It’s the thing that makes the electrical contact that registers a keypress. On Apple’s butterfly keyboard, there is a metal dome switch underneath each key. The second change is even more mysterious. Perhaps it’s better at not allowing dust to get stuck under it? At this point, only Apple really knows for sure. Though why the change might help is anybody’s guess. The newer material is “clearer and smooth to the touch,” according to iFixit.
This new material doesn’t change that overall membrane, but instead this is a second kind of polymer that lies underneath it. The company insisted it was there to reduce noise, despite patent filings and service documents confirming that they were intended to protect against debris. Apple began using a silicone membrane inside the keyboard last year. There’s a polymer over the actual keyboard switch that previously was a complex polymer and now appears to essentially plain old nylon, according to an FITR analysis. The first of iFixit’s discoveries is that Apple is, in fact, using a new material inside a component of the key inside the keyboard.
The iFixit teardown was necessary to find out what Apple’s design changes were because the company refused to actually explain them beyond telling reporters that it had utilized a “new material.” So the teardown commenced, and the results are subtle enough that it has taken special scientific equipment (and will take even more in the future) to determine the difference. And though it’s much too early to say whether or not those changes will make a difference in improving the keyboard’s reliability, what is clear right now is that Apple is still just tweaking its design instead of overhauling it. The changes seem to amount to a new material underneath the key on the switch cover and a new dome switch that might be more resilient. According to iFixit, Apple made two changes to the new keyboards that are on its just- announced, spec-bumped MacBook Pro.
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