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Not long after their introduction, though, customers began complaining that keys weren't detecting presses as well, and that dirt and other debris were getting under the butterfly mechanism.
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"The keys are much more precise, much more accurate," Apple fellow Phil Schiller said at the time.Īpple's MacBooks haven't been strangers to controversy. Apple at the time said the butterfly was 40% thinner than traditional keyboards, but also four times more stable. The butterfly mechanism, first released in 2015, was designed to allow for thinner laptops than traditional "scissor" keyboards, whose switches below the keys require more space to move up and down.
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Apple's designs for its laptop keyboards are at the heart of the case, in which customers say Apple knew its new "butterfly" design was flawed but sold them anyway. In a ruling handed down on March 8, but made publicly available last week, US District Judge Edward Davila granted class action status to the case, which was filed in 2018. A federal judge in California certified an ongoing class action case against Apple earlier this month, clearing another hurdle for customers who say the company failed to address problems with the "butterfly" keyboards on its MacBook laptops.