Apple's New MacBooks Have a Keyboard Change You Might Have Missed

[johnrlaporta]

I was going to say going back even to the Magic Keyboard I got with my first Mac mini back in 2017 had them on! lol

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with having glyphs, it’s the not having text that is annoying.

 

[iMac The Knife]

With these kind of amazing innovations, how could I not upgrade! 🤣

 

[melliflu]

• Hit the Delete key, Dad.
• No such key? Try the left arrow.
• it's an arrow pointing left on the top right corner
• dad: ???

 

[ph001bi]

I have a 2021 M1 Max with a British keyboard and it already has this design. Apple has probably aligned the designs across the various Qwerty keyboards to reduce supply chain costs. Having the verbose only in North America might have added unnecessary costs.

 

[klasma]

But why? Is it that difficult to just put “Tab”
On the key?

Cost reduction, because it’s language-independent.

 

[cyanite]

I like meters. But celsius is a woefully insufficient unit of measure for temperature. Far too small of a scale for something as intricate as temperature.

Somehow it works just fine for billions of people. Decimals exist, if it’s important that it’s 20.5 degrees.

 

[kaspurr]

• Hit the Delete key, Dad.
• No such key? Try the left arrow.
• it's an arrow pointing left of the top right corner
• dad: ???

I love you for this comment, holy cow how spot on will this be in the real world.

 

[darngooddesign]

The option key was never alt. Alt is a PC term. Macs only ever had an option key.

Alternate is an alt term for option.

 

[wonderings]

Personally I don't look at the keyboard so no issue there, but it does make things a little more complex if problem solving with someone not all that computer literate over the phone. Describing the image on the keyboard is a little more difficult then it just being named.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The problem with text labels is that they are too easy to understand.

In the spirit of Liquid Glass, the switch to glyphs will help create some new confusion.

 

[Anaxarxes]

 

[CarAnalogy]

I like meters. But celsius is a woefully insufficient unit of measure for temperature. Far too small of a scale for something as intricate as temperature.

Super simple though. 0 is freezing. 0-10 is cold. 11-15 is chilly. 20 is room temperature. 25 is warm 30 is hot. 37 is human body temperature. 40 is as high as you’ll commonly find on earth and if it’s hotter than that get somewhere cooler fast.

Once you get used to it you’ll realize humans don’t notice 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit nearly as much as you think you do. Celsius is plenty accurate.

 

[sw1tcher]

What takes the place of the TouchID button on the base Neo? Is it just a dumb power button?

A key with lock on it

 

[ChrisA]

But why? Is it that difficult to just put “Tab”
On the key?

It likely looks cleaner to have the symbol and, of course, to most of the world, "tab" is a word from a foreign language, and the symbol would be easier to read. I think this lets Apple use the same keyboard in more places, and saves them some money.

That last part, "saves money," is, I bet, the real motivation.

But then, Apple still spells out "control, option, and command. Maybe they can't think of a symbol. The ones on the keys are not easy to figure out if you don't already know.

 

[Slix]

Curious why they kept the text and glyph on the Command, Option, and Control keys but removed the text completely from the keys where they added glyph. Why not be consistent and do both text and glyph on all?

I came here to ask this. If there's room on the Command, Option, and Control keys to fit both, why not the larger tab, return, delete, shift, and caps lock keys too?

 

[johnrlaporta]

Yes, the forward delete key and regular delete key can also be confusing.

 

[johnrlaporta]

I can see myself looking this up in the future: how to mod an M5 keyboard with M4 key caps.

 

[sw1tcher]

On the U.S. English version of the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro keyboards, the tab, caps lock, shift, return, and delete keycaps now have glyphs on them. On previous-generation models, these keys are labeled with text instead.

Going to confuse Homer even more.

And how will he be able to order his Tab now?

 

[IceCool]

Don’t forget the new mute symbol as well. They added the slash through it with the M5 14”, but no other MacBook had it until now.

But in all seriousness, I’m kind of a fan of this from a visual standpoint. It’s not like we don’t already know that the keys do lol

 

[Reelmower]

But why? Is it that difficult to just put “Tab”
On the key?

I’m with you. What is the downside of actually labeling the name of these keys?

 

[Slix]

Also, it took me years after they removed the Apple logo from the keyboards to stop calling it the Apple key and people around me would be like "what are you talking about" and now there's no words for simple keys like Delete or Caps Lock, so explaining over the phone to someone what key to press will be... harder and more annoying probably.

 

[ZiinGeats]

I personally don’t care either way, but then what do I know, roght?

 

[Numbah One]

But why? Is it that difficult to just put “Tab”
On the key?

Probably a cost reduction. If it was done on US laptops only the change allows Apple to have a single set of keycaps for English language configurations. Simplifies logistics too.

 

[robvalentine]

You’d think for the thousands of dollars these cost, they could fit a few measly little letters on these keys 🙄

I actually like the words, even though I rarely look at the keyboard. It has a more balanced aesthetic. Very disappointed.

I think the symbols look better. Then again I have a UK one, so I don't need everything spelling out [jk]

 

[Non-Euclidean]

You’d think for the thousands of dollars these cost, they could fit a few measly little letters on these keys 🙄

I actually like the words, even though I rarely look at the keyboard. It has a more balanced aesthetic. Very disappointed.

They can. For an extra $50.00