Apple has canceled its AirPower wireless charger, citing difficulty in achieving the company’s “high standards” for the product, via TechCrunch.

“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,” said Apple SVP of hardware engineeringDan Riccio in a statement.

I wrote about AirPower’s absence earlier this week. What I’ve heard, third-hand but from multiple little birdies, is that AirPower really is well and truly fucked. Something about the multi-coil design getting too hot — way too hot. There are engineers who looked at AirPower’s design and said it could never work, thermally, and now those same engineers have that “told you so” smug look on their faces. Last year Apple was apparently swayed by arguments that they could figure out a way to make it not get hot. They were, clearly, wrong. I think they’ve either had to go completely back to the drawing board and start over with an entirely different design, or they’ve decided to give up and they just don’t want to say so.

Nop, I havn’t fogottn how to wit. No did my dito go on vacation.

You s, to sha th pain of using an Appl laptop kyboad that’s faild aft fou months, I could only think of on ida: tak all th bokn ltts out of my column. Thn I alizd thatwould mak th whol thing unadabl. So to...

Translation: Nope, I haven’t forgotten how to write. Nor did my editor go on vacation.

You see, to share the pain of using an Apple laptop keyboard that’s failed after four months, I could only think of one idea: take all the broken letters out of my column. Then I realized that would make the whole thing unreadable.

Why is the breaking of my MacBook Air keyboard so insanely maddening? Let’s take a trip down Memory Lane...

• April 2015: Apple Inc. releases the all-new MacBook with a “butterfly” keyboard. In order to achieve extreme thinness, the keys are much flatter than older generations but the butterfly mechanism underneath, for which the keyboard is named, aims to replicate thebounce of a more traditional keyboard.
• October 2016: The MacBook Pro arrives with a second-generation butterfly keyboard. A few months later, some begin to report thatletters or characters don’t appear, that keys get stuck or that letters unexpectedly repeat.OFF
• June 2018: Apple says a small percentage of MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards were impacted and launches a keyboard repairprogram for them.
• July 2018: Apple releases a new high-end MacBook Pro with the third-generation of the keyboard that’s said to fix the issues.
• October 2018: Apple’s new MacBook Air also has the third-generation keyboard. I recommend it, and even get one for myself.

Which brings us to the grand year 2019 and my MacBook Air’s faulty E and R keys.

Others have had problems with Apple’s latest laptops, too. There’s Gavin Sheridan, who bought a MacBook Air and noticed within two weeks that the E, R, W and T keys started double-pressing, same as mine. And Joshua Johnson, with his $2,000-plus MacBook Pro. “About 1 in 7 times, the T is doubled,” he says. OFFA proposed nationwide class-action suit alleges that Apple has been aware of thedefective nature of these keyboards since 2015 yet sold affected laptops without disclosing the problem. Some people with these new third-generation keyboards have asked to join the suit, says Simon Grille, an attorney at Girard Sharp, one of the law firms involved in the suit.

“We are aware that a small number of users are having issues with their third-generation butterfly keyboard and for that we are sorry,” an Apple spokesman said in a statement. “The vast majority of Mac notebook customers are having a positive experience with the new keyboard.” If you have a problem, contactApple customer service, he added.

(Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.)

I appreciate Apple’s apology, but until the company says goodbye to the butterfly once and for all, it’s important to understand why it breaks, and what you might be able to do about it.

Why It Happens

Most likely culprits? Dust and debris. But you don’t have to so much as eat a Saltine over your keyboard to experience the issues.

Keyboard 101: Most laptops have keys that use a scissor-switch mechanism to press down. Since the two interlocking pieces are relatively tall, the keys have more “travel.”

Apple’s butterfly mechanism, like a real butterfly, has two delicate wings that allow the keyboard to be nearly a millimeter shorter. But sometimes when dust gets in—even something as small as a grain of sand—it jams up, says Kyle Wiens, chief executive of iFixit, which tears down electronics to evaluate how easy they are to repair.

Mr. Wiens and Tony Wang, a manager at New York City repair shop Simple Mac, also believe there could be another issue: Since the spring under the mechanism is weak, people who type harder might be more susceptible to keyboard failures.

For the third-generation design, Apple added an elastic membrane to the mechanism to prevent stuff from getting inside it (and to make the keys quieter). Except stuff still seems to be making its way inside.

