Introduzione
Il nuovo MacBook Pro è il modello più veloce di sempre di Apple, con un processore octacore opzionale — per la prima volta in un MacBook — e un misterioso nuovo materiale per la tastiera. Dato che è improbabile che la stessa Apple renda noto di che "materiale" si tratta e che noi proprio non riusciamo a lasciare irrisolto un mistero, è ora di dare ancora una volta un'occhiata da vicino alla famigerata tastiera butterfly. Prendi la tua lente da investigazione e unisciti al nostro smontaggio!
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Cosa ti serve
Panoramica Video
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Sulla carta, il nuovo MacBook Pro 2019 propone solo un salto in avanti nelle prestazioni. Ma quanto è lungo questo salto? Riassumiamo:
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Schermo IPS Retina display da 15,4" retroilluminato a LED con True Tone, risoluzione 2880 x 1800 (220 dpi), gamut colore P3 wide
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Processore esa-core Intel Core i7 da 2.6 GHz (Turbo Boost fino a 4.5 GHz) accoppiato a una GPU Radeon Pro 555X
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16 GB di SDRAM DDR4 da 2400 MHz
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SSD da 256 GB tipo PCIe
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Wi-Fi 802.11ac e Bluetooth 5.0
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Quattro porte Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C)
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Proprio come in una trasmissione di cucina, tagliamo la parte di cottura a fuoco lento e voilà! Già aperto!
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Come promesso, questo si direbbe essenzialmente un salto prestazionale: l'hardware visualmente appare indistinguibile rispetto all'ultima volta. Tiriamo via la scheda e guardiamo meglio.
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Con la modularità dei componenti ridotta a zero, non c'è alcuna possibilità di aggiornare questo hardware. Ecco i chip che ti accompagneranno finché campa il laptop:
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Intel Core i7 esa-core di nona generazione i7-9750H
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16x di SDRAM DDR4 SK Hynix H5AN8G8NAFR da 8 Gb (16 GB in totale)
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GPU AMD Radeon Pro 555X
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4x RAM GDDR5 Micron MT51J256M32HF-70:B da 8 Gb (4 GB in totale)
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Coprocessore Apple T2 APL1027 339S00533, stratificato sopra a 1 GB di memoria LPDDR4 Micron D9VLN
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Memorie flash Toshiba TSB3226AW8815TWNA1 e TSB3226XZ2939TWNA1 (per un totale di 256 GB)
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Controller Thunderbolt 3 Intel JHL7540
You folks have probably explained this elsewhere, but can you confirm that the SSDs Apple is using are open-market consumer-grade drives? The rationale behind their high upgraded-drive pricing is that there’s some sort of added Apple-specific value. Is there any?
@moeskido1 They don’t use an SSD in the ordinary use of the term—their flash storage chips are BGA-soldered directly to the logic board (as shown in the image above) and SSD controller functions are handled by Apple’s custom T2 chip. The upside is very fast read/write speeds and low power consumption, with the obvious downside being the complete lack of repair, upgrade, and data recovery options. And it’s hard to ignore how it benefits Apple at the expense of their customers, since you have to pay through the nose to future-proof the storage capacity.
“16 GB of 2400 MHz DDR4 SDRAM”
vs
“4x Micron MT51J256M32HF-70:B 8 Gb GDDR5 RAM (4 GB total)”
Shouldn’t the RAM description in the layout breakdown be more like 4 4Gb chips for a total of 16 GB?
Hi shomizu9,
The 4GB Micron RAM is the video RAM, while the 16 GB SK Hynix RAM is the on-board system RAM.
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Ecco altri chip per il vostro diletto:
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PCH (Platform Controller Hub) Intel SR40F
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Texas Instruments CD3215C00Z (probabilmente controller alimentazione)
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338S00267-A0 (dovrebbe essere un PMIC Apple)
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Controller alimentazione TPS51980A
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339S00458 (probabilmente un modulo Wi-Fi/Bluetooth di Apple)
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PWM (Modulatore Larghezza di Impulso) Intersil 6277A
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Codec audio Cirrus Logic CS42L83A
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E ora dritti alla tastiera butterfly! Ricapitoliamo le metamorfosi subite finora da questa farfalla.
