Apple is reportedly working on a new keyboard for future MacBooks

Apple’s problematic butterfly keyboard design, used in several recent generations of MacBooks, might be on its way out. 

Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via MacRumors) claims that Apple will use a new, scissor switch keyboard design in future MacBooks. 

The new keyboard design should have longer key travel, as well as improved durability thanks to glass fiber-reinforced keys, Kuo says. 

The new keyboard will likely first appear in a new version of MacBook Air later this year, as well as new MacBooks. But it should eventually make its way to the MacBook Pro, albeit not before 2020. As for the butterfly keyboard, it may “disappear” in the long-term, Kuo claims. 

The butterfly keyboard, introduced with the 2015 MacBook, allowed Apple to make its laptops slimmer, but a number of users complained about the keys failing. Perhaps most famously, the Wall Street Journal‘s Joanna Stern wrote an entire column on its problematic MacBook Pro without using the “e” and “r” keys, prompting Apple to apologize for the issue. 

Apple later launched new MacBook Pro devices with slightly improved keyboards, but if Kuo’s report is accurate, the fix was just a temporary solution before an entirely new design is implemented.