Oscar winner shred Apple MacBook keyboard

Oscar winner shred Apple MacBook keyboard

Yesterday at the Academy Awards, Taika Waititi destroyed her Apple keyboard in a delightful one-minute rant after accepting the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure."

Waititi responded to a journalist's question about a possible strike by the Writers Guild of America, asking what needs screenwriters should raise in their next negotiations with production companies. His answer was: to have Apple fix the keyboard.

After saying, "Apple needs to fix the keyboard," Waititi launched into a hilariously absurd rant about how bad Apple's keyboards are. The seemingly Mac user said that he almost wanted to buy a PC because the keys were so stuck and bounced around so badly.

"Apple keyboards are terrible," he continued. And, of course, he singled out the MacBook. He mimicked the size of the MacBook's keyboard, showing how it forced him to write in an unnatural position and caused problems with his shoulders and elbows. He concluded, "We need to fix the keyboard, and the WGA should step in and do something about it," he said, eliciting laughter from the Oscar press corps.

Of course, someone could have told Waititi that he could buy a new MacBook Pro 16-inch for $2,399. This MacBook Pro 16-inch is the first Apple laptop in several years to have a decent keyboard, which is apparently comparable in performance to the company's desktop keyboards.

Until last year, however, all of Apple's MacBooks had mediocre keyboards. And the fact is, Apple's laptop keyboards are not as good as Waititi says they are. They are probably the worst in the industry, with bad tactile feedback, keys that stick, repeated letters, and ongoing technical problems that forced Apple to admit the problem and extend the MacBook keyboard warranty.

Apple has been using dodgy keyboards on the market for five years. Apple introduced the butterfly keyboard in March 2015, which immediately led to user complaints. It then tried to fix it in the second generation in October 2016, but the complaints only continued as Apple continued to ignore users.

In May 2018, a Change.org petition asked Apple to recall all MacBook Pros with butterfly keyboards, and a class action lawsuit was filed that month. Then in June, Apple finally tried to placate users by offering an extended free replacement program. That still did not resolve the situation, but it did provide a band-aid for an obvious defective design issue.

Then in July 2018, Apple announced a third revision of the butterfly keyboard, claiming it was a good one. However, as it turned out in April 2019, Basecamp's chief technology officer claimed that almost half of the company's MacBook Pros with third-generation keyboards were failing.

Surprisingly, Apple is still selling MacBooks with these keyboards, and the keys are still stuck, as are the replacements that Apple claimed would alleviate these problems. Rumor has it that the company will discontinue these faulty butterfly keyboards by mid-2020.

No wonder Waititi is so mad that he blames Apple, albeit in a cheeky tone to deflect journalists' questions after winning the Oscar.

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