Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Judge says class action over Apple's MacBook butterfly keyboards can continue
A federal judge in California rejected Apple's request to dismiss a class action lawsuit from customers who said it failed to address issues with the "butterfly" keyboard on its MacBook laptops.
In a ruling Monday, US District Judge Edward Davila wrote that upset MacBook customers could continue their lawsuit in part because Apple's attempted fixes over the years and further repair programs for the keyboards were possible signs it didn't provide an "effective fix" for the devices.
The ongoing suit is the latest ding for Apple's new laptop keyboards. The butterfly keyboards, as they were called, were announced alongside Apple's newest laptops in 2015, promising a thinner, yet still effective design. They were named butterfly because of how they worked. (You can watch Apple's video about that here.)
[...] Apple attempted to have the suit dismissed, claiming in part that the customers (called "plaintiffs" in court-speak) hadn't participated in its repair programs and thus couldn't prove it didn't do enough to fix their laptops.
"Plaintiffs sufficiently allege they have suffered an injury-in-fact: Apple's alleged failure to repair the defective keyboards, including through the Program, has caused a concrete, particularized, and actual injury to each Plaintiff," Davila wrote in the opinion, earlier reported on by Reuters. "Plaintiffs sufficiently plead that the Program is ineffective in remedying the allegedly defective design of the butterfly keyboards."
The judge was careful to add, however, he wasn't issuing a ruling on the actual case Monday. He was just allowing it to move forward despite Apple's objections.
Benjamin Johns, a lawyer representing the customers, said in a statement that he was pleased the court allowed the suit to continue. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday December 03 2019, @12:06PM (5 children)
Apple may become like Ford, this kindof zombie name that goes on forever because it has camped out a place in the commercial space. If they can't roll out a new keyboard design without a mob of pitch forks, that is indicative of the totally typical clusterf of commitees who must all be appeased to do anything that has a risk. Now everyone is running in all directions from the disaster and liability, I wonder who is who in that matrix of responsibilty but it probably isn't pretty.
What if I told you there are companies of only 3 people who put out 10 new keyboard designs a year(just guessing but in Japan all keyboard things are possible)? How many people worked on this apple failure? Probably hundreds, maybe thousands. The accounting alone for a new project! Now apple will have to PAY CUSTOMERS!!! AAAAAAGGGHH!! (roflmao, you have to know how much this company hates to give out money)
This model where there is this one famous businessman who has a team of genius elves in the background making all of his designs real is sort of the wet dream of capitalism, it is no wonder it echoes easily in a capitalist society. We should all see our CEO's like steve jobs, visionaries, whose terrible faults must be overlooked in pursuit of an idea beyond mere profit!
But how many of these people even are there really? Elon Musk is clearly the new one we are supposed to fawn over. It seems to me more of a marketing tactic for vast wealth, like we will accept our tracking and listening devices and automated vehicles and brainlink much, much more easily with the honey coated PR image of an iconoclastic rebel who gets to take the credit for it rather than a consortium of data-hungry bond villains hell-bent on bending society to their vision, without us knowing.
I had kindof hoped by now the world would have changed and I wouldn't be watching these failures on continual repeat. Even if they did solve a problem and made a great invention like with magsafe, they would 'phase it out' anyway for something that caused more repairs, so I find it difficult to believe this wasn't intentional. Keyboard failures bring people in the the store 2-3 times, at least.
https://www.macworld.com/article/2895694/will-your-new-macbook-crash-to-the-ground-without-magsafe-yes.html [macworld.com]
thesesystemsarefailing.net (but especially apple and they deserve it, bunch of corporate posers milking the glow of an actual designer long after his death)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday December 03 2019, @04:13PM (4 children)
Obligatory "Steve Jobs never would have let this happen".
In all seriousness though, he likely would have made the keyboard designers wait years to perfect their design before they could bring it to market. He wouldn't release it to the public until he could stand before them and tell them, with complete honest sincerity, that this will make their lives better.
Same with the MagSafe: he would have held on and insisted on a not-worse product. Aside: MagSafe power adapters are famous for not lasting more than 2-3 years, so it's actually more expensive for the customer.
Not saying that Apple is good. Just that Jobs was unique among capitalists.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 03 2019, @06:45PM
Ah yes, Steve "You're Holding it Wrong" Jobs, demander of perfection!
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday December 04 2019, @12:12PM (2 children)
Capitalists: 'Remember that one time we let a hippie be a ceo' 'yeah what a pain, but we milked it for decades after he died young ha ha ha'
I wonder how easily we would have accepted mobile computing without a hippie elon musk figurehead. I wonder.
But it is also true no one could argue with him or wanted to, he won arguments because he had real insight, I believe, into the public, because he wasn't born in a penthouse.
Magsafe adapters failed due to the bad plastic chosen, not because of the design itself. For some reason a ton of magsafe had a kind of plastic that disintegrated over time, a flaw no other apple products I have known have had.
Even if you design something indestructable, the accountants will find a way to break it before the first production run. You run into this all over the system...there's that word again.
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Thursday December 05 2019, @10:37PM (1 child)
Jobs was NOT a hippie. He cavorted with hippies and knew a thing or two about them, even shared their disdain for personal markers of affluence, but he was not one himself.
Jobs was a capitalist. He was just different from most capitalists in that he took the long view. Jobs knew, among other things, that customers can't anticipate new technology that will change their own lives, and therefore market research will never be able to create the next paradigm-shifting (and massively profitable) invention. Along those lines, he also knew that releasing new technology before it's ready can create perceptual bias against that technology in the market, so sometimes the best thing to do is sit on an invention until the technology exists to really make it work right. Even if the bean counters think they need to release it now to placate shareholders.
His goal was always that next paradigm-shifting invention. He never cared about such things as the ethics of consumption. He was just better at capitalism than everyone else.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday December 06 2019, @01:50PM
Fair enough, using hippie very very loosely for jobs.
Maybe a romantacist? That he actually believed things besides money? There were things he would not do for any price? That he thought some things were beautiful?
I am not sure anyone is better at capitalism, because capitalism is just about having money and getting more, and putting together piles of it with other people.
Once you do that, almost all capitalists look about the same.
But not Steve Jobs. In most other cases those values are weeded out.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 03 2019, @02:49PM (2 children)
Bring back the buckling-spring laptop keyboard!
(Score: 2) by Acabatag on Tuesday December 03 2019, @06:02PM (1 child)
My bucking spring IBM keyboards (I still have a few, PC-XT and PC-AT varieties) are heavy enough to use as a bludgeoning weapon.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 03 2019, @07:34PM
That they are, which helps your laptop double as a personal defense weapon. Who needs pepper spray? (Though in fairness I think that had more to do with the giant steel back-plate than the switches themselves)
Humorously, one of my first PCs was actually a hand-me-down green-screen "luggable" - I don't recall if it actually had buckling spring keys, but given the era it seems likely. Of course, if you were able to actually get that thing moving fast enough to hit someone, I think it'd be a clear case of attempted murder rather than self defense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04 2019, @12:12AM
make your keyboards.