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Dopo il suo debutto nel MacBook Retina 2015, la tastiera butterfly si è posata sulla linea MacBook Pro per la prima volta nel 2016 (immagine a sinistra).
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Nell'estate 2018, Apple ha lanciato un programma di riparazione, dando la colpa internamente alla polvere che bloccava i tasti; ha quindi lanciato modelli aggiornati con una membrana in silicone che protegge gli switch dei tasti (immagine centrale). Ma i problemi sono continuati.
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Infine, la revisione 2019 degli switch della tastiera butterfly ha mantenuto la membrana in silicone, ma ha aggiornato i materiali della piccola cupola metallica a molla e del suo rivestimento plasticoso.
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Ricapitolato quanto sapevamo, analizziamo uno strato alla volta i componenti dell'interruttore della tastiera butterfly 2019.
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Sopra a tutto c'è la cover del tasto, dotata di una pratica etichetta per indicare agli utenti qual è il tasto che non funziona.
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La staffa bianca incernierata è il meccanismo a farfalla che controlla il movimento del tasto, stabilizzandolo in modo che possa andare su e giù senza inclinarsi o "ballare".
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Alloggiata all'interno della staffa, c'è una cover trasparente che si flette a ogni pressione del tasto e allo stesso tempo tiene lontano lo sporco dal sottostante switch a cupola.
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L'elemento più significativo di questo gruppo è l'interruttore metallico a molla a forma di cupola. Questo si deforma quando si preme il tasto, realizzando un ponte tra i sei contatti presenti; torna com'era non appena si rilascia il tasto.
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Sotto lo switch è a cupola ci sono sei piastrine metalliche. La pressione del tasto viene rilevata quando la piastrina centrale più in alto chiude il contatto con una qualsiasi delle altre cinque.
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A coronamento di tutto, c'è la membrana in silicone che copre il meccanismo a farfalla per evitare l'intrusione di sporco che potrebbe bloccare il tutto.
Possibly, the change of material to a near-transparent material will allow more light to pass through? So the backlighting system can be brighter? Just guessing
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Insomma, ma che cos'è cambiato quest'anno? Per prima cosa il materiale trasparente della cover dell'interruttore.
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La cover del modello 2018 è traslucida, in qualche modo appiccicosa, e si direbbe sia di silicone. Il nuovo modello è più trasparente e più scorrevole al tatto.
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Per confermare che i materiali sono senz'altro diversi, e abbiamo analizzati tramite spettroscopia FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared, spettroscopia a infrarosso a trasformata di Fourier). Grazie a Eric Beaton e al Dipartimento Tecnica dei Materiali dell'università Cal Poly per aver messo a disposizione la loro competenza e la loro attrezzatura.
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I picchi e le valli dello spettro FTIR per i due elementi mostrano che sono effettivamente materiali diversi. Ma che materiali sono?
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Confrontando questi spettri FTIR con quelli di polimeri noti, la migliore rispondenza per il modello 2018 è poliacetilene con legami uretanici aromatici oppure, con maggiore probabilità, un tipo di TPU (poliuretano termoplastico). Il modello 2019 corrisponde allo spettro della poliammide meglio nota come nylon.
Following the theory that heat accelerated key failure a switch to a different material would make sense if its melting point was higher. Some quick googling indicates nylon has high temperature resistance.
According to this site, nylon endures repeated flexing better than polyurethane.
Poly(acetylene) doesn't make a lot of sense for a component like this. I suspect that the 2018 material is probably a more conventional thermoplastic polyurethane. TPU has that tacky, silicone-like quality and doesn't withstand heat as well as nylon.
Makes sense! The match with the second-highest HQI was Cytor 7040 (as you can see in the screen capture)—which as you correctly pointed out is a type of TPU. We updated the teardown accordingly. Thanks for your comment!
