In 2022, Apple agreed to pay a $50 million settlement to eligible 2015-2019 MacBook owners who had to deal with faulty butterfly keyboards. In December 2022, class action emails were sent out to eligible MacBook owners. And in June 2024, the court issued a payment order, requiring Apple to settle the payments by August 2024. To comply with the law, Apple has begun sending settlement money to customers affected by Apple's faulty MacBook butterfly keyboard design.
Apple's Faulty MacBook Butterfly Keyboard Explained… With Real Butterflies | WSJ
The butterfly keyboard debuted in 2015 with the new 12-inch MacBook, and it was later expanded to the 2016 MacBook Pro and 2018 MacBook Air. The keyboard design proved problematic for customers, and several users raised concerns about reliability and durability. Although Apple updated the design several times during this period, the butterfly mechanism proved to be a failure. Thousands of customers reported problems such as sticky keys, duplicate keys, and complete keyboard failures, often due to dust, crumbs, and other debris. Image courtesy: Mohit Singh/Beebom
In late 2019, Apple finally moved away from the flawed Butterfly keyboard design and switched to the "scissor switch" design. In mid-2020, Apple adopted the new Magic Keyboard, which is more durable to withstand daily wear and tear.
To address the Butterfly keyboard issues, Apple launched a repair program in June 2018, covering MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models launched between early 2015 and early 2019. However, it only replaced butterfly keyboards with other butterfly keyboards, which was not a permanent fix solution to the problem.
