Apple’s new MacBook Pros for this year come with improved, quieter keyboards. The previous generation of MacBook Pros come with a faulty keyboard that results in keys getting stuck because of dust. Apple faced a lot of backlash over the faulty keyboards, with the company later promising to replace the keyboards of the “small number” of users affected.

While Apple confirmed the new keyboard on the latest MacBook Pros isn’t designed to fix the issue, the company quietly added a new silicone cover over the butterfly switches to protect against dust. The fix is incompetent at best, which is likely why Apple isn’t officially acknowledging the existence of the fix — but in internal documents obtained by MacRumours, the company does mention the new mechanism, confirming the fix.

“The keyboard has a membrane under the keycaps to prevent debris from entering the butterfly mechanism,” the firm stated in one of the internal documents. “Be careful not to tear the membrane,” the firm warns in another document, stating that a torn membrane “will result in a top case replacement.” This replacement could cause hundreds — in fact, I had to pay around £350 to get the top case replaced on my 2015 MacBook Pro back in 2016. It is not fun.

Apple faced a lot of criticism over the new keyboards on its MacBook devices so far. With an aim to make the keyboards thinner, the company ultimately made a flawed keyboard that’s not going to be easy to undo. Apple knows it made a flawed product, which is why it’s even offering free replacements for the older MacBook Pros. One would expect the firm to completely re-design the keyboard with this year’s MacBook Pros to offer a better experience for customers, but that’s really not the case here. What really bothers me is the fact that the new keyboards don’t add any functionality —  yes, they are thinner and add to the streamlined design of the new MacBook Pros, but they aren’t any nicer to type on and requires some getting used to. Is it really worth all the hassle?

Tagged with Butterfly, MacBook Pro