Apple agrees to pay $50M to settle lawsuit over flawed keyboards on older MacBooks
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/19/apple-agrees-to-pay-50m-to-settle-lawsuit-over-flawed-keyboards-on-older-macbooks/
It was with great fanfare in 2015 that Apple announced that certain MacBook models would ship with redesigned keys, so-called “butterfly” keys, designed to fit in the laptops’ shallower cases. Replacing the traditional scissor-based switches with a new “butterfly” mechanism, the company boasted that it shaved off 40% thickness per key. But problems emerged. In real-world usage, the butterfly keyboards proved prone to stickiness and general unresponsiveness, and could be damaged with even tiny amounts of dust or crumbs.
Apple launched an improved keyboard design on late-2019 MacBooks, but not before customers filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in San Jose alleging that the company knew — and concealed — the fact that its butterfly keys were prone to failure. Ending the saga, Apple today agreed to pay $50 million to settle the case without admitting wrongdoing, according to a Reuters filing.