Apple Appears to have Silently Addressed Flexgate Issues in 2018 MacBook Pros

Owners of the MacBook Pro have previously complained about an issue that causes the dispaly on the machines to perform poorly and at times fail entirely. The problem was dubbed “flexgate” and was caused by wear to the ribbon cable that connects the MacBook Pro display to the hardware inside the other section of the machine.

iFixit investigated the problem and found that in affected Mac models, the ribbon cable was too short causing wear as the lid to the notebook was opened and closed over time. The first thing that Mac users would notice when the situation affected the function of the notebook was something called the stage light effect, seen in the image below via MacRumors.

The good news for Mac fans is that it appears that in some, if not all, 2018 MacBook Pros, the cable that caused the display issues has been lengthened. iFixit wrote, “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 predecessorand found the 2018 cable was, in fact, a full 2mm longer. Since this change appears in both our 15 model and Olivia88s 13 model, its plausible this change is present in multiple, if not all, 2018 MacBook Pros.”

It appears that despite Apple not acknowledging the “flexgate” issue it has launched a fix for the flaw. The longer cable is expected to reduce the wear and tear from using the notebook to the point where failure no longer occurs.