As spiffy as the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard was, complete with its new butterfly key-switch action, there’ve been a fair number of complaints about the unit, especially with regards to its failure rates.
And they’ve been getting worse.
The cool cats over at AppleInsider collected service data for the first year of release of the 2014, 2015, and 2016 MacBook Pros, with an additional slightly shorter data set for the 2017 model year given that it hasn’t been available for a year yet. Not including any Touch Bar failures, the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard is failing twice as often in the first year of use as the 2014 or 2015 MacBook Pro models. The 2017 model is better, but not by a lot.
The site combined the breakdown for the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, subtracting warranty-voiding accidents, like impacts, or water spills. From here, all data was collected from assorted Apple Genius Bars in the United States as well as Apple-authorized repair ships.
The 2014 MacBook Pro model year saw 2,120 service events in the first year, with 118 related to keyboard issues necessitating an upper case replacement, thereby representing 5.6 percent of all MacBook Pros serviced in the first year. The 2015 has 1904 service tickets, with 114, or 6.0 percent, relating to the keyboard.
The two numbers are similar, which was to be expected, as the keyboards themselves remained essentially unchanged since the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro, and should have failure rates similar to each other.
Apple released the new keyboard with its MacBook as well as brought the updated keyboard design to the 2016 MacBook Pro. Per the data collected, of 1,402 warranty events, 165, or 11.8 percent, corresponded only to the keyboard, not including the Touch Bar.
Failure rates across all four models are relatively static, with no appreciable increase or decrease in events reported at any time after release. Percentages of failures were comparable between the third-party authorized shops, and the Genius Bar data.
The problem also seems to have persisted even through the repair process. For the 2014 MacBook Pro, of the 118 repairs, 8 came back for a second go-around on the repair within 90 days. With the 2015, 6 did. None came back for a third time.
For the redesigned 2016 MacBook Pro, of the 165 keyboard repairs, 51 came back again once, and of those 51, 10 more came back for a third time. The 2017 fared better in this regard, with 17 of the 94 coming back once, and 3 of those coming back for a third time.
Overall, this represents a significant increase in first-year service demands for a keyboard. Apple has also seen its repair percentages increase for the 2014 and 2015 keyboards prior to the launch of the 2016 keyboard, which is worrying.
Beyond this, the keyboard itself isn’t replaceable as a modular part. Should part of the keyboard break, the user will need to replace the entire assembly, which consists of the keyboard, the battery, and the upper case metal surrounding the keyboard and Thunderbolt 3 ports. Prices for this repair have exceeds $700 for the job with the repair itself taking an appreciable amount of time, as the entire machine will need to be disassembled and reassembled around the new top case/keyboard/battery component. This same repair also retails for around $400 on the 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pro models. Beyond this, you can always use a USB or Bluetooth keyboard until you can afford the repair, which isn’t an enviable position to be in.
So, if you have a 2016 or later MacBook or MacBook Pro, please be careful around the keyboard, as it’s buyer beware until Apple addresses the underlying causes of the issue.
Via AppleInsider