Tech News

Fourth Time’s the Charm? Apple Changes MacBook Keyboard “Material”

Apple has released an updated MacBook Pro with an eight-core processor for the first time in an Apple laptop. But the more interesting change is a tweak to their butterfly keyboard design.

The company makes no mention of the keyboard improvements, but they told Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal that “it has made a change to a material in the keyboard mechanism.” According to Joanna, “Apple didn’t say what specifically changed, but said it would help with the double key-press issue.”

It’s unknown what this specific material is, but we suspect it is the metal spring. We’ll be cracking open a new MacBook Pro as soon as we can get one to find out for sure. Making changes to a product this quickly (the volume of keyboard design criticism ramped up this winter) is very challenging, so the keyboard change isn’t a design change, it’s a spec change.

Inside the MacBook Pro butterfly keyboard

Its third-generation keyboard will be replaced with the fourth-generation model introduced today

Apple is also expanding its keyboard repair program to include newer models in its four-year warranty. If you turn in your 2018 MacBook Air and 2018 Touch Bar MacBook Pro for keyboard repairs, its third-generation keyboard will be replaced with the fourth-generation model introduced today. Apple also stated that it is shortening the turnaround time for keyboard repairs, which previously could take up to a week.

The butterfly keyboard has been a hot-button topic for us over the last couple of years. Even though Apple has made several improvements to the keyboard, MacBook owners are still having issues with it. Will a material tweak fix all of Apple’s keyboard woes? Time will tell. We’ll have more to say later this week.