Vratislav Holub When Apple introduced the new 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pros in October, it almost immediately wowed the vast majority of Apple fans. These two innovations completely changed the shape of the entire series and in general it can be said that with this generation Apple officially admitted all the mistakes of the earlier models. The giant probably realized its mistakes a little earlier, as it removed one of them already in 2019. It is, of course, a butterfly keyboard, which still inspires fear and concern among apple users.
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Adam Kos The keyboard with a butterfly mechanism first appeared in the 12″ MacBook from 2015, and subsequently Apple bet on it in the case of its other laptops as well. He even trusted her so much that even though she was extremely flawed from the beginning and a wave of criticism poured in on her account, the giant still tried to improve her in various ways and bring her to perfection. Despite all efforts, the project simply failed and had to be withdrawn. Despite this, Apple sacrificed a lot of money in favor of these keyboards, but not only for development, but also for subsequent repairs. Because they were so defective, a special service program had to be introduced for them, where users with a damaged keyboard were replaced free of charge by authorized services. And that is the stumbling block that has probably cost Apple billions of dollars a year.
The expenditure on the butterfly keyboard was striking
The foreign portal MacRumors drew attention to Apple's financial report with the title Form 10-K, in which the giant shares information about the costs associated with the warranty. At first glance, it is also obvious that the company was losing billions of dollars every year because of the butterfly keyboard. But what does it actually look like? According to this report, between 2016 and 2018, Apple spent over $4 billion a year on these costs. By the way, these are the years in which problems with keyboards were solved most often. However, the figures dropped to $2019 billion in 3,8 and even dropped to $2020 billion and $2021 billion in 2,9 and 2,6, respectively.
The Butterfly keyboard was not very successful
Unfortunately, it cannot be said with certainty that the butterfly keyboard is responsible for 100% of this. For example, in 2015, warranty costs were $4,4 billion, when keyboards were virtually non-existent. At the same time, Apple does not provide any further information on these numbers, so it is impossible to say with certainty which item was the most expensive. Other factors can also be behind the sudden reduction in costs. Namely, it can be a newer design of iPhones, since in the past Apple often had to deal with problems with a broken home button, which often ended with the replacement of the device, and new service programs for apple phones, where Apple can replace the glass at a branch, rather than changing the user's phone for a new one. At the same time, the giant stopped replacing iPhones with new ones in the event that the back glass was cracked.
New MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and M1 Max
Despite this, one thing is certain. The butterfly keyboard had to cost Apple enormous sums, and it is more than clear that a considerable part of the given costs is precisely this failed experiment. In addition, the device is covered by the aforementioned service program, where the authorized service will replace the entire keyboard free of charge. If apple growers had to pay for this out of their own pockets, they would certainly not be happy. This operation can easily cost more than 10 thousand crowns. At the same time, Apple will pay for its attempt with a new keyboard until 2023. The service program is valid for 4 years, while the last such MacBook was released in 2019.
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I would like to point out that Apple did not voluntarily exchange anything for anyone, but was forced to do so by the courts, as in other cases of poor design.
They also have themselves to blame, because the keyboard is riveted to the body and cannot be easily replaced.
But the vast majority of laptops today have that. what about today, Most manufacturers started with it around 2013/2014, mostly with premium series.