Apple to pay $50 million in damages for defective MacBook butterfly keyboards

It’s been years since Apple faced a major class action lawsuit over a defective butterfly keyboard that Apple used years ago. In 2020, Apple introduced an updated 13-inch MacBook Pro, and with it a return to the old, familiar keyboard design. And despite the changes, the company is still facing the outcome of a class action lawsuit. This means that you have to pay a lot of money.

According to Reuters, Apple has accepted a settlement offer that would see the company pay $50 million due to a defective butterfly keyboard. This keyboard design was used on the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro lines between 2015 and 2019, and a class-action lawsuit was filed against Apple by customers in several different states, including California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and more.

These customers claimed, among other things, that Apple was aware of the defective butterfly keyboard design from the start. And despite this knowledge, Apple not only decided to put a butterfly keyboard on the machines it planned to sell, but also continued to sell the faulty keyboard, despite complaints even about newer models.

Butterfly keyboard issues have varied. Some customers have encountered keys that get stuck and cannot be used, while other keys repeat keystrokes randomly. Other customers simply had keyboards that didn’t work properly at all. Apple launched a keyboard repair program in 2018 and, as mentioned above, dropped the butterfly keyboard design in 2020.

Apple not only launched this repair program, but also made changes to the overall design of the butterfly keyboard in hopes of fixing some of the issues. However, this was not enough and many customers continued to experience problems.

The lawsuit applies to customers in the following states:

• California
• Florida
• Illinois
• Michigan
• New Jersey
• NY
• Washington

According to the report, client-side lawyers expect Apple to pay out the maximum amount of $395 to customers who have changed their keyboard multiple times. For people who once had their keyboard replaced, they should get the maximum payout of up to $125. And for customers who have had their keycaps replaced, they should get the maximum payout of $50.

Have you ever had problems with the butterfly keyboard?