Apple May Have Quietly Addressed 'Flexgate' in 2018 MacBook Pros
iFixit reports that Apple may have already taken steps to reduce the likelihood of 2018 MacBook Pro users experiencing display lighting issues dubbed Flexgate. Affected machines could see uneven lighting that looks like a "stage light" effect with the display potentially failing completely over time.
iFixit was tipped off by MacRumors forum user Olivia88 posting in our Flexgate megathread that their 2018 13" MacBook Pro appeared to have a longer cable than previous models. iFixit confirmed this finding:
Since we were just wrapping up writing the repair manual for the 2018 model anyway, we checked inside our 2018 15” MacBook Pro again to measure its cable against its 2016 predecessor—and found the 2018 cable was, in fact, a full 2mm longer. Since this change appears in both our 15” model and Olivia88’s 13” model, it’s plausible this change is present in multiple, if not all, 2018 MacBook Pros.
iFixit speculates that this could prevent some of the wear and tear that had previously caused the failure though they weren't able to say for certain.
Apple has yet to publicly acknowledge the issue, and our Flexgate guide covers what your options are if you are affected by this issue.
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Top Rated Comments
Anything is working properly in their Macbook "Pro"?
“...I work for a company that uses only Apple product and in the year 2016, we brought 160 laptops MacBook Pro 15 top model then out of 160 laptops so far 20 laptops are affected with this display flex cable issue not sure how many would be further and 56 laptops are affected with the keyboard issue...”
By his report alone, it would be around 12% failure rate for flexgate, but it can only get worse with time, the more you open/close the more wear and tear. The issue is significant, Apple needs to issue a repair program.
The worst is the glitches are being rendered, not only displayed :(
Counting Powerbooks I'm probably on my Apple laptop #20. Absolutely no problems before.
They are not only completely not reliable anymore, they are more expensive every year.
As someone mentioned in another thread - you can get 64GB of RAM in a Lenovo P1 for almost the same money
Apple wants for 32GB (64GB not available). 32GB in Lenovo is 3x less expensive. Same RAM.
We are talking probably the most expensive PC brand.
Better screens, better graphics, 64GB RAM. All that for much less money.
When MBP was a great reliable machine, I paid the Apple tax. Now - it simply makes zero sense.
/s
Most Apple customers are not much different than the hardcore fans. They're locked into the ecosystem and while they grumble about things like the loss of the headphone jack on the iPhone, a notch, high prices, they still buy the product. There's a current dip in iPhone sales due to the high price, but that is only temporary. Those holdouts will need to replace their iPhone... if not this past cycle, then the next. They'll bite the bullet and pay the price because there is no other option for them (and Apple will discontinue the older, cheaper models).
I continue to be perplexed as to why so many come to Apple's defense whenever the awareness of a defect is raised. Looking at the trackrecord of such customer reports, when was the last time that such a report of a hardware issue turned out to be nothing?