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by jrochkind1 2097 days ago
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. :(
2 comments
HatchedLake721 2096 days ago
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.
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jrochkind1 2096 days ago
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...

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bitcurious 2096 days ago
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.
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HatchedLake721 2093 days ago
Weird. I just had a full case replaced this week for my 2017 MacBook Pro (for free)
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richiebful1 2096 days ago
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

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HatchedLake721 2093 days ago
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.

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brokenmachine 2096 days ago
>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?

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spronkey 2096 days ago
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.
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ProZsolt 2096 days ago
They actually changing the full top case with battery and trackpad included.

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

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plow-tycoon 2096 days ago
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.
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