Apple may finally say goodbye to its butterfly keyboard and go back to the scissor switch-based keyboards soon according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Ming periodically shares a lot of inside information on the plans that Cupertino-headquartered company has and many of them turn out to be correct. Apple has been facing many issues with the butterfly keyboard ever since it introduced it first in March 2015 and the 12-inch MacBook with Retina display was the first device to get it. Apple replaced the keyboards in subsequent models with the improved versions one after the other.
As late as this year, the MacBook Pro model featured the butterfly keyboard of the fourth generation. Ming now says the company has decided to dump the butterfly keyboard and from 2020, one may see laptops being fitted with the scissor switch keyboard. These were the keyboards the Apple products used to be associated with earlier, before the butterfly keyboard was introduced.
In terms of costs, it is learnt though both butterfly and scissor switch keyboards are more expensive than the mainstream keyboards available in the market, out of the two, the butterfly keyboard is more expensive. The company may feel the scissor switch keyboard is a time-tested one, although, the butterfly keyboard may be superior in design to offer a better typing experience, the issues raised by the customers repeatedly cannot be overlooked. In technology it is not unusual to see a well-intentioned design or product not faring up to the mark when put out in the market. Apple had to resort to offering free repair programmes to rectify the keyboard problems on the MacBook devices. No company wants to go through these, and Apple would be the last to do so. It prides on its technology.
With the company grappling with the pricing of its products, the return to the cheaper scissor switch keyboard might just offer an opportunity to pass on the benefit to the customers.
Ming expects that the MacBook Air may be the first model to be launched this year with the redesigned keyboard.