What You Can Do

When faced with this bizarrely 21st-century problem, here’s what I advise:

• Get to an Apple Store: The 2018 models are still covered by the first-year warranty. When I brought my Air to the Apple Store, the staff cleaned under my E and R keys and replaced the key caps with new ones. I was told if the problem persisted, Apple would replace the entire keyboard panel. Spoiler: The problem persists.
• If you have one of the older models, Apple’s Keyboard Service Program should take care of it. Bring in any laptop on this list and Apple will service it free—rather than $300 or more—for up to four years after the original purchase. Warning: Replacement can take days or even a week.
• Get some software: Xinhong Sam Liu, a 25-year-old grad student in Vancouver, British Columbia, wasn’t happy when the W key on his MacBook Pro started registering double keystrokes. So he made Unshaky, a Mac app that senses and kills any second press of a key that occurs within milliseconds of the first. Since installing it, I rarely get a repeat E or R.
• The homebrewed software is in beta and can only be downloaded from Mr. Liu’s site. He assures me that no user information is being collected, not even those keystrokes.
• Get cleaning: Whether you’ve had problems or not, you should buy a can of compressed air, roll up your sleeves and clean your keyboard. Apple even provides detailed instructions on how. Focus on the most popular keys. It’s no coincidence the E key, the most commonly used letter in the English language, seems to be failing most.

Don't forget to add a can of air to your $1,200+ Mac laptop purchase. PHOTO: Robert Alcaraz/The Wall Street Journal

• Get an external keyboard: Is there anything more ridiculous than buying a spare keyboard for your expensive laptop? Yet there’s nothing like keys that feel like real keys.
• Get another laptop: These issues have been so maddening, I'd understand if you swapped yours for a Microsoft Surface Book or HP Spectre x360. Or maybe just go back to the glory days of 2015 with a vintage MacBook Pro—if you can find one.

For any Apple engineers and executives reading, please turn off the E's:

This is thxprinc you’r providing to customrs who shll out $1,200 or mor—somtims a lot mor. This is thxprinc aftrTHR attmpts atthis kyboard dsign. It’s timto stop prioritizing thinnss ovr usability. It’s timto stth buttrfly kyboard fr. Lt it fly...far, far away.

Translation: This is theexperience you’re providing to customers who shell out $1,200 or more—sometimes a lot more. This is theexperience afterTHREE attempts at this keyboard design. It’s timeto stop prioritizing thinness over usability. It’s timeto setthe butterfly keyboard free. Let it fly...far, far away.

Apple’s divisive butterfly keyboard mechanism has been back in the news following Joanna Stern’s Wall Street Journal article. Stern contends that Apple’s decision to persevere with the new mechanism is ruining customer experience and urges Apple to ‘stop prioritizing thinness over usability’ and change the design of their keyboard mechanisms.

Stern’s article was typically cheeky. And it received a typically blasé response from Apple’s Marketing team. However, like much of the commotion online about the failure rate of these keyboards, Stern’s article focuses, in the main, on how dust and debris can enter the keyboard’s delicate butterfly mechanism and prevent it from working properly. Even Apple’s efforts to install what Lisa Gade at MobileTechReview called a ‘keyboard condom’ on its most recent MacBook Airs or its ridiculous (and insulting) keyboard cleaning guide focus our attention on dust. While eating Doritos over your keyboard is clearly not a good idea, I want to argue that this is not the only – or even the most significant – cause of these keyboard failures. Something far bigger and far more symptomatic of Apple’s lack of focus on the Mac is to blame here.

Let me give you some context. I spend most of my day writing. And not in the way those Grammarly ads that pepper YouTube tell you: when the smug guy on a sofa grins that he ‘writes all day every day’ and then proceeds to show me some emails. I’ve published around four hundred thousand words of peer-reviewed material in the last seven years and countless (so many) drafts. In addition, I transcribe archival documents – lots of them – day after day. My partner has described my typing style as ‘assertive’. I’m hard on my laptops but I care for them as the most significant investment in my job: I had a Lenovo machine between 2009 and 2012 and a MacBook Pro (non Retina) between 2012 and 2016. The keyboards on those two machines lasted without any problems.

I’ve owned the late-2016 MacBook Pro sans Touch Bar (aka the MacBook Escape) since its debut. Since then, I’ve experienced three broken key caps and a number of ‘sticky’ keys. I think, today, I’ve discovered broken key number four. Considering the failure rate of other users, I should probably count myself lucky (I’ve never had to send my MacBook away). Considering Stern’s article was based on a similarly low number of failures, however, I consider my experiences have some merit.

