Apple slapped with a lawsuit over Macbook's butterfly keyboard

Apple's much-defamed keyboard design has bugged many customers since the day of its launch. The criticism has landed the company in court. Apple has been hit with class action suit for the failures of its MacBook and MacBook Pro butterfly swift keyboards. According to Apple Insider, the company was hit by the lawsuit in federal court on Friday.

The complaint was lodged in the Northern District Court of California. The lawsuits claim that the owner of MacBook and MacBook Pro models manufactured from 2015 and 2016 respectively are experiencing some type of failure.

According to thousands of users, the failure is in the butterfly keyboard mechanism which makes the machine useless. The report claims that the design of the keyboard makes the keystrokes to go unregistered even with small amounts of dust or debris obstruct normal switch behaviour.

Some extreme cases have also witnesses, the key failure. Which ultimately force users to take the device to the service centre or authorized Apple repair facility which would cost a fortune if the laptop is not under the warranty period.

Apple introduced its first butterfly keyboard back in 2015 with the release of its redesigned 12-inch MacBook laptop. Later ported the design to the MacBook Pro which was launched in 2016. The keyboard doesn't seem to be very much different from the previous models, but underneath the keys is the butterfly mechanism which was implemented for a smoother and more responsive keystroke than the regular design.

Moreover, it was much thinner, which allow the company to slim down the laptop frame and also make room for other components. Apple claims the keyboard is "four times more stable" despite its space-saving build.

This suit quotes numerous complaints from different users who have posted their problems on Apple's own Community Support forums. Users have also reported hearing high-pitched sounds when pressing keys. The issues have been widespread enough, more than 18,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding a recall of MacBooks with the butterfly keyboard.

The case has two plaintiffs who claim to have purchased MacBooks with problems. One named, Zixuan Rao, who purchased a new 15-inch MacBook Pro in January and experienced problems with the letter "B" key about a month later. Rao sought help from the Apple store in April.
Representatives were unable to fix the issue and suggested repair under Apple's gratis one-year warranty.

The second is, Kyle Barbaro, who suffered through a similar situation with his 2016 MacBook Pro when his space bar and caps lock keys were rendered useless. Apple repaired the issued, but the space bar failed again. Apple quoted him a price of more than $700 to perform the repair because his device was out of warranty.

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Both the plaintiffs are seeking damages and legal fees from the company. They are demanding Apple to publicly acknowledge the design issues with its butterfly keyboard. They are also asking for Apple to reimburse the repair amount and replace the laptops.