Apple knowingly sold MacBooks with defective display, says US judge

In a setback to Cupertino Giants Apple, a federal judge in the US has ruled that company knowingly sold Macbooks with defective displays to consumers, the media reported.

The judgment came in a class-action lawsuit over the MacBook Pro "stage light" fault, in which the backlight takes on the appearance of stage lighting at the bottom of the screen before failing completely, 9to5Mac reported on Thursday.

The controversial Apple MacBook Pro redesign was introduced in 2016.

"The court finds that the allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect," said US District Judge Edward Davila.

It was called "stage light" issue because of how the cable damage would produce dark spots on the screen.

Apple had then created a ‘Display Backlight Service Programme’ to address the issue in the 13-inch model but the plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged that the company "continued to sell 15-inch models that it knew were prone to this fault, without warning consumers".

In the lawsuit Apple was also accused of deleting official Apple support community posts complaining about the issue.

This is the second case pertaining to MacBooks.

Another judge in the California, US has also certified the class-action suit against Apple for its fragile butterfly keyboard design.

A group of MacBook users in 2018 filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple for the controversial butterfly keyboards, alleging that the new design failed when even tiny particles of dust accumulated around the switches.

Apple’s latest MacBook Pro series come with a Magic Keyboard, which is now available across Apple’s laptop lineup. The Magic Keyboard is said to be the best ‘the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook’.

(With inputs from IANS)