them. If the problem is happening regularly, either switch from everything bagels to plain bagels or visit your local Apple Store -- ideally before your warranty is up. Processor is also a YouTube series with the same goal: providing smart and surprising analysis with a bit of humor. Is it SwiftUI? They are quiet, therefore suitable to use in public places. Travel-friendly: Chiclet keyboards generally embedded in the device like on laptops. And if you are already past your warranty, then be prepared to pay a sizable repair bill. Apple’s Mac revenue is Apple’s problem, not yours. A chiclet keyboard — also known as an island-style keyboard — uses thin, clean-cut keys that are slightly spread out from one another. A few months later, I was merrily typing away -- while wondering how I ever enjoyed the feel of the mushy keys on my previous MacBook Pro -- when the space bar suddenly stopped working. The butterfly keyboard on Apple's latest MacBook and MacBook Pro models can put you in a sticky situation. A third — and, depending on how you’re counting, fourth — generation design followed, with Apple descriptions of its tweaks getting more and more arcane until the last generation when it would only say that there were “new materials” in 2019’s MacBooks. He told me that they would need to send it out for repair and couldn't give me an estimate for the repairs. If you’re using a MacBook yourself, there’s a good chance you’re typing on one, too. While I don’t know exactly the keyboard that you mean, the most recent Mac keyboard that I have tried is, in my professional opinion, atrocious. For a brief time, it seemed as though Apple intended it to be the MacBook, but it was too small, underpowered, and expensive to go truly mainstream. After all, I'm not the only one with a faulty MacBook Pro space bar -- songs have been written about it. Through it all and up until the November 2019 launch of a “new” keyboard design in the 16-inch MacBook Pro, Apple kept defending and tweaking the butterfly keyboard. It did the trick for me. Unfortunately for me, that's the side I use to, you know, add spaces between words. You are reading Processor, a newsletter about computers, software, and tech by Dieter Bohn. The primary benefit of the butterfly keyboard was that it was thin, giving Apple more flexibility to use the extra space for more components or to make the entire laptop thinner. But what if the time comes when compressed air doesn't do the trick? Thanks for A2A. When I traded my old MacBook Pro for a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, it took me a few days to get accustomed to typing on the shallow, butterfly keyboard. But those benefits were eclipsed by the butterfly keyboard’s many faults. Adding insult to injury, Apple’s laptop construction meant that replacing that single key wasn’t a simple operation. The Mac has serious challenges in front of it. The biggest is simply that the design was unreliable. For those who felt Apple was intentionally making its devices harder to repair as a way to further lock them down and also cut out third-party repair shops, it was another data point. As Intel’s processor roadmap meanders, Apple is reportedly working on a switch to its own ARM-based processors. If you are a MacBook user, the biggest effect on you is whether your keyboard lets you type. No dice. It also meant that the keys were more “stable” as you pressed down, giving you virtually the same feel when you pushed down on the corner of a keycap as the center. For some, it called Apple’s judgment into question. © 2020 CNET, A RED VENTURES COMPANY. How could the company fail to see — or refuse to admit — that it was shipping a bad product? However, Apple did acknowledge keyboard problems, but it was in a way that implied the problem wasn’t as widespread as people thought. Since this first encounter with a dead -- or half-dead -- space bar, it has happened two more times, and each time a can of compressed air revived it. So, my advice to those typing on a MacBook model with a butterfly keyboard -- the current MacBook Pro models and the 12-inch MacBook -- is to keep a can of compressed air on hand. For those who felt Apple is still trying to create a “reality distortion field” where everything it makes is great but the truth is much more mundane, well... you get the picture. Switching the entire product lineup over to a new keyboard in the span of six months is impressive, but the decision to finally do so came far too late. You can read an archive of Processor newsletters here. Or, more specifically, when the right side of the space bar stopped working. I held my MacBook Pro at a nearly vertical angle -- Apple says 75 degrees is the magic number. Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch with Magic Keyboard, The saga of Apple’s bad butterfly MacBook keyboards is finally over, The best Black Friday deals happening now, We’ve hand-picked the best deals happening online, The best Black Friday deals on Apple devices, You can get the new MacBook Air and Pro on a discount, It’s the best time of the year to stock up on games, The best Black Friday tech deals happening at Walmart, The best Black Friday deals on PC accessories, Sign up for the Since I use my MacBook Pro primarily at my kitchen table and my local bagel shop (and always opt for an everything bagel), I figured a poppy seed, a piece of dried onion or garlic or a bread crumb got lodged underneath my space bar. When it released new MacBooks after that, it even went so far as to say the extended service program would apply to those brand-new machines as they were announced. The overall effect of a chiclet keyboard is flatter and more space-efficient than a traditional keyboard. After five years of applying bandages to the butterfly keyboard, Apple has switched over its entire laptop line to the scissor-switch-based Magic Keyboard in the span of six months. And if you've had your MacBook keyboard repaired by Apple, please share that experience and the associated cost, too. This newsletter will arrive about once or twice a week. I was able to fix my space bar issue, but I'm worried it'll return -- and will do so the day after my warranty runs out next month. Those are fundamental software questions for the Mac, and answering them could be an invigorating challenge — one that could spark an exciting next era for the Mac. After a trip to Staples for a can of compressed air, I got to work. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Learn the right way to clean your MacBook's keyboard, Apple Support's guide on how to clean the keyboard. I then turned it around so it was facing sideways the other way and sprayed again. Earlier, I called Apple’s attempts to save the butterfly keyboard obstinate, but a less charitable way of putting it is simply to call it hubris. For those who thought Apple was sacrificing functionality for thinness across its entire product lineup, the butterfly keyboard looked like confirmation. It required taking the laptop into an Apple repair center where the entire machine would have to be disassembled. Then, in 2018, it added a silicone membrane underneath the keys to keep dust out (though Apple claimed it was meant to make the keyboards quieter). A chiclet keyboard or island-style keyboard is a computer keyboard with keys that form an array of small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like erasers or "Chiclets", a brand of chewing gum manufactured in the shape of small squares with rounded corners.

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