A single key of my 2017 13” MBP failed, and the culprit turned out to be the black paint that helps the backlight diffuse more evenly throughout the keytop. It was the paint that had flaked off and jammed the key rather than any external dust. So look to the formulation of the black paint and its adherence to the type of plastic as an element in this problem. It appears that the plastic flexes when you press the key, and if the paint adherence is poor or the paint is too rigid, there is a non-zero chance it will break off and float around, causing trouble.
Interesting that they went with Polyamide, which is comonly known as Nylon 6. One problem with Nylon 6, which is used widely in under-the-hood applications in automotive sector, is that it retains moisture really well. Not sure if apple is using different materials based on different geographics (countries) because moisture retention can lead to swelling and with such small component, any kind of swelling can impact the mechanism.
Le matériau de 2018 et collant donc retiens les micros poussières celui de 2019 lisse les laisse glisser et en plus il est plus résistant et rebondi mieux en reprenant ça forme initiale.
If they used a special PA such as EMS Grilamid TR on the cover, moisture absorption should be no issue.
PhD in polymer engineering here. I think the black dot that concentrates the force of your key press onto the switch shifts a bit due to fatigue or thermal expansion (or may even wear off), and the key either don’t register or registers twice. See this video which demonstrates the role of the black dot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIwooQAg...
Changing the material to nylon will make the cover more rigid and less prone to deformation thermally or under load, which means that the black dot will remain in the center and the dome is pressed evenly.
This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nob5MLYG...) shows that when the machine is hot, the keys make load noises as seen in the previous video mentioned, which indicates that temperature really does shift the black dot from the center.
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Che cos'altro è cambiato? Forse, pensiamo noi, l'interruttore a cupola. Guardiamolo da vicino.
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La cupola si presenta come un piccolissimo tappo da marmellata o capsula di sicurezza: una volta premuto, riprende la forma originale.
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Se succede qualcosa alla cupola, come una rottura o una deformazione, il tasto inizia a rispondere irregolarmente alla pressione. E, se i piedini si rompono o si piegano, il tasto può smettere del tutto di funzionare.
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È senz'altro possibile che a contribuire ai guasti agli interruttori siano diversi di questi fattori e non uno solo. Questo spiegherebbe perché Apple abbia tutte queste difficoltà a risolvere il problema. La quarta volta sarà quella buona?
Liquidmetal?!
When the snap dome switches my company was using started to fail well before our 3 million cycle test goal, it turned out to be a couple of problems. We weren’t using a hard gold (alloy) plating on our PCB and the snap domes, instead of being the usual round shape, had legs much wider than the Apple snap domes.
The sharp corners of the legs on our snap domes wore through the gold plating, and the stainless/copper interface corroded so that we lost electrical contact.
Maybe the Apple snap dome legs scrape along the gold surfaces and either kick up contaminants that prevent electrical contact in the middle, or eventually wear through the gold and cause corrosion at the leg contact points. The corrosion only has to occur at the very end of the button travel (legs splayed as much as possible) to prevent electrical contact.
If we assume they’re pretty competent people at Apple, it would be easy enough for them to diagnose that and fix those corrosion and wear issues. So maybe it’s not that.
The center of the dome still has 2 contacts so we will still get double key presses. Wonder why this dome has a 1 center contact: https://i.imgur.com/LAM75Lz.jpg
I had a great uncle that worked on computers that ran typesetting systems back in the 1960s and 70s. They had problems with key-bounce back then. I forget what the solution was, but I think software probably smoothes out a lot of these kind of problems these days. I worked on a keyboard that dated from the late 1960s for a video titler system from a company called Telemation. The keyboard was a matrix of very large switches with magnetic reed switches and plungers with magnets on the ends. After 17 or so years, the reed switches became magnetized and you would just get a full screen of a single letter pressed.
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Abbiamo detto, anzi scritto, tutto.
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Almeno per ora... Ci piacerebbe però sentire il parere di esperti di materiali all'interno del nostro uditorio; ci piacerebbe anche dare un'occhiata a tutti i tasti guasti su cui riusciremo a mettere le mani.
