New Apple Magic Keyboard with USB-C and Contact ID Overview

The brand new Apple Magic Keyboard, up to date with USB-C, is a high-quality possibility if you need Contact ID and for those who like laptop-style membrane keyboards. It’s not my most well-liked typing expertise. It additionally, sadly, solely is available in a restricted variety of colours and solely two sizes.

It’s the inventory keyboard that comes for those who order an iMac. It’s additionally out there if you need an exterior keyboard in your Mac mini, Mac Studio or a desktop-docked MacBook.

The Magic Keyboard is the one technique to get Contact ID on the Mac, which is a reasonably glorious expertise. You simply should pay the quite excessive value for it — and the even better sacrifice of giving up on a clicky mechanical keyboard.

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Apple Magic Keyboard Overview

Desk of Contents:

1. Design
2. Contact ID
3. Key feeling
4. Compact structure
5. Full-size structure
6. No multi-device pairing
7. Do you have to purchase an Apple Magic Keyboard?

Design

The Magic Keyboard is a chameleon. It completely matches the size of the Magic Trackpad you will have sitting close by. The blacks look precisely the identical, though the keycaps are plastic and the trackpad is glass. With an iMac, it is available in six color-coordinated hues that match the colour laptop you get.

The typeface is San Francisco, the system font used on all Apple platforms since 2015. It’s a ravishing font that’s extremely legible. The symbols and icons on the modifier keys and performance keys are attractive as effectively.

Even the on-off swap is superbly machined with a improbable click on motion to it.

Pairing it with a Mac is simple; simply flip it on and briefly plug it in. And you’ll plug it in with the great braided (and color-matching) USB-C cable it comes with; ditch the Lightning cable out of your desk.

Contact ID

The non-compulsory Contact ID key makes signing into your Mac, autofilling a password in Safari, signing in with a Passkey and shopping for merchandise with Apple Pay a lot simpler. Simply maintain your finger on the particular key (or you’ll be able to click on it, for those who want) and it’ll immediately authenticate. You can even click on the button at any time to immediately lock your Mac — a lot sooner than the Command-Management-Q keyboard shortcut. The Contact ID key has a distinct swap than the opposite keys; it takes extra drive to press so that you’re much less prone to click on it by chance.

With out Contact ID, you will have a Lock key as an alternative. Which is definitely extra helpful in 2024 than the CD Eject key that was as a substitute earlier than. You can even pair your Mac with an Apple Watch, and get all the identical options — although the interface is rather less elegant. It’s a lot simpler urgent your finger on a key (the place your palms already are) than it’s reaching over and double-clicking your Apple Watch’s aspect button to substantiate.

The combo of whether or not Contact ID is out there and which colours include what’s complicated. The compact structure comes each with and with out Contact ID, however solely in white (or, if bought with an iMac, six colours). The total-size Magic Keyboard comes each with and with out Contact ID, though solely the Contact ID mannequin is available in black — and, black prices $20 further.

Key feeling

Because the snootiest of mechanical keyboard snobs, I’m not impressed by the typing feeling of the Magic Keyboard.

It’s among the finest, so far as laptop-style membrane keyboards go. The keys are very secure and don’t wobble. There’s a fairly sized hole between every key. There’s a noticeable click on feeling with a quiet however audible sound with each key press. It’s nothing you aren’t used to and nothing about it can shock you.

However I nonetheless discovered myself making extra typos. The keys aren’t curved, so except your fingers hit the very fringe of the important thing, you don’t know the way near the middle you’re hitting. I like a keyboard with extra journey, the place the keys should be pressed down additional to register.

Individuals say that solely “a nasty workman blames his instruments.” And it’s normally true {that a} professional gaming chair gained’t make you a greater gamer, an costly knife set gained’t make you a greater prepare dinner, a pair of racing gloves gained’t make you a greater driver. However as somebody with a examined typing pace of 83 phrases per minute, I can confidently say it’s completely true {that a} unhealthy keyboard will maintain you again.

Compact structure

The compact structure saves area in your desk. Personally, I want compact keyboards. I don’t want a full quantity pad; I’m not an accountant. I additionally like having a brief journey between the alphanumeric keys and my trackpad.

The most important draw back is the arrow keys. The Left and Proper keys are the identical top because the mixed Up and Down keys, so it’s onerous to determine them by really feel. Apple makes use of this identical keyboard structure on the MacBook Professional, besides as of 2021, the arrow keys are mounted to be T-shaped. I don’t know why the desktop keyboard will get overlooked. And on the colourful iMac Magic Keyboard, it might be good for those who had a sq. the place you would actually see the colour shine by.

Sadly, you don’t have bodily keys for Web page Up, Web page Down, Residence, Finish and Ahead Delete. You should utilize Choice-Up, Choice-Down, Command-Up, Command-Down and Perform-Delete to get the identical performance, however that normally requires utilizing each palms, and isn’t as quick.

My supreme compact keyboard structure has full-size arrow and navigation keys, however with out the quantity pad. Amongst keyboard fans, this is named the tenkeyless or 87% structure.

Full-size structure

The total-size structure is a extra normal keyboard structure.

You could have Command, Choice and Management on each side of the keyboard, organized in that order, symmetrically, going out from the spacebar.

It doesn’t waste any area on these pointless PC keys — Insert, SysRq, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break. As an alternative, you will have a Context Menu key. (This was beforehand the Perform key, however that’s been moved to the underside left, like on the MacBook keyboard.) I’m unsure how helpful that is, however at the very least I do know what it does.

The opposite keys, F13 – F19, are clean. You possibly can assign your personal actions to them for those who dig by System Settings.

The enormous floor space it occupies in your desk makes you suppose it needs to be heavier than it truly is. Though it’s fabricated from steel, I don’t suppose it’s artificially weighted in any respect. I’ve used loads of smaller, extra compact plastic keyboards which are over twice as heavy. It’s very nice.

No multi-device pairing

AirPods use clever pairing. They’ll successfully keep paired to a number of units directly, in order that switching between your Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad and Mac is seamless. In case you have a number of Macs sharing one desk, you won’t need two mice, or two keyboards or two trackpads. It could actually get complicated and crowded.

However alas, all of Apple’s newest peripherals nonetheless use vanilla Bluetooth, and don’t benefit from Apple’s personal know-how elsewhere.

Apple’s reply to that want is Common Management, which lets one keyboard management a number of units — even a Mac and iPad — however that solely works if all of the units are subsequent to one another and on the identical Apple account. In case you have a piece laptop computer and a private laptop computer, they’re in all probability on completely different Apple accounts. Continuity isn’t true multi-device pairing; the keyboard solely stays paired to at least one Mac, which acts as a relay. Take that Mac away, and your Magic Keyboard gained’t be linked to the opposite one.

Overview Conclusion: Do you have to purchase the brand new Apple Magic Keyboard?

Personally, I wouldn’t use the Apple Magic Keyboard. I don’t suppose it’s good sufficient to justify its excessive costs, and neither of the configurations match what I would like.

However as a result of I don’t suppose Apple goes to make a tenkeyless mannequin in black (and since I don’t like membrane keyboards, anyway) what I really need is an answer for these of us who like third-party keyboards but additionally need Contact ID. Ideally, that might be Contact ID constructed into the Magic Trackpad.

★★★☆☆

Purchase from: Amazon (White, Compact)
Purchase from: Amazon (Black, Full-size)

Apple didn’t present Cult of Mac with a overview unit for this text. See our evaluations coverage, and take a look at different in-depth evaluations of Apple-related gadgets.