Andrew O'Hara
Apple is advertising the new MacBooks as having an updated, "quieter" keyboard, but has said little about the new design. A teardown of the hardware on Friday, however, reveals a new silicone membrane encases each key that potentially serves as a dust-repelling feature to protect against malfunctions.
Repair specialist iFixit tore down the latest MacBook Pro and quickly found a noticeable change to the keyboard design — a thin, silicone membrane surrounding each butterfly mechanism. This thin film, located under each individual keycap, appears designed to prevent dust and debris from interfering with key operation, an issue that cropped up in previous generation butterfly keyboards last year.
While not confirmed by Apple, iFixit theorizes that the new keyboard's newfound quietness is merely a side effect of the membranes real purpose, to keep debris out of the keys.
When Apple launched the latest MacBook Pros earlier this week, there was a lot of debate as to whether the updated, third-generation butterfly keyboard had fixed the criticized failure problem that has spawned multiple lawsuits against the tech giant. Though it says problems are relegated to a small percentage of MacBook owners, Apple last month initiated a service program for those with affected machines.
The immediate assumption, was that no, the newly designed keys did not nullify key failures. Indeed, in comments to certain media outlets, Apple said the revamped keys are not intended to improve reliability.
Digging deeper, a patent issued to Apple seems to confirm that theory. The patent describes the exact protectant film we see in the new keyboards and is described as to "prevent and/or alleviate contaminant ingress."
Fixing MacBook's keyboard is a big deal for Apple, and one it most definitely wants to address. Explaining the company's dismissive statements is a separate issue altogether. With so many lawsuits currently pending, it can be speculated that Apple is hesitant to admit that the new design "fixes" a keyboard problem it never necessarily deemed "defective" in the first place.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
62 Comments
It was my first thought when Apple announced a "quieter" keyboard. Something was dampening the noise, now you have it.
Did Apple use this silicon membrane on previous (non-butterfly) versions of their laptop keyboards?
"We put it in to make the keys quieter. If it also blocks particulate matter, weeeell we can't be responsible for that." *Looks over shoulder at lawyer, gets nod*
Wonder if replacement keyboards for 2016 and 2017 MBPs will have this feature. I've got a 2017 15" MBP that (fingers crossed) has not had any keyboard issues yet. Well, no issues other than my age starting to create more typos in my typing.
Something like a "quieter keyboard" is not the calibre of feature that apple would usually advertise - it's there as a dog whistle to tell certain customers that Apple have changed the keyboard design. They are signalling this because they recognise that people are having trouble with the current design and specifically needed to call out that changes have been made.
Apple are not going to specifically advertise that the new keyboard design addresses the dust/crumb issue.