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Detto ciò, probabilmente vi chiederete dove si poserà questo laptop nella nostra scala di riparabilità...
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- Il trackpad può essere rimosso e sostituito senza incontrare alcuna grossa difficoltà.
- Il processore, la RAM e la memoria flash sono saldati alla scheda logica. L'esecuzione di riparazioni e aggiornamenti si presenta come qualcosa di ben difficile da attuare.
- Il gruppo del case superiore, che comprende la tastiera, la batteria, gli altoparlanti e la Touch Bar, è incollato tutto insieme, rendendo difficile pensare alla sostituzione individuale di questi componenti.
- Il sensore Touch ID svolge anche il ruolo di interruttore ed è accoppiato con il chip T2 della scheda logica. La riparazione di un interruttore d'accensione guasto può rendere necessario l'intervento di Apple oppure di sostituire la scheda logica.
Considerazioni Finali
Punteggio Riparabilità
(10 è il più facile da riparare)
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28 Commenti
“When comparing these FTIR spectra to that of known polymers, the closest match for the 2018 model is polyacetylene with aromatic urethane side groups, while the 2019 model uses polyamide (commonly known as nylon).
What this doesn't tell us is, just what problem Apple's engineers tried to solve using this updated material. Send us your ideas!”
Spitballing, any debris would have an easier time sliding through the nylon, while the 2018 model has a more sticky material.
Hopefully making cleaning with canned air more effective.
Mark -
The plastic dome covers the contacts so you can’t really blow air into the gap. The covers are glued down to the base 360 degrees.
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Was eagerly anticipating this teardown as soon as the tech press announced the new MacBook Pros with yet another keyboard iteration.
Question: How are the butterfly mechanism and plastic cover attached to the top case? Are they merely held in place by the silicone membrane?
I could not tell if the membrane had to be cut in order to extract the butterfly mechanism and plastic dome.
Those two keys you disassembled, can they be re-assembled and have them function normally without the key falling off?
The thing that really holds it all together is the clear plastic cover piece with the black dot in the middle. That component both holds the dome in place on the PCB and provides the pivot points for the hinged white bracket that controls the keycap travel. Unfortunately, it’s essentially riveted in place from the back with plastic pegs, and prying it out is usually pretty destructive. (In other words, don’t try this at home!) The silicone dust membrane doesn’t have to be cut however, as it’s mainly around the perimeter and not over the top of the mechanism.
Top side of the dome is pictured in Step 8. ;)
I guess we’ll need to wait another year before we get the old reliable keyboards back! So sad …
You’re quite the optimist there.
If this proves to be reliable, then it will be just another proof that it is a better idea to stay away from 1st (or even 2nd) Generations of any Apple product. I could make an arm’s long list, but to make a just a few examples: 1st Gen 15” Retina MacBook Pro Mid-2012 / Early-2013 - GPU Problems, 1st Gen MacBook Air - messy internal arrangement, low performance and overheating, 1st Gen iPad, 1st Gen iPhone, 1st Gen Apple Watch. In all these products and many more, it is better to wait 1.5 or 2 years for an update that is “reliable”, more powerful and what not.
With one of the best engineering teams in the world, that they still make big errors like this and pretty much refuse to take responsibility or at least make it so others can do repairs is sad.
I like my old Macs but want to upgrade someday, at this point I hesitate.
Thank you iFixit for all your hard work detailing the differences and advocating 3rd party repair!
I amazed at how apple engages in these obvious anti-consumer, anti-repair engineering “solutions” and still maintains their customer base.
I'll tell you what keeps me in the customer base: macOS.
I spent the 80s with Apple computers and from 1990 until 2014 on Windows PCs. I've been back in the Apple universe for 5 years, and it's like heaven compared to the ongoing, exhausting (it bears repeating — exhausting) war I had with Windows. The prospect of being able to build my own computers and customize them to my heart's content was irresistable in my youth. But creating an OS that could run on any of the infinite configurations of PC parts, in the end, made Windows too easy to break. Torvalds got it; Gates and company did not, at least for my money. The thought of going back to Windows makes me shudder.
