Does anyone know any good mac keyboards aside from the Magic Keyboard sold by Apple themselves. I’m planning on getting a Mac mini for a home setup and wondered if there was any keyboards out there that you guys know about?

So, I bought two wired Macally keyboards for my MacBook. Literally every shortcut works perfectly except a shortcut to enter/exit full screen mode in an application called Ableton.

The shortcut to enter/exit full screen mode in Ableton is control + CMD + F.

The command to enter/exit full screen in Safari is fn + F. This shortcut works fine.

All other shortcuts in Ableton work fine. CMD + F works fine, any other shortcut that uses control and another key works fine. CMD and any other key also works fine…

It’s ONLY control + CMD + F in Ableton that doesn’t work.

I suspect it has something to do with F and fn somehow.

Yes I tried restarting, replugging, turning on/off the Fn lock, going into keyboard settings and messing with those…nothing works and it’s driving me insane

But what’s really weird is that sometimes the shortcut works, but only after a short delay.

Wtf is going on here?

I recently got my hands on a vintage Macally IKey 4 keyboard.

It's a clear/see-through one and it's pretty sweet.

It's a membrane keyboard with what I think are Alps-style keycaps? I'm really curious about this thing and was wondering if anyone knows where I can find a manual or any info about it.

Unfortunately, I broke the numpad 6 and A key while trying to remove the caps. I guess super glue was invented for a reason, right?

Any help would be awesome!

Here's a photo if it helps: https://imgur.com/a/4vwwiqH

I’ve got the M4 Mac mini with 24GB RAM and the 512GB SSD in my cart. I’m tempted to get the wireless magic keyboard with touch ID to go along with it. The one with black keys is $249 Canadian. It’s a bit much, but I like their keyboards and the touch ID would come in handy. So used to having it on my iPad.

For those of you who went with the keyboard, any regrets? If you opted for something else, what are you using?

Appreciably, this is not really a sysadmin question, and please feel free to point me to a better sub.

That said...

Our office seats about 60 people, who are almost all on (M1) Apple laptops. We provide a wired keyboard. I try to avoid wireless, because I suspect they just would just be a hassle. Up until recently, I quite liked Mobility Labs (who did keyboards with a GB Mac layout). But they seem to have disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Are you providing users with keyboards? Do you have any recommendations?

I just bought my third one in the last three years, and if this one fails, I don't think I want another one.

Both the first and the second developed problems whereby a key would stop working, or random characters would end up being inserted into text. The first one failed while still under warranty, but I'm now outside of my AppleCare plan.

Prior to my switch to Mac, I had never had a keyboard fail, so I'm wondering if these keyboards are just a bad product.

If I'm going to do third-party keyboard, I'd at least like something that has the appropriate key labels.

The darn keyboard from MacAlly has a cable that needs a dongle to attach to my MacBook Pro!

Does anyone know if there is a cable replacement so I do not need a dongle in?

I have attached a photo of the two ends of the cable that came with the keyboard. The smaller one attaches directly to the keyboard, and the larger one is supposed to connect to my MacBook Pro.

The iMediaKey is a dream to type on, and a perfect match for my 22-inch Cinema Display.

I wish those media controls at the top would work in modern MacOS. Macally (the company) only made drivers for OS 9 and OSX (PowerPC only).

Is it actually possible if I paid someone to write a driver for the media keys?

I’m looking to replace my Logitech Windows Keyboard with a Mac keyboard. I’m not sure whether to go with a Bluetooth or wired. I like the Logitech MX but it’s a little pricey. Recommendations?

Yes, we've disassembled and cleaned those keys. All other keys work fine. What to do? If I got a new keyboard it would be my THIRD one... on this iMac.

I am not able to use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys on my Macally keyboard. Do others have this same issue or am I missing something? I tried toggling the option in settings and it didn't make any difference.

as discussed in here

I'm looking for a keyboard that has exactly the same layout as magic keyboard (FN-Control-opt-CMD at the bottom left corner)

The only viable choice I can find is the MX-keys mini

But I want a mechanical one with longer travel.

