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satchmo

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 6, 2008
5,233
6,114
Canada
With the latest round of keyboards now with TouchID for their iMacs and as a standalone, you'd think they'd add backlit feature.
Surely it has nothing to do with drawing too much power.

It's necessary when working in the dark late into the wee hours. As such, third party ones from Satechi are an option, but no TouchID.
 
The only reason I can think of is that they do not think it’s worth the effort.

They have had the backlit tech from MacBook as long as they were making these keyboards, yet they never even tried. The use case has always been there and they could’ve gone with wired if power were the issue.

Maybe if people were willing to pay $100 extra for a Pro model? 😅
 
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This is something I cannot fathom either. However, when I used to work with a large screen (27") I found that the light from the monitor itself was enough for me to figure anything if I ever needed to look down for something.

That said, this is really just penny-saving and adamantly not giving customers what's known to be helpful. For USD 180 that keyboard ought to have come with backlit keys.
 
This is a mystery to me too, I would love it to be backlit.

Power drain with modern LED technology is hardly an issue. The reading light I use with my children has a tiny battery and lasts for weeks without a recharge, and lighting a keyboard would only require a small fraction of that.

This really is one of those things where I personally cannot think of one good reason why they did not include it. I can only think they did it for profit margin reasons. People will buy what Apple gives, so ... I mean, if there was not a single iMac sold and the reasons Apple received was that it is because of no backlighting in the keyboards in 2021, I am reasonably sure Apple would have told people to buy the package today and they will ship a backlit redesign to them free of cost in a few months, and an iMac would never come again with a keyboard without backlit keys.

Butterfly was rectified very quickly, right.. year on year they rectified it.. till they changed the entire mechanism. It hurt because shipments fell. It is what we need with non-backlit keyboards for them to do it.
 
I use a Logitech MX Keys for Mac on my desktop because of the lack of backlight on the Apple Keyboards (my desktop is an Intel machine so no option for TouchID even with the Apple Keyboards)

The battery certainly doesn't last as long as it does on the Apple keyboards (just shy of a fortnight) but it's not much of a hassle to plug the charge cable in when prompted and it charges pretty quickly.

I guess the lifespan of the keyboard won't be as good as the battery will wear out quicker but it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make
 
I can see my keyboard pretty well when I'm working at night because of the light coming from my monitor. The backlit feature would be good but I think there's no need for it if you have a desktop computer like Mac mini or iMac.
 
I have moved things round recently and am exploiting a slide out shelf in my desk for the keyboard.

With the keyboard there, the desk's own top reduces any possible light spill from the screen and makes it close to impossible to use without extra light.

Not that big a deal, and I could easily use a tiny LED light or a different keyboard if it mattered that much, but I would prefer to have backlighting. And, most often, I am not using it in the dark.

I suspect the decision was originally made when the keyboards were not rechargeable, with every model since just continuing the same basic design internally.
 
An Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad has ~109 keys.

109 keys means 109 LEDs.

That's a big power drain. I'm an EE btw
 
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An Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad has ~109 keys.

109 keys means 109 LEDs.

That's a big power drain. I'm an EE btw

Maybe so, but if a third party manufacturer can figure it out, surely Apple and their wealth of battery knowledge can equal or best them.

The following battery times is from Satechi's wireless backlit keyboard:

Level 1 - 9mA - 144h
Level 2 - 16mA - 81h
Level 3 - 27mA - 48h
Level 4 - 40mA - 32h
Level 5 - 53mA - 24h
Level 6 - 67mA - 19h
Level 7 - 82mA - 15h
Level 8 - 97mA - 13h
Level 9 - 113mA - 11h
Level 10 - 129mA - 10h

To preserve the battery life, the backlight decreases to Level 1 if no usage after 1 minute. Then, the backlight will turn off if no usage for 3mins. Lastly, the keyboard will enter into sleep mode after no usage of 30 minutes.
The backlight turns off if the keyboard reaches low battery levels (<15%). The total standby time is 13 days and the total working time is 45h of usage.
 
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Maybe so, but if a third party manufacturer can figure it out, surely Apple and their wealth of battery knowledge can equal or best them.

The following battery times is from Satechi's wireless backlit keyboard:

Level 1 - 9mA - 144h
Level 2 - 16mA - 81h
Level 3 - 27mA - 48h
Level 4 - 40mA - 32h
Level 5 - 53mA - 24h
Level 6 - 67mA - 19h
Level 7 - 82mA - 15h
Level 8 - 97mA - 13h
Level 9 - 113mA - 11h
Level 10 - 129mA - 10h

To preserve the battery life, the backlight decreases to Level 1 if no usage after 1 minute. Then, the backlight will turn off if no usage for 3mins. Lastly, the keyboard will enter into sleep mode after no usage of 30 minutes.
The backlight turns off if the keyboard reaches low battery levels (<15%). The total standby time is 13 days and the total working time is 45h of usage.
That's not very much up time at all.
 
There are a few options for a backlit keyboard but I think Apple might consider all to be non-ideal.

  1. Always on whenever typing - battery drain
  2. User adjusted brightness level - not "it just works" enough
  3. Add an ambient light sensor - requires a redesign
 
The only reason I can think of is the white keys and the lights on the letters.

- Black keyboard + white light: WIN
- White keyboard + white light: FAIL :(
 
My new MKB for my M1 iPad Pro has backlighting.
Same here. I didn't even realize it until the other day, normally I'm using it when the backlighting isn't needed and is not very noticeable.

My guess is that power drain is the reason, as others here suggest. I know that my iMac keyboard only needs charging every couple of months, if not longer. I don't really think about it much. I wouldn't mind recharging it more often, if it was backlit, but I also haven't ever thought that backlighting was needed.
 
Probably battery-drain and warranty-claim issues.

If you want a backlit keyboard, there are many 3rd-party USB alternatives.
 
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Logistically speaking, It would make sense to streamline laptop and external keyboards to use the same switch, but I'm fairly certain that we would find ourselves on the receiving end of the short term cost increase.
 
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It's fine. Those that are not happy with it can turn the backlight off, or leave it plugged in.

Or it can be set automatically if preferred, like the "Night Shift" function on iOS devices. Am about to buy a Apple keyboard without numpad, but can't seem to find any "space grey" out there, only white ones. I do have the old Apple magic keyboard space grey, but the large one with numpad that I rarely use.
 
Or it can be set automatically if preferred, like the "Night Shift" function on iOS devices. Am about to buy a Apple keyboard without numpad, but can't seem to find any "space grey" out there, only white ones. I do have the old Apple magic keyboard space grey, but the large one with numpad that I rarely use.
They have been discontinued along with the Imac Pro
 
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