Apple agrees to pay $50M to settle lawsuit over flawed keyboards on older MacBooks

In 2015, Apple announced that certain MacBook models would come withbutterfly keys, which are designed to fit in the laptops shallower cases. The company claimed that it shaved 40% off the thickness of the switches. Problems came up. The butterfly keyboards were prone to being sticky and unresponsive in real-world usage, and could be damaged with small amounts of dust or crumbs.

Customers filed a class-action lawsuit in the US District Court of Northern California, accusing Apple of concealing the fact that its butterfly keys were prone to fail. According to a filing, Apple agreed to pay $50 million to end the case.

Lawyers for the customers expect maximum payouts of $300 to $395 to people who replaced multiple keyboards, $125 to people who replaced one keyboard and $50 to those who replaced key caps, CNBC reports. Up to fifteen million dollars can be claimed by the law firms from the windfall.

Customers in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Washington were covered by the settlement.

Apple billed a way to make the keys quieter but not necessarily improve their reliability, but it didn't make a lot of design changes between 2015 and 2019.

According to service data compiled by AppleInsider, the first generation of butterfly keys on MacBook Pro models were twice as likely to fail as the old scissor-based keys.

Customers who purchased MacBooks with butterfly keys were given four years of free repairs. The company provided replacements with the same problems.