[andyhmltn]

I'm currently having to go through a home insurance claim for a similar reason. I stupidly took one of the keys off and bent a bit of plastic getting it back on. The damaged part of the key is on the keycap itself, rather than the mechanism underneath. Silly mistake but I imagine not super uncommon.

Took it to an Apple store and was quoted £700 to fix it which is equivalent to almost half the cost of the laptop. For a single key. Absolute insanity.

[ChuckNorris89]

Damn, what a rip-off. Why not stop giving them your money and stop buying any more of their products and services? Hit them where it hurts, their sales and bottom line.

Just complaining about it doesn't get you very far as long as you still keep shoving money in their pocket.

These days there are plenty of quality alternatives that are not Apple and lowering their sales should send a clear message to their board.

[pilsetnieks]

It will send a message but I'm not sure it's clear at all.

I always see the suggestion to vote with your wallet but how does it even work with a product with usable lifecycle of 5 or even 10 years? By the end of 2025 Apple will see a sales slowdown over the past few years. At that point I'm not sure it's even possible to pinpoint specific reasons, like "customer couldn't replace keycap on a 2017 model computer" which may or may not have been solved for years already.

If you have complaints and you want them to be fixed, tell them (https://www.apple.com/feedback/), unless you've given up completely on the company and won't ever return to it. Simply voting with your wallet is the equivalent of ghosting in commerce.

[lallysingh]

They do already see their sales figures. They also know what their own repair policies/budgets are. I absolutely believe that they're looking at what effect changes on repair policies have on repeat sales.

[brokenmachine]

If they quoted me 700 pounds to fix one key on a laptop, I wouldn't care about what the accountants think.

[arkitaip]

It is unfortunate that you are getting downvoted for stating the absolute most sane option. Apple isn't doing anything illegal here, so consumers aren't going to see a change in their behavior. Unless they opt out of Apple's offerings completely.

[CogitoCogito]

Another option of course is to change what's legal. Society could legally force Apple to allow and cooperate with real independent repair shops. It seems quite clear this would be a more efficient and fair system.

But yes we can also strive towards both goals simultaneously. I personally will never spend any money on Apple's products. I've inherited a few of them, but I keep myself as loosely tied to the ecosystem as possible.

[jrochkind1]

Some years ago I had the tech at the Apple store replace a single damaged key on my laptop for me completely free, he had a drawer full of keycaps, it took him five minutes, he was just like, no problem, bye.

Times have changed. :(

[HatchedLake721]

It’s not that support has changed, it’s the butterfly keyboard. You can’t replace keys with butterfly keyboard, the whole thing has to.

[jrochkind1]

Oh that's a terrible technology choice. :(

Other people in this thread are saying they have done DIY single key replacements... but maybe it was on models that weren't the butterfly keyboard?

Do I understand right that the "butterfly keyboard" is actually no longer used in the new 2020 models, it was abandoned by Apple? [1] It does seem to have been a mistake all around.

[1]: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/butterfly-keyboard-vs-scisso...

[bitcurious]

Not sure about the latest version of the butterfly keyboard, but the that’s not true of the 2017 version. I just had two keys replaced, individually. I have a loose key as a souvenir.

[HatchedLake721]

Weird. I just had a full case replaced this week for my 2017 MacBook Pro (for free)

[richiebful1]

It's still insane that parts + labor costs £700 for a keyboard. I bet the part costs £70. I highly doubt labor could be reasonable valued at £630.

Edit: currency is not American

[HatchedLake721]

The costs are wrong. I had my 2017 MacBook's pro keyboard fixed this week (for free). They can't replace the keyboard alone, so they had to replace the whole bottom case, so fixing the keyboard I also got a new trackpad and a new battery.

The Apple repair confirmation email has two items listed, £290.83 for the case, £69 for repairs. It's £0.00 to pay because it's covered by Apple.

[brokenmachine]

>parts + labor costs £700 for a keyboard. I bet the part costs £70.

Lol, why? I have expensive keyboards and they are nowhere near that much for a single key. Is there any other keyboard on the planet that has such expensive keys (except maybe that one with OLEDs on every key)?

What are they sprinkling these things with to make people parrot such tripe?

[spronkey]

They are riveted to the aluminium top case, that also contains the trackpad and a battery glued in on top of it. So... you're forced to buy all that for a keyboard - a part that is likely to fail in the lifespan of the machine.

[ProZsolt]

They actually changing the full top case with battery and trackpad included.

Makes sense? No. Costs more than £70? Yes.

[plow-tycoon]

That's sort of what I was hoping for in this case. In the past, I've brought my laptop in, and per their discretion they've either honored a repair program or just made a quick fix.

[garblegarble]

>Took it to an Apple store and was quoted £700 to fix it which is equivalent to almost half the cost of the laptop. For a single key. Absolute insanity.

I've had this happen to me, although I argued (successfully) that the keyboard was defective and I was trying to repair a stuck key (this was the previous butterfly mechanism) and they did a replacement under AppleCare.

The tech even told me that replacing keycaps on the butterfly keyboards is extremely challenging, and even they break the keys sometimes.

[kingnothing]

If homeowners insurance in the UK is anything like it is in the US, I'd advise you to cancel the claim and pay for it yourself out of pocket. In the US, if you ever make a homeowners insurance claim, you basically get blacklisted from getting a new policy from any provider anywhere in the country on any home you own for some unknown number of years.

[bluedino]

I had that issue with my 2015 12" MacBook Retina.

I ended up buying a broken keyboard from eBay for $80 and picked the keys off that I wanted, then re-sold it on eBay for $60.

(this was before they announced the keyboard replacement program)

[hadrien01]

What is the 'key' in this context?

[kmm]

The one on a keyboard you type letters with, not the one you open houses with.