On every occasion a keycap has come off, it has exhibited the same damage: the plastic lugs that keep the keycap attached have broken – usually at the bottom of the key. In every case, what remained of the lugs was deformed. A helpful ‘Genius’ at the Apple Store once told me he’d never seen such damage and speculated that it might be my typing style, just ‘knocking them off’. In every case, there is no visible evidence of debris or crumbs in the mechanism. In fact, the top case and mechanism are just fine. It’s just the keys.

All of the keys that have become damaged – until today – have come from the top row. Specifically, the top left (around ‘QWERTY’). This is precisely the area under which the MacBook Pro’s processor lives. On warm days or occasions when the system fan is spinning (which for me is very rare) and the top of the machine is warm to the touch, the top row of keys is especially ‘clicky’ – the usual sign of an impending failure. Other keys then stick. My argument is that any increase in heat from the CPU – no matter how small – runs the risk of heating the plastic nubs on the nearest keycap and then making them brittle. Heat is the enemy not dust.

The reason the ‘E’, ‘R’ and ‘T’ keys become jammed on many machines (including Stern’s) is that they are the ones closest to the CPU that don’t get adequately cooled by the fan. In the case of the MacBook Air she tested, reviewers mentioned how its little CPU was regularly spooling up its fans because it was getting so hot.

This isn’t the first time that Apple’s thermal management has come in for criticism. In 2018, Apple confirmed that it was throttling CPU performance because they

run hot under load

. Oh and we all remember the Mac Pro’s design painting Apple ‘into a thermal corner’ and Apple’s problems in stopping AirPower pads from combusting. In all consumer electronics, heat is an issue. Doubly so when your products are so thin, your parts so small. Clearly there aren’t enough engineers working on Macs for long enough before being poached to iPhone development to stop this happening.

Reducing the reasons for MacBook keyboard failures to crumbs is a simplification that is, believe it or not, kind on Apple. The quest for thinness has produced a situation where the processor is too close to a delicate keyboard mechanism and cannot be cooled. No amount of rubber gaskets or revised butterfly switches is going to change that. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the MacBook.

What’s the consequence for Mac owners or those needing to upgrade? I whiled away some time looking at the old MacBook Air online. Then I had a daydream about the iPad Pro. But, honestly, those of us considering our next notebook purchase will have to wait. That’s what Apple is doing in waiting to introduce its own ARM processors into its notebook line so they can be a) passively cooled and b) as close to the damn keyboard as they want. Thin and light didn’t fall foul of your sneaky lunch-at-the-desk. It hit the limits of thermal dynamics and the effects of heat on plastic.

Regrettably typed on an iPad Pro 9.7 with Smart Keyboard

Apple tweaks its troubled MacBook keyboard design yet again, expands repair program

May 21, 2019

Apple is announcing an update to its keyboard repair program today. All MacBooks with the so-called “butterfly mechanism” (that’s pretty much all modern MacBooks) will now be fully eligible for Apple’s Keyboard Service Program. The expansion means that a few newer models that weren’t previously covered will be able to get repairs. Unfortunately, Apple is not extending how long that program lasts — it’s still “4 years after the first retail sale of the unit.”

Apple is also announcing that it has created yet another iteration of its butterfly keyboard, which will ship on the new MacBook Pros it’s announcing today. It also promises that it will speed up keyboard repair times. You will not be able to just take your MacBook in to have its keyboard replaced if you don’t trust it, of course; it will need to exhibit issues for Apple to fix it.

Apple has been put through the wringer over the reliability of its butterfly keyboards for the past few years, and rightly so. Although the company stressed again in a call today that the “vast majority” of customers don’t have a problem, all too many of them have had issues with stuck keys that could cause double letters or no letters at all. It only recently began to apologize for the issue, but has also been trying to characterize it as something minor that doesn’t affect that many customers.

The amount of evidence we’re seeing on social media, among writers, and on our own laptops is getting to the point where you can’t call it anecdotal anymore, though. So simply expanding the repair program won’t be enough.

In a sign that Apple recognizes that reality, the company is also saying that it has taken steps to significantly reduce repair times at its retail stores. However, a spokesperson wouldn’t specify what processes it’s changing in order to make those repairs happen faster. A keyboard replacement on a modern MacBook is a very intensive repair, as iFixit has often noted.

Last but certainly not least, Apple has tweaked the design of its butterfly keyboard again. Apple says that it is using “new materials” in the switch mechanism that should significantly reduce the occurrence of double and missed key presses. It will ship on the new MacBook Pro 15-inch and MacBook Pro 13-inch with Touch Bar that it just announced.

. . . .