Is there any recommendation?

is only a scissors keyboard. So why make a fuzz about it? It features a Mac specific layout (mine is german), has „only“ scissors + membrane keys and was sold at the time for 35-40$ or something alike. But actually, this is the best keyboard I ever owned. (A word of caution - I never really spent much money on keyboards.) But still, this is my hymn on a great keyboard that I can’t buy anymore.

I had a couple of Cherry keyboards in the good old days. Yes, I am old and before USB came into fashion, Cherry PS/2 keyboards were the way to go. Cheap and good. A rare thing to find today, I feel. Then all the membrane and scissors nonsense got popular and at some point I actually started to prefer my iBook’s keyboard (scissors + membrane) over my old Cherry or my acrylic + white keys Apple keyboard. And what’s more, the Apple keyboard broke down quickly. Bought the ICEKey as a replacement and was happy ever since. It has a similar feel to my old (white G4) iBook but it’s a bit smoother. Over the last 7 years or so, I used it to write parts of my masters thesis, my phd, several publications, used it for coding for gaming and everything else. It has seen some use and abuse. It still feels great. The strength necessary to press a key is just right and I like the travel length of the keys. The stuff that came with the ultrabooks has an even shorter travel - too short for me - the ICEKey is perfect.

Today it broke down. Kept pressing the CMD key on it’s own. RIP beloved ICEKey…

Wasted the better half of the day searching for a replacement. And what is available seems horrible. Either I spend a lot of money and go back to full length travel (MX switches or something alike) or buy some also quite expensive scissors keyboard (probably with a windows layout). I was so unhappy with the available offers, that I got some tools out to do some autopsy on the ICEKey. Unscrewed everything, cleaned it with a toothbrush and soap, let it dry and put it back together again. Every time I’ll press the CMD key now, it put’s down a „6“ - which is of course a problem. Apart from that, it works again. Still has the feel, writes like new and actually looks clean for once. I am actually writing this in the ICEKey.

It’ll probably live on for a while, until I get really angry about the CMD key. If anyone got a good idea for a replacement, I’d be happy to hear it…

• ICEKey in parts

• Cleaned and put together

• Details

6

My magic keyboard has just died and I want to buy a cheap third party wired MacOS specific (with the cmd buttons in the right place) keyboard, ideally small format without a numpad. I've looked all over Google, eBay, Amazon. Am I going crazy or is there a reason cheap third party wired keyboards don't exist?

I was looking around today for a mechanical keyboard that has the Mac keyboard layout and have come up empty handed. I've found a few keyboards that are compatible with MacOS, but none that have an identical layout where the CMND key is aligned with the "X" key on the right side.

When CMND and X aren't aligned keyboard shortcuts feel "clunky" and hard to execute, does anyone know of a mechanical keyboard with CMND aligned with the "X" key? ( It could also be a standard Windows keyboard with ALT aligned with "X" -- I can always remap it, it just has to feel right when using it)

Thanks!

I manage a small IT department in higher ed, where we have a ton of old iMacs that are still kicking—but the same can not be said for their original aluminum full-size keyboards. My requirements for replacement are USB wired connectivity (no batteries!), full size format with number pad and page up/down cluster, and typical Mac layout of option/command and other shortcut keys implemented in hardwareno drivers allowed, no confusing (for users) system preference to switch option and command. Got to be plug-and-play and work seamlessly.

The only options I know about are either ultra-high-end (Genuine Apple keyboard, now discontinued, DasKeyboard, WASD v2 mechanical with DIP switch setting for command/option), or utter shite (Macally mushy chicklet model. Seriously this thing feels like typing on overcooked macaroni).

Do ANY commodity (like in the $20-40 range?) rubber dome full size USB keyboards exist that come in a Mac layout option?

On the PC side, I can buy an off-the-shelf replacement for what came in the box and everything is just dandy. Hits the sweet spot of quality and cost. Haven’t been able to find that for the Macs yet, and I’m sad about it.

I searched but couldn't see this question posed already. Have any of you tried the Matias Tactile Pro and the Macally BMTK? I am debating between the two and would appreciate any input. Thanks.