The rumor mill currently has it that Apple may be removing the infamous butterfly keyboard from its MacBook.
Per a new report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple may at last be reverting to the scissor-switch design for this year’s MacBook Air and 2020’s MacBook Pro.
Instead of bringing back the scissor-switch keyboard from older MacBooks, Kuo claims that Apple may use a new design that includes glass fiber reinforcements for the keys.
The news seems part of a wider shift at Apple in which the company is being less stubborn about design principles that it clung to for years. Before this, it was perhaps most apparent in the shift to services and the sweeping changes announced for the iPad interface at this year’s WWDC.
Since its debut in 2015, Apple’s butterfly keyboard has received complaints of everything from reliability issues to comfort of use. Early versions of the butterfly keyboard suffered enough failures for Apple to begin instituting replacement programs.
In essence, if crumbs or debris slipped under the keyboard and a single key was disabled, Apple would have to replace the entire keyboard to replace the issue. To remedy this issue, Apple introduced a membrane in the 2018 MacBook Pro and followup MacBooks that lessened the chances of this happening.
Apple may introduce yet another new generation of butterfly keyboard in the rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro that’s expected later this year.
The butterfly keyboard was designed to make the MacBooks as thing as possible, although this also led to comfort-related issues as well.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.