US keyboard on UK ordered new MacBook

[Heleen]

I'm about to order (as soon as my money comes into my bank account) one of the new MacBooks. I went to Leeds the other day to see one (I've never had an Apple before) and I noticed something strange. The keyboard was a US keyboard, but the Return key was very strangly shaped. It was mostly vertical and very slim (which seemed a bit uncomfortable to type on). I always prefer horizontal Return keys and so I searched for pictures online, but on the Apple site all the MacBooks with seemingly US keyboards had a normal horizontal Return key. Also on the photos I've seen on the forums here the Return key has a normal horizontal shape.
I'm fairly sure that the keyboard on the MacBook in the store was US, because I pointed it out to my boyfriend who uses UK keyboards and we checked it by typing stuff in a text editor and the @ above the 2 really acted as an @. If I remember correctly it also had a € sign on the 2 or 4 or something, but I'm not entirely sure about this.

Now this may seem a bit of a silly question, but I'm just curious if there might be a difference between the US keyboard in the US and the US keyboard in the UK. It doesn't really bother me or anything, just curious .
Maybe someone could post a photo of a US keyboard lay-out on a UK Alu-MacBook?
Thanks!

 

[Adamo]

There's @2€ on the 2 button, then 3#£ on the 2 (although hash isn't printed on the key).

The Return key on my white MacBook is thin and vertical if that's any help.

 

[eluk]

This is the English keyboard. It has a £ over the three, whereas on a US keyboard there is a # in its stead.

 

[molala]

You can order Macs with a US keyboard in the UK. They are the same layout as what you would buy in the US. You can look at the different keyboard layouts by going to the Input Menu (in System Preferences -> International).

 

[Heleen]

I always thought that UK keyboards didn't have the @ on the 2, but instead somewhere on the right of the L: more or less like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_Windows_Ireland.svg. And this is a USA international keyboard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_US-International.svg. Is this different on macs?

 

[cristo]

I always thought that UK keyboards didn't have the @ on the 2, but instead somewhere on the right of the L: more or less like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_Windows_Ireland.svg. And this is a USA international keyboard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_US-International.svg. Is this different on macs?

UK windows keyboards and UK mac keyboards are, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it) set out slightly differently. It takes a while to get used to, but after a while of typing email addresses with " and quotations with @, you get used to it.

One thing it took me ages to find, though, was that alt+3 gives #. (Why they couldn't put that on the keyboard, like they did with the €, I don't know!)

 

[jjeo]

Yeah, I got a macbook just before the new ones came out (glad I did! Couldn't afford it now even with HE discount!!) and my number two key also has the @ and € symbols on it. Took a day or so to get used to it and it is a bit strange at first but I wouldn't change my macbook for it!!

 

[molala]

You can always find what keystrokes you need to type by turning on Keyboard Viewer (System Preferences -> International, then under Input Menu tick Keyboard Viewer). You can launch this from the menu bar (Brit or US or whatever flag represents your keyboard layout).

It's really useful. If you hit alt, you'll see that alt-j gives the ∆ symbol, alt-m is µ. shift-alt-8 is ° for temperature units. alt-