No, I'm not saying whether the new keyboard SHOULD have been released with the August 2007 announcements... Personally I think it's a mistake to default to the new mini keyboards on desktops, but I do actually like the concept of a small (yet with full sized keys) keyboard. Something you can throw in your backpack. So I picked one up this evening.
I was hacking away at the Linux kernel to add the new device ids for the keyboard (drivers need to know what USB devices are Apple keyboards to make use of the Fn functionality, etc), and I noticed that the new device ids (0x021d, 0x021e, 0x021f) came immediately before the regular aluminum keyboard's ids (0x0220, 0x0221, 0x0222). (As a refresher, hex numbers are from 0 to f, so 021f + 1 = 0220.)
Furthermore, the new keyboard's model number is A1242, while the old one is A1243. I'm thinking it's likely that Apple intended to release this keyboard back in August 2007, along with the other 2 aluminum keyboards (regular and bluetooth). No idea why they didn't.
I was hacking away at the Linux kernel to add the new device ids for the keyboard (drivers need to know what USB devices are Apple keyboards to make use of the Fn functionality, etc), and I noticed that the new device ids (0x021d, 0x021e, 0x021f) came immediately before the regular aluminum keyboard's ids (0x0220, 0x0221, 0x0222). (As a refresher, hex numbers are from 0 to f, so 021f + 1 = 0220.)
Furthermore, the new keyboard's model number is A1242, while the old one is A1243. I'm thinking it's likely that Apple intended to release this keyboard back in August 2007, along with the other 2 aluminum keyboards (regular and bluetooth). No idea why they didn't.