Third Class Action Suit Against Apple Over Defective Keyboards

[rgMekanic]

Earlier in May, Apple was hit with a class action lawsuit over MacBook keyboard failures, due to the butterfly switches failing due to even a tiny amount of dust. A week later, a second class action suit popped up against Apple for the ultra-fragile MacBook key switches, and now 9to5Mac is reporting that a third suit has been filed, this one claiming "fraudulent concealment," meaning they believe Apple was aware of the design being faulty, and hid that fact to consumers.

Tough to say if this were a known issue or not. Based upon how widespread it is, one would think the Apple would have had to notice it during product testing. I suppose we will see, as this will likely be drawn out for a long time.

Fraudulent concealment is when a company deliberately hides a material fact with the intention of deceiving or defrauding someone. In this case, the allegation is that Apple was aware the keyboard design was faulty, and deliberately hid that fact from consumers so that they would purchase the machines.

 

[The Mad Atheist]

Quit calling features "defects", obviously crApple hardware detect keys not commonly used and disable those keys to prevent future problems.

 

[CannibalTrout]

They probably are %99 chance guilty imo. Large corporations are mostly evil in my book. All you have to do is watch that Michael Clayton movie with George Clooney in it and that will explain how a corporation thinks when faced with difficult choices.

But in all seriousness I've worked at a fortune 500 business for the last 15years+ and it's all about risk vs cost in the corporate world. There's very little that happens in a large corporation that isn't known internally at some level atleast, it just comes down to executives/lawyers/engineers making the call on go forward and face future repercussions or take some sort of big loss right then and there and fix the problem before it goes to market. Based on what you see about fines and published lawsuit information, the loss down the road is chump change vs having a delayed launch and possibly having to scrap millions of devices.

Now there are always times that the corporation picks wrong, aka the whole VW stuff and Note 7 things. where in the end it probably would have been cheaper to delay release and fix the issues first.

But, in the end I think corporations are picking the "lets just ignore it and deal with in the future option" %99 of the time and mostly getting away with it.

 

[MMitch]

They probably are %99 chance guilty imo. Large corporations are mostly evil in my book. All you have to do is watch that Michael Clayton movie with George Clooney in it and that will explain how a corporation thinks when faced with difficult choices.

But in all seriousness I've worked at a fortune 500 business for the last 15years+ and it's all about risk vs cost in the corporate world. There's very little that happens in a large corporation that isn't known internally at some level atleast, it just comes down to executives/lawyers/engineers making the call on go forward and face future repercussions or take some sort of big loss right then and there and fix the problem before it goes to market. Based on what you see about fines and published lawsuit information, the loss down the road is chump change vs having a delayed launch and possibly having to scrap millions of devices.

Now there are always times that the corporation picks wrong, aka the whole VW stuff and Note 7 things. where in the end it probably would have been cheaper to delay release and fix the issues first.

But, in the end I think corporations are picking the "lets just ignore it and deal with in the future option" %99 of the time and mostly getting away with it.

Exactly this. Shareholders want quick money which doesn't help too but in the end it's all risk assessment.

 

[haz_mat]

... But, in the end I think corporations are picking the "lets just ignore it and deal with in the future option" %99 of the time and mostly getting away with it.

I think of it as the "physics of money" - energy/matter/currency tends to follow the path of least resistance. Decisions are made that attempt to find those optimal paths - can't hate the player for exploiting the game.

Good luck getting legislation to responsibly deal with this kind of stuff - if those Fuckerburg hearings showed me anything, its that our leadership is tech clueless in addition to being completely dysfunctional.

 

[viscountalpha]

This is such a stupid design choice by apple. I hope they lose in court.

 

[_l_]

is there a window for years effected for Macbook Pro? I have a 2008 MAcbook 17" and the CAPS LOCK key and a few others have always worked poorly

 

[rgMekanic]

is there a window for years effected for Macbook Pro? I have a 2008 MAcbook 17" and the CAPS LOCK key and a few others have always worked poorly

2015-and-later MacBook and 2016-and-later MacBook Pro have the butterfly keys

 

[Dan_D]

Apple's testing may not have included introducing the keyboards to food crumbs and sticky fingers.

 

[rgMekanic]

Apple's testing may not have included introducing the keyboards to food crumbs and sticky fingers.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205662

THat is what Apple thinks of its customers.

 

[bugleyman]

Just Working™

 

[Exavior]

Part of me thinks this is stupid that multiple class action lawsuits can be filed against one company. This is basically the some people suing 3 times as the point of a class action is to represent all owners. So person 2 was already part of a lawsuit when they filed another one. Then the 3rd person was then part of 2 law suits when they filed theirs.

This just goes to show greed.

 

[Trepidati0n]

Part of me thinks this is stupid that multiple class action lawsuits can be filed against one company. This is basically the some people suing 3 times as the point of a class action is to represent all owners. So person 2 was already part of a lawsuit when they filed another one. Then the 3rd person was then part of 2 law suits when they filed theirs.

This just goes to show greed.

There are many flaws in apple products that were found, made known to them, and they kept them in future generations. They have also made statements like "you need to have a booting machine to see if you qualify for this rework but if your machine doesn't boot because of the flaw then you are screwed". Again..it is always about the $.

 

[Master_shake_]

you're blowing it wrong

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205662

THat is what Apple thinks of its customers.

 

[katanaD]

you're blowing it wrong

LOL.. i read your title.. then your statement

 

[Exavior]

There are many flaws in apple products that were found, made known to them, and they kept them in future generations. They have also made statements like "you need to have a booting machine to see if you qualify for this rework but if your machine doesn't boot because of the flaw then you are screwed". Again..it is always about the $.

I meant greed on the side of the people filing the suit not of Apple. Apple fucked people over for money, that is a given. However if I create a class action lawsuit with my lawyer and then you start one for the exact same thing with your lawyer, then somebody else starts one with their lawyer.... the only reason to start so many different suits is because every lawyer wants a large chunk of money and the person filing the suit wants to get a large chunk of money. If I file a class action, my lawyer gets his cut, I get my cut then everyone else get a $5 coupon toward their next apple product. Now you file your suit, your lawyer gets his cut, you get your cut, then everyone gets another $1 coupon toward their next Apple product.

I am all for companies being forced to pay, but to pay the same people over and over again still seems wrong. That would be me hitting your car and then you sue me for repairs and the pain and suffering for you and your spouse who was in the car. Then your spouse turns around and sues me to have me pay for the repairs a second time along with pain and suffering again for the two of you. Then your insurance company turns around and sues me for repair cost of your car a third time and pain and suffering for the two of you. Then your children they turn around and sue me for the repairs of your car for a 4th time and for the pain and suffering for you and your spouse, along with their own pain and suffering due to having to put up with you being hurt for a few weeks. Same thing here where you are trying to sue over and over for the same thing to be paid to the same people but from the stance of a different person filing every time. If one person sues due to the crap quality of the keyboards and wins, everyone is already getting paid for that shit device. So that should mean that case 2 and 3 should be tossed out as they already ruled in favor of those people and gave them money from the first case.

It is a hard thing to want for a major company to not be put in their place, but I also think there should be some type of limit to being tried for the same thing or being sued to by the same person over and over again.

 

[rudy]

Apple's testing may not have included introducing the keyboards to food crumbs and sticky fingers.

Apple users would never touch food with their fingers, that is what poor people do.

 

[Jim Kim]

Apple finally acknowledges ‘sticky’ keyboard issues on MacBooks, offering free fix and refunds for past repairs
https://9to5mac.com/2018/06/22/apple-macbook-pro-keyboard-sticky-repair-refund/