I just bought an Apple Magic Keyboard. My initial reaction is awesome. This is because of the ease of pairing with another Apple device. To pair this you literally turn it on and then plug it into your computer with the supplied lightning cable. No passcodes, no discovery mode, just plug it in and it works. Given that Bluetooth and USB go hand in hand these days, I really think that nearly anything that requires bluetooth pairing should work this way.
Why buy the keyboard? I’m one of the many software developer/devops engineer/sysadmin guys who’s avoided upgrading to the latest generation of Apple laptop mainly because of the new keyboards:
- Forcing me to use the touch bar for the Esc key is honestly a complete non-starter.
- and, the reduced travel of the butterfly keyboard, combined with the fact that if you get a crumb in it you need to take it back to apple to get it repaired. This is another non-starter.
So, I’ve been slogging through life with the top of the line 2015 15″ MacBook Pro for quite a few years. To pull me over the hump, a new MacBook Pro would have to be:
- Quad-Core i7 or better
- 32GB of RAM
- 15″ Display
If such a machine had the keyboard from the the 2015 MacBook Pro, I would have already bought it.
But my current laptop is starting to show it’s age. I have to recondition the battery before a long flight to maximize battery lifetime. The current machine’s dusty enough inside that the fans have lost some of their efficiency.
For $99.00, and even less from Amazon, I can try out the new mechanism and make a better evaluation of my ability to use the new laptop. I’m typing this blog post with the new machine and I have to admit that the new mechanism is nice. And, in the worst case, this would always be a good media center PC keyboard.