MacBooks Have Defective Keyboards, Says Complaint Seeking Class-Action Status

Four models of Apple MacBooks marketed since 2015 have keyboards with “butterfly mechanisms” that leave them “unshielded from contaminants” like airborne dust and makes them prone to “failures,” alleged a complaint (in Pacer) filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. The keyboard defects are “recurrent,” and “arise through no fault of the user,” rendering the MacBooks “unsuited for their ordinary use of retrieving and inputting data,” said the complaint, which seeks class-action status and alleges Apple violated 11 federal and California consumer-fraud laws. When consumers complain to Apple while the MacBook is still under its one-year warranty, Apple’s solution is to replace the keyboard with an “equally defective” one, said the complaint. When the laptop no longer is under warranty, Apple charges $700 for a replacement keyboard, “which is a temporary fix at best,” it said. The defective keyboards require consumers “to pay for repeated temporary fixes or extended warranties, which Apple knew or should have known are not permanent solutions,” it said. Apple didn’t comment.