The $50 million settlement over Apple’s poor butterfly keyboard design was finally approved by a California federal judge. Reuters reported yesterday.
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila denied an attempt to amend the agreement, write in his statement that 86,000 people have filed claims. That finally gives a figure on the number of affected people who receive compensation for repairs they had paid for. Or at least the number that learned of the lawsuit and followed it up to the settlement agreement reached last July.
The original suit came about because Apple laptops from 2015 to 2019 had a new keyboard design that just didn’t hold up under normal use; crumbs and dirt, or even just a buildup of dust, can cause keys to fail or stick. Casey Johnson famous wrote in The outline that “The new MacBook keyboard is ruining my life.”
This latest wrinkle in the saga involved six detractors who made arguments saying the settlement wasn’t fair to MacBook owners who never repaired their faulty keyboards (and therefore don’t get paid) or that the $125 offered to those who had done. only having to pay for one replacement was not enough to cover the repair costs. But Davila denied their objections, saying just wanting more money is not enough to deny approval of the settlement.
Basically, anyone who has submitted a verifiable keyboard money claim by the March deadline will soon be getting their money.
Correction May 27, 2023 7:05 PM ET: This article previously stated that the 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2019 contains an Apple M1 chip. In fact not. We regret the mistake.
