Both my work macbook pro and my personal macbook air have keyboard issues. My personal skips or double hits the letter “e”, which has been a nightmare because I’ve been writing a book the whole time. My work laptop is worse, the command key doesn’t work most of the time. Sometimes I try to copy something, I’ll hit command-c and instead it’ll overwrite my selection with “c”. So I try to undo and hit command-z, so it’ll write “cz”, I hit a number of time which gets me “czzzzzz” (which is funny if I’m on VC and sharing my screen). Then the undo works, I try to copy again, and I hit the same issue again. Im convinced that my mental health has taken a toll in parts due to this. I’m also convinced I have many typos in my book because of this as well.
When the double letters started happening for me, I became legitimately concerned about my own sanity. It didn't occur to me that the keyboard may be faulty since I type quite fast, couldn't reproduce the problem in slow motion, and didn't think Apple products were capable of such fundamental flaws.
I ended up paying Apple more money for an external keyboard and trackpad when the Apple store employee told me that it would take me weeks to get my keyboard fixed. I used to love Apple products, but after my struggle with this issue I absolutely despise them.
Initially, I was skeptical of all the reports about how frequently the issue was happening, and I was starting to believe that it was just hysterics by the anti-Apple crowd. But it was eventually just a matter of time.
First my personal laptop had issues, and I was thankfully able to take advantage of the free keyboard replacement. Then my work laptop began experiencing the same issue, and it's gotten so bad that I had to connect an external keyboard in order to be able to login because I have no way to see which characters are getting screwed up as I type my password.
I keep meaning to take it to the Apple store, but the latest estimates are 5 to 7 days to replace the keyboard and I haven't yet had the opportunity to be without my work machine for that long.
Before I brought my Macbook Air in for repairs, I did have some success with the Unshakey application [1]. Sadly, about 8 months after getting that fixed my entire display went due to the supposed "Flexgate" issue.
I just did an online chat with Apple to get my keyboard replaced due to similar issues. It’s out of warranty but they said they’ll do it for free for up to four years after the date of retail sale...I happened to be exactly, to the day, four years from when I bought it! Make sure you get it done before then!
I've been using my macbook every day, all day, for two years. How hard are you hitting the keys? Or were you trying to pop the keys off? Because that will break them easily.
Look the butterfly macbook keyboards were defective, end of story. It's not a matter of someone being too harsh on them, they were extremely failure prone compared to other keyboards. Sometimes canned air worked, plenty of other times it wouldn't do anything. Even users who paid $700 to get Apple to repair their screw up and immediately put a silicone keyboard cover over the replacement still had keyboard failure after a year. Clearly they called it a butterfly keyboard because that's how light you have to touch it to keep it from failing. This isn't heavy handed users, this is idiotic design decisions.
Apple put out one of the least reliable keyboards in any laptop that was simultaneously the most expensive to repair. It took them 3 years of gouging customers with obscenely expensive repairs before they were willing to actually admit to the defective design. There's plenty of users on HN alone who suffered from it when it broke right after the warranty ended. If you didn't decide to purchase AppleCare, you got to pay Apple hundreds of dollars to fix their own design defect on a relatively new machine while Apple staff pretended to be completely unaware that this was a common problem.
I'm glad their canned air trick worked for you, many others weren't so lucky. Even today, best case scenario if your keyboard is far gone enough to need replacement instead of canned air, it gets replaced with a new keyboard that's just as defective as the original.
I noticed that on the 12” macbook when it started to get warm. If the keyboard was cool it never happened. But once it was under load keys started getting all janky.
If I'm coding with an external screen connected (always hot, regardless of activity), and doing anything that requires the CPU (that never fails to bring the temperature tup massively and the fans to come on all the way up) I will make too many mistakes. Missing letters, things I need to press harder or for longer, etc. It's a massive pain.
