Yes, small. Because every person who had it complained online but there’s so much more users who are doing fine.

If the design is as flawed as it seems it is just matter of time before a much bigger percentage fails..

Thats true, since its clearly an overall design flaw, not a problem with some units. But even that they will state ‘small percentage’ to not make it clear.

But on the other hand for every repair that shows up in Apple's statistics there are others who are silently suffering because they don't want to lose their ain commputer for week (=mme), or who don't have AppleCare and don't want to pay 100s of dollars for a replaceent.

I have multiple offline friends who don't post on tech messageboards, but have had this issue. A few of them have just been putting up with it to avoid the cost. This is much more widespread than even sites like hn and reddit make it seem

Ive had it happen to 3 of my 3 machines, so i guess 'small' by some measure.

Of the 12ish folks I know that have the new keyboards (I am not one of them), none of them have complained about keyboard issues. We're just comparing anecdotes of course; it would be very difficult for anyone outside of Apple to know the real percentage.

I have a 2016 launch MBP Touchbar and work in an extremely dusty office, and have had no issues with the keyboard. I also have a light touch when typing. I suspect that the real issue may be typing force or maybe typing force + contaminants. By design, this keyboard has lower tolerances, so Apple was kind of asking for it here. I'm not a fan of the design and feel it sacrificed keyfeel and reliability for a few mm that most people don't care about.

Honestly, i have ichthyosis which just exacerbates the whole issue.

I'm pleased they're doing this, but that rubbed me the wrong way too. It is clearly a design problem with the keyboards themselves, it wasn't some manufacturing defect.

A design problem can push tolerances to the point where it fails in a small percentage of cases (environments with rougher handling, temperature, or humidity).

If the problem affected a large percentage, it likely would have been caught and fixed before release, which is cheaper than burning labor, parts, and PR in a recall.

> If the problem affected a large percentage, it likely would have been caught and fixed before release

By that logic no product would ever have a mass recall, but they do, just as this one does.