Apple will have to compensate the owners of a MacBook Pro with a butterfly keyboard with up to 50 million dollars. They collectively complained about its malfunction.
A US judge has approved Apple ‘s $50 million class action settlement to resolve consumer claims about certain defective MacBook keyboards , also called “butterfly” keyboards.
US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, called the settlement “fair, adequate and reasonable.”
For what is this?
The lawsuit accused Apple of failing to provide sufficient repair or troubleshooting help for certain MacBook “butterfly” keyboards manufactured between 2015 and 2019.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs announced the settlement a year ago. Apple denied wrongdoing.
Class Members will receive $50 up to $395 depending on the amount and nature of repairs made to a keyboard. There will be about 86 thousand users benefited.
“The possibility that a better settlement has been reached, or that the benefits provided under the settlement do not ‘integrate’ class members, are insufficient grounds to deny approval,” Dávila wrote in his order.
Dávila said that “while not everyone who was allegedly injured will receive compensation, the settlement compromise benefits a significant number of people.”
butterflies
This keyboard, in particular, was noted for its short travel: 0.5mm compared to 1mm for the scissor keyboard. However, it was plagued with bugs and design flaws that caused many keys to stick or not respond correctly.
In 2018, Apple responded to multiple complaints about the keyboard’s performance with a replacement program: Users who experienced failure could visit an Apple Store to have their keyboard replaced with a new one of the same mechanism.
Apple eventually decided to ditch the butterfly keyboard altogether and go back to using the scissor mechanism.