MacBook Faulty Butterfly Keyboard Payments Going Out Soon

Apple MacBook Pro Butterfly Keyboard Credit: Nanain / Shutterstock
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It’s been two years since Apple agreed to pay $50 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the faulty butterfly keyboards it used in MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro laptops between 2015 and 2019. The court finally issued a payment order on June 27, 2024. Payments must be issued to settle approved claims by August 2024.

The MacBook Keyboard Litigation Settlement website has posted an update, informing plaintiffs that the payment order has been issued:

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UPDATE: The Court approved the Settlement on May 25, 2023, and the initial review of claims has been completed.  The Court issued a Payment Order on June 27, 2024. Payments will be issued for approved claims by August 2024.

Affected MacBook owners were allowed to make claims through March 6, 2023. The court approved the settlement on May 25, 2023.

The settlement numbers are as follows:

  • $395 for MacBook owners who had at least two Topcase replacements performed by Apple within four years of the MacBook’s purchase.
  • $125 for MacBook owners who had one Topcase replacement performed by Apple.
  • $50 for those that had keycap replacements performed.

The lawsuit settlement covers MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro owners in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.

The lawsuit alleged that Apple knew about the issue with the butterfly keyboards used in the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models, yet concealed the fact that the keyboards tended to fail and that the repair program Apple put in place to resolve the issue was insufficient, as the replacement butterfly keyboards Apple used to make the repairs were also prone to failure.

From 2015 to 2019, Apple manufactured and sold MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air models equipped with butterfly keyboards. When Apple released the first MacBook model with the butterfly keyboard, it promoted the keyboard as thinner, with superior key feel and stability. Unfortunately, it wasn’t too long after the initial launch that customers learned the keyboards were prone to failure.

Customers reported issues with keys sticking, repeating, and otherwise failing, thanks to dust and other debris that got into the butterfly mechanism. Buyers were outraged.

Apple launched a keyboard repair program in June 2018 that covered MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air models sold during the previous four years. However, customers soon found that the replacement butterfly keyboards were equally faulty, meaning some MacBook owners had to have the keyboard replaced multiple times.

The butterfly keyboard design was simply bad. The butterfly mechanism used by Apple was so persnickety that it seemed that any tiny piece of debris could render a key useless, causing it to either fail completely or type double letters. Also, the construction of the laptops that used the butterfly keyboard meant that replacing a single key wasn’t simple. The repairs required taking it to an Apple repair center, where the entire laptop would need to be disassembled to perform the repair.

Apple eventually manufactured three different generations of its butterfly keyboard, none of which proved to be less prone to failure. Apple now uses the more reliable scissor-switch keyboard mechanism in its MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models.


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