As soon as a question is answered about the third generation keyboard that comes with the new MacBooks Pro, launched by Apple last week, a new question arises.
Interestingly, the big difference of this new generation of the keyboard with butterfly mechanism, according to Apple, is the quieter typing. But the truth is that, if there is any difference, it is very small – as we have already shown. On the other hand, although Apple says that nothing has changed in the design to make the keys more reliable, the butterfly mechanism of this new keyboard is protected by a new layer of silicone that did not exist. In other words, everything indicates that Apple used an “excuse” (to make the keyboard quieter) to correct another problem (the reliability of the keys).
This in itself is good news, after all Apple was forced to start a replacement program for the first and second generation keyboards with the butterfly mechanism due to failures in some units (keys that get stuck and / or repeat). The bad news, however, is that this new keyboard (which has this new silicone protection) is not part of the program. This means that if you have a MacBook Pro 2016/2017 and are experiencing a problem with the keyboard, it will * not * be replaced by a third generation one.
Who obtained the confirmation was the MacRumors, who contacted the company and confirmed that the third generation keyboard is exclusive to the MacBook Pro launched in 2018.
It remains here, then, that Apple has found an alternative solution to correct the problem in the first and second generation keyboards, not least because it doesn’t make much sense for the company to simply replace problematic keyboards / keys with a new component as prone as the one replaced by break again – especially thinking that the third generation keyboard apparently fixed that.
THE MacRumors raised the hypothesis that the third generation keyboard is not compatible with the MacBooks Pro models launched in 2016/2017. That’s because, as we know, the keyboard is part of a larger component called top case, which includes the battery, the trackpad and other parts – which may well have undergone some internal changes in this new model.
As I said at the beginning of the article, with each new answer that appears more questions arise. So, we need to wait a little longer for these questions to be definitively answered.
