Gadgetory

you know to be honest I never really thought this day would come that Apple would finally again admit that something of their something they designed and manufactured was inherently flawed and that's exactly what they've done with the butterfly switches that they've implemented since the 2015 12 inch MacBook now I own that MacBook I also own the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the second gen revision of the butterfly switches and that's why I'm making this video I know most of you don't really care about Apple you either don't like them or you don't like mac books in particular I'm not gonna try to convince you otherwise you know why I use them I have that explained in this video here but as a user and owner of both the 12 inch and 13-inch MacBook with me switches I can attest to the fact that these are horribly flawed and it's not something you'll pick up on right away because you have to get dust under them or you have to have some sort of mechanism failure which happens usually in the long run - for you to experience right in order for you to actually hate the keyboard because at first it's a weird feeling I don't want to say that it's a bad feeling it's just a different feeling typing on a key that has literally almost no key travel no feeling of actuation really it almost feels like typing on just a glass and in a way that's really cool in a way it's it's just it's a different feeling and I like trying different things out that's why I never really hated the butterfly switches from just a user standpoint from a tactile key travel standpoint but in terms of durability in terms of how they're designed they are flawed and Apple has finally admitted that so let's get down to it why these switches actually failed and what Apple's going to do to address the issue and that part it's gonna be very interesting because they've actually hired a whole team of people specialize with repairing these keyboards because I didn't expect that they would need to do this when they first manufactured the laptops unless they had you know robots or humans literally typing on these things for months until one of them failed they said from this looks interesting and Apple said don't worry about it now I don't think many people are gonna complain yeah little did they know entire forms would be dedicated to how much people hate this keyboard because it doesn't last very long the butterfly switch was a revolutionary step forward from Apple's perspective it was a change from the traditional scissor switch that many people use here's how it works I'm not gonna bother drawing a schematic on a whiteboard or trying to show you in some weird CGI rendition scissor switches this you have an X you have a hinge in the middle and these two Hindus are allowed to fold the point of actuation for the keys in the center you push down on top and this is a literally what happens okay so it fattens when you push it down actuation is here and then the key bounces up to resting position here so like a scissor right now the reason why Apple calls their switch the butterfly switch is because the arms of the key mechanism when folded down look like a butterfly flapping its wings right so the hinge is still in the center point of actuation still in the center you push down on the key and the arms go like this so if you keep pressing the key that's what it looks like right so the hinge is fixed it's not going anywhere and the arms are just folding down as you push the key down the advantage of this according to Apple was that they could slim the profile over all laptop didn't have to be as thick because the entire key mechanism was thinner and that of course resulted in minimal key travel right that was one of the things that people didn't like about it they preferred the Machir keys of the previous MacBook that did have significantly more heat travel to them but one of the other unforeseen possibly downsides of this design is that if you get even the smallest speck of dust underneath the key cap then you've got a serious problem because now one arm of the butterfly switch at least won't be able to fold down all the way and then the key won't actuate Apple admittedly did a better job with their second-generation butterfly switches making them feel a bit more tactile the key travel was still basically the same but it didn't feel like you were typing on glass as much you did feel the key actually moved this time and click and that was just a more satisfying feeling overall especially if you're typing a long documents on Microsoft Word or what-have-you you don't want to feel like you're just typing on something that's not giving you any feedback that's why people love mechanical keyboards but the second generation butterfly switch did not solve the issue of crap getting stuck under the key cap and preventing the key from working overall by the way when we say actuated were meaning the key actually sending a signal to the motherboard to the operating system that the key was pushed so that you get a symbol shown on screen the company's been sued all over the place class-action lawsuits and states like California over the keyboard switched itself the mechanism failing on them and Apple refusing to acknowledge the issue of the long run has stirred up these lawsuits and I'm sure Apple just decided at this point that it can no longer ignore the massive amounts of people having issues with their MacBooks so they decided to start a new repair program now I have details here from the verge according to Apple service page the program covers the following issues so letters or characters repeat unexpectedly if you have that issue you can get it fixed now letters or characters do not appear that is basically the key not actuated which is what we've been talking about I think most people have that issue and then either the keys feel sticky or do not respond in a consistent manner that again is tied to the second point and that is something I've personally experienced probably more than anything else is that when you have that sticky feeling and they're not responding you're not gonna see any characters on screen so if you have a Mac a book that has been purchased within the last four years which covers every macbook featuring the butterfly switches to date if you have the oldest one you probably want to jump on this as soon as possible then you can send your laptop in for repair they can repair specific keys the spacebar tends to be one that goes out a lot my spacebar was was crapped out I had actually fixed that myself and now it's still starting to get issues again so I might actually send mine in and just see what happens and what I'll do actually I'll probably tell them hoping they don't watch this video that the whole keyboards crap because there are a few keys every now and then they don't work very well and I'll see if they'll replace the entire keyboard might as well but I feel like this is gonna be a recurring issue right if they're gonna use the exact same but if I switch this is just delaying the inevitable again so maybe they're expecting people to sell these off or just junk them but then that becomes somebody else's problem if you sell it to somebody else on eBay or Craigslist I'm not sure what their long-term remedy is here but this is technically classified as an extended warranty and it again will cover every macbook feature in better fly switches as long as you send it in it looks like you may be able to take this into an Apple store as well I'm not too sure if they'll have certified technicians on hand for that specific problem but if you guys have more information regarding that please plaster in the comment section below I will appreciate it personally because I'm going to try to take advantage of this as well myspace bargain in particular has been just in and out especially on the corners you know like the corners of the space bar which is that's primarily where I hit are some time's unresponsive that's a pain we hit the space bar between every word that you type and it just gets really frustrating after a while that's all for this one I don't mean to be like a news story I don't typically cover news on this channel but it did give me the opportunity to explain a bit more how the butterfly switch works why it's different than the scissor switch and in a nutshell why it's failing in the long run look mostly people are just getting stuff stuck under the keys right I mean it happens with any keyboard look at mechanical keyboards those are disgusting up for about six months or so but these keys because the key caps are are slightly larger than a traditional key cap and because the mechanism is just so narrow from a height perspective anything gets stuck underneath there is going to possibly allow the switch to fail and that is where the entire design of the butterfly switch ultimately fails is that it has no room for error there's literally no room for anything to get stuck underneath there and if it does the key is basically dead so with that I want to know what you guys think what you think about Apple how you think they address this issue and where you think things will be headed next time around right maybe with their new MacBook so they can improve the switch redesign it completely when I hear guys thoughts the thumbs up for the video if you thought it was cool thumbs down for the opposite click that red subscribe button if you haven't already and stay tuned for more content like this is the science studio thanks for learning with us by the way you guys want to give a huge shout out to at 6464 on twitter for kind of throwing up a last minute thumbnail for this video I wanted something creative and I just wanted to see what you guys could do with it and I was really happy with the design he came up with so thanks for that I hope you guys enjoyed the video I'll catch you in the next one