4 years’ warranty on the keyboard for their latest Macbooks sounds great but as someone who recently purchased Macbook Pro and expects to use it longer than 4 years, it doesn’t give me full confidence in their long term reliability.
Has anyone experienced any issues with allegedly affected Mac models? Are those concerns overblown, as Antennagate and Bendgate were? Do you plan to sell your Macbook before the extra warranty runs out?
They made me pay full price for a 6 month old swollen battery a while ago, citing a paragraph that batteries were consumables and not covered by applecare.
That laptop was one of the ones with the busted nvidia chip too… apparently not covered.
OTOH my more recent laptop they replaced the keyboard when it broke (basically wore out due to 2 years of typing on it)…
They have also replaced my power supplies without question presumably because they break so often it’s not worth arguing (I’m on my third and this one needs replacing too…).
It’s so inconsistent, but with other laptop manufacturers basically offering no support at all (there are no dell stores, or clevo stores) there’s so little choice.
I think they’re basically saying they don’t expect the current line of MacBooks to last more than 4 years. And there aren’t any other options if you want an apple laptop. i think they all have these keyboards.
I actually have a hell of a story about the Macbook Pro 2016 I bought. 4 months after the purchase I started having issues with the space bar (it wouldn’t recognise the hit on the right side of the bar).
Took it to the Genius and they said they’d take it to the back to remove the piece and clean underneath. When the guy brought it back he said “it appears to be working… worse than before”. He said they’d have to keep it for inspection and get back to me in the afternoon.
In the afternoon he phoned me saying that a brand new MacBook Pro 2017 was ready to collect at the apple store
PS: Had the new unit for 7-8 months now and no issues!
Unless you expect your new apple laptop to last more than 4 years, which is not unreasonable given the price. My last apple laptop was over 7 years old when I replaced it.
Had the issue with two of the 2016 MacBook Pro models (straight from new!), where various different keys stopped working on each, and so ended up getting a refund and waiting until the 2017 model was out. Have been using it for just about a year now, and occasionally a key will stop if something gets under it, but generally seems okay… we’ll see how long it lasts!
Funny you should mention this, because I got my Macbook in 2015 and the keys were already a little wonky when I got it. Especially my space and esc buttons. And the “i” button had to be replaced entirely, because it was broken when I got it. It has also mysteriously and inconveniently died on me last week before my deadline as well and I passed it to my aunt to get it sent in for repairs.
I would consider Apple’s keyboard warranty reasonable if it was stretched to 6 years. I would genuinely struggle to blame them for anything going dead after this period.
If they miraculously decide to go back to keyboard with high travel, I will be selling mine. At first I thought I liked their new keyboard, but strangely the longer I use it, the less acurate my typing gets!
My 2016 MacBook (the tiny 12-inch one) has its keyboard which occasionally starts tying “=” by itself. It’s rare enough that I didn’t bother looking into it until now but maybe I will reconsider and try to make some time for a trip to the Apple Store (and this time try not to say “It’s Monzo time!” and spend tons of money on new Apple stuff).
Laptops in general only have an expected lifespan of between 3 and 5 years.
Apple only generally provides service (out of warranty) for 5 years so only 3rd party repairs are possible after that. Obsolete Apple products are at the 7 year mark, making 3rd party repairs using official parts practically impossible. I think the 2012 line of MacBooks are due to be rendered obsolete soon.
Seen as the last Macs with these keyboard issues are the MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), with 4 years added support brings it to the 5 years serviceable period.
