MacBook butterfly trouble: US users get money from Apple – and not too little
Apple sold problematic MacBook keyboards between 2015 and 2019. After a lawsuit settlement, there is now up to 400 US dollars.
(Image: iFixIt)
While customers in Germany have recently been unable to take advantage of Apple's exchange program for the problematic butterfly keyboards in several MacBook models, people living in the US will now receive a decent amount of money. After the company had already settled with plaintiff groups in 2022, compensation is now finally to be paid. At least 50 million US dollars are in the pot.
Downgrades of up to 400 dollars
The court responsible decided in June that Apple would have to pay from August 2024. There are to be various gradations. People who only had to have individual keycaps replaced will receive 50 dollars. If the entire top case - the area of the housing containing the keyboard and the surrounding frame - has been replaced, Apple will pay up to 125 dollars. If two top cases were replaced during the four years that Apple sold the Butterfly keyboard, customers are entitled to 395 dollars.
Anyone who has taken part in the class action should have received an e-mail from the lawyers responsible by now. Other customers can take a look at a specially set up website (Keyboardsettlement.com). However, the deadline for participating in one of the three settlement classes has now expired. Claims could only be submitted until March 6, 2023. It remains to be seen whether there will be enough money for all claimants. 50 million dollars is rather small change for class action lawsuits against Apple; another lawsuit concerning iPhone batteries resulted in half a billion dollars.
Keyboard problem not acknowledged for years
Apple had put its customers to the test for years with its butterfly keyboard. Apple introduced this new type of key switch in spring 2015: The so-called butterfly mechanism was intended to enable particularly thin, yet precise notebook keyboards. The problem: after the technology was extended to the MacBook Pro models the following year, there were an increasing number of user reports of failures.
Keys jammed, keystrokes did not come through and/or the entire mechanism failed. The reason was often that dust or crumbs got under the keycaps; the dirt was virtually impossible to remove, and even professionals had a hard time. Apple finally responded with a replacement program, but only stopped using the technology in 2019. During the Butterfly era, users had to have their top case replaced several times, as the fault reoccurred immediately after replacement.
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