Author: Mark Alexander

Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

Shortly after that post bemoaning my continuing keyboard woes, the situation worsened. One key was consistently typing double letters and another wouldn’t type at all unless I pressed down really hard.

Reluctantly, yesterday afternoon I made an appointment to take the machine into the Genius Bar, resolving myself to the fact that I’d be without my Mac for a few days.

With little else to do this morning however, I started poking around YouTube. Even if it wasn’t obvious from Apple’s own forums, the sheer number of videos posted about these keys not working properly was confirmation that my problem wasn’t by any means unique. Also, it seems these new keyboards aren’t as unfathomable as I’d feared.

After watching the video I figured I had nothing to lose by trying this. After all, I already had an appointment scheduled at Apple. Taking a deep breath, I slowly pried off the first keycap. I got out my trusty can of compressed air and gave the mechanism in the key socket a good dusting and carefully snapped the key back on. Viola! No more double letters. I repeated the procedure with the other offending key and afterward it was once again fully functional.

I haven’t cancelled my 5:45 pm appointment just yet; I’m waiting to see how this plays out the rest of the day. But right now, things are back to normal.

While I still feel this is a huge design blunder on Apple’s part (the tolerances are now so tiny that the slightest bit of dust or dead skin cells or whatever can apparently muck up the mechanism), it’s nice to know that the fix is relatively easy and straightforward—and while I sure don’t look forward to doing this again, it certainly beats Apple having to send the fucking machine out for an entire top case replacement.

I bought a silicone keyboard cover right after I got the laptop because my anal-retentiveness hates the way the keys eventually wear down and get all shiny. But wasn’t a perfect fit, it bunched up, and I didn’t much care for the way it felt while typing. But if it prevents stuff getting down into the key mechanism, I may just have to live with it.

#firstworldproblems

We went out to Arrowhead Mall yesterday because Ben needed new shirts for work and JC Penney was having a huge sale. He also wanted to go to the Apple Store to look at MacBooks; he has become increasingly disenchanted with his decision to leave the Church of Jobs earlier this year and wanted to check out the new models.

While Arrowhead has had an Apple Store forever, they have remodeled and now have one of the new designs:

That’s right. The new stores are like stepping into one of the “artificial constructs” of the Matrix. I even had to look to find the iconic Apple logo outside the store.

Anyway, the model Ben wants is the 15-inch 2.9/16/512 Touchbar, that even with his education discount comes in at $2500—twice what he paid for his Lenovo Yoga with similar specs a few months ago—so it’s not happening any time soon.

Even then I’m in no hurry for him to switch back. While Ben loves technology, Ben is also one of those Technology Cursed. He has issues with pretty much every piece of gear he buys, and with my own ongoing problem with the keyboard (yes, it’s happening—albeit with different, random keys this time—on the replacement machine I got) on my new Mac, I don’t want him jumping into that shark pool until Apple fixes this mess. (If I could do it over, I would go back and get the 2015 pre-butterfly key model because this is really starting to piss me off. There’s no logic to it; like with the first one I had, the h-key went wonky. Then it cleared up and the g-key lost its mind. Now it’s the n-key. Hardware? Software? Sun spots? Apple will repair it, but from what I understand it will have to be sent out because the entire fucking top case needs to be replaced and I’ll be without a machine for a week—and there’s no guarantee the problem won’t recur. I’m not yet to the point where I’m ready to go without but if it gets any worse I may reconsider that stance.)