Love the teardowns, and the repair guides to which I’ve referred numerous times.
That said, it really makes me sad to see Apple make iFixit become iPokeAroundInsideIt.
I agree with Ron Miller’s comment above. The macOS (as well as integration with iOS, is what keeps me with Apple. I used MS Dos and Windows operating systems from the 1980s to 2013 and finally had enough, so I switched to Apple. I do get frustrated with Apple, and this butterfly keyboard debacle increases the level of frustration. I guess I’ll continue with my 2012 15” retina MBP for at least another year. It’s still going strong, though a little slow at times.
Many thanks for the teardown, iFixit.
I also Agee with Ron Miller. I went through numerous iterations of Windows machines, from my first 386, to bigger and much more competent desktops, work stations, and some powerful laptops. Many hesitate to go with Apple, saying they’re too expensive, and they are, upfront. But there’s more to cost than upfront cost. With Windows machines I spent innumerable hours upon hours, maintaining, updating, protecting, and repairing them. Even if we don’t consider material costs, the hours lost count as costs that far exceed any difference in upfront costs for Apple products. Since time spent is how we get money to buy things, it doesn’t much matter whether we spend employment time, maintaining time, updating time, or protecting time. All time spent equals cost we’ve spent for any product. So are Apple products really more expensive? I don’t think so.
As a long term apple customer…. i agree with you but there is a limit. These new keyboards have been failure prone for 4 years at this point. And i personally know people who have had multiple returns, the worst case being 3 returns inside 1 month of ownership for a friend who bought an original 2015 macbook and loved the machine if it wasn’t for the un-usable failure rate. He returned it and got a Macbook Pro 13” 2015 like mine. But now the alternative macbook keyboards do not exist.
Will most definitely NOT be buying until at least 12 months have passed and the failures have come out
In the meantime, my 2015 13” Pro soldiers on.
If you do not need the portability the current line of iMacs are a pretty good value. I needed a faster machine then my aging 2015 Macbook Pro because I’m doing more and more video editing so I got the 8 core iMac and never looked back.
Has anyone disassembled a malfunctioning switch \ switches?
Have metal fatigue, cracks, bends, etc. been observed?
Have torn plastic domes been found?
I’m probably in the minority but I love the butterfly keyboard in my 2017 15” MBP, particularly the low-travel and clicky feedback. Did this keyboard modification alter the tactile typing experience?
I am wondering how 8TB of storage and 64GB of RAM can fit in one of these. There doesn’t seem to be much left over space. I would love to see pictures of a maxed out one.
I think it deserves a 2/10.
I wonder how many people suffered from the 2019 MacBook Pro butterfly keyboard failures compared to the older iterations. It would interesting to hear some users' experience in this regard. After Apple released the 2019 16 inch MBP, we all know that model is less prone to have these kinds of problems, but I'm still curious about the last butterfly keyboard iteration of 2019.
Can keyboard (Key Cap) from 2017 be used on 2018 (A1990) EMC 3215, 15" with touchbar.
(Yes I know 2018 has plastic underneath..https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/19/app... )
with;
MacBook Pro 15" Touch Bar 2017 Keyboard Key Cap Replacement. ??
And is it possible that after changing the keyboard and changing the battery, (at APPLE REPAIRER!), THE BATTERY CURRENT CYCLE DROPPED FROM 100% TO 87% AFTER CHARGE STATUS OF 114.
Full charge capacity (mAh): 6338
Charging status (%): 87% (from 100% approx. 1 year ago)
Information about condition:
Number of cycles: 114
Condition: Normal
I have found apple products very robust for my business. I work on heavy web design and ``Graphic Design`` work with no problems. In some cases I had to upgrade to more RAM or to SSD disk form buying products from ifixit.com and that extended the life of my MACs even more. I have an Imac and a mac book pro for more than 10 years now.
JCSL - Replica