MacBook Butterfly Keyboard Problems

Unshaky

Over the last three years, I've occasionally been using a MacBook Pro 13-inch 2018. Unfortunately, it has been the worst laptop experience of my existence!

It was an upgrade to a MacBook Pro 13-inch 2015, and aside from the Apple Touch Bar, it would be fair to consider it superior to its predecessor. However, I started noticing something unusual once I started using it for writing - I kept making mistakes.

Like many, I'm a touch typist and quite comfortable using most keyboards. If I switch to a new keyboard, it sometimes takes some time to get used to the shape of the keys, the spacing between them, and how they feel. So at first, I assumed this unusual feeling came from typing on a brand new keyboard. Over time, I noticed a pattern in the mistakes I was making. Sometimes I would double type a letter, e.g. e, or I would miss the letter entirely.

It starteed gtting on my neervs.

My typing slowed down as I was often typing in anticipation of these mistakes, and it became an overall distraction.

I found similar reports shared online, and I was relieved at the suggestion that it might be a hardware issue with the "butterfly keyboard", rather than a deterioration of my ability!

Through this search, I also discovered an attempt to address the issue with software. It's called Unshaky, and it attempts to dismiss erroneous key press registrations, i.e. those that occur no later than x milliseconds after the previous one. It's not perfect and it doesn't solve all the issues, but in the following screenshot you can see some of what it caught over just a few months:

It has been a terrible experience in general, and I look forward to leaving this machine behind me. What follows is a list of keyboard complaints taken from the Unshaky README¹

• Keyboard 'B' key double hit problem
• MacBook Pro 2016 Random Key Repeat Keyboard Issue
• MacBook Pro 13" 2016 Double Key Press
• 1 key - 2 letters macbook pro 2016 and 2017
• The new and improved MacBook keyboards have the same old problems
• Reddit: MBP 2018 15" Sticky Key Problem!
• Reddit: My Experience with Macbook Pro 2018 Keyboard
• Reddit: Anyone. with heir MBP 2018. keyboard. that. had. problems but is getting worse? Does a keyboard cover fix this?
• Reddit: 2018 Known Keyboard Issue - repeating/sticky keys, silicone covers, compressed air
• Apple Discussion: MacBook Pro 15" (2018) Keyboard "t" key repeating issue? (55K have this question too on Feb 22, 2019)
• Reddit: MacBook Air 2018 keyboard problem