MacBook Pro keyboard tweaks include a membrane from a new nylon-like material that may better repel dust and minor changes to key switches that register presses
from left to right: 2015, 2018, 2019 Check out our teardown to see what “new material” we found in the #MacBookPro: https://www.ifixit.com/... https://twitter.com/... Michael Gartenberg / @gartenberg : “At the end of the day, Apple's butterfly keyboard has a much bigger flaw, one that this model's tweaks cannot fix: too many people have simply lost faith in this design” yephttps://t.co/unvxRHcuoM Jon Alper / @jon_alper : For whatever it's worth, the material of a buckling dome can make a VERY significant difference in reliability. ETA chose bump switches of this type that failed constantly. Lepracon's were SO much better. (neither as good as Avo/Celco ‘Schadow’ buckling springs bit LP was close). https://twitter.com/... @ifixit : We found not one, but two, new “materials” in the keyboard of the 2019 MacBook Pro 15" with Touch Bar: https://www.ifixit.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second chapter of iFixit's butterfly-keyboard teardown arc: last year's teardown found a silicone layer under the 2018 MacBook Pro's quieter keys, matching an Apple patent application for contaminant protection, and a leaked internal Apple document confirmed that membrane was there to keep debris out of the butterfly mechanism.
The 2019 update swaps that silicone for what iFixit identifies as a nylon-like material plus minor changes to the key switches — while analyst Michael Gartenberg argues the real problem isn't debris at all but lost user faith in the design, and commenter Jon Alper notes buckling-dome material choice genuinely drives reliability, citing switch failures at ETA.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the 2019 MacBook Pro get a keyboard whose new nylon-like membrane may repel dust better than the 2018 silicone layer, with tweaked switches intended to register presses more reliably — but the underlying butterfly mechanism is unchanged.
- iFixit's teardown gives repairability-minded customers concrete evidence of exactly what changed, sharpening the debate over whether Apple is patching or stalling.
Second-order effects
- Gartenberg's 'lost faith' critique pressures Apple to go beyond materials tweaks — and the related coverage shows where that pressure lands: Ming-Chi Kuo reports Apple will move to a scissor-switch keyboard promising durability and longer travel in the 2019 MacBook Air and 2020 MacBook Pro.
- Each successive membrane revision implicitly concedes the contamination problem was never solved, handing critics and rival laptop makers a ready-made reliability talking point against the butterfly design's thinness advantage.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — 2018 silicone layer, 2019 nylon-like membrane, then a reported return to scissor switches — points toward Apple treating the butterfly keyboard as a dead end, with keyboard mechanism choice becoming a multi-year trust-rebuilding project rather than a spec line item.
- If the Kuo-reported transition holds, the industry takeaway is that ultra-thin keyboard designs trade away field reliability in ways materials science alone can't buy back, pushing premium laptop makers toward proven mechanisms even at the cost of thickness.
The trend: Apple's butterfly-keyboard saga shows hardware makers iterating materials patches on a flawed mechanism until trust erosion forces a retreat to conventional designs like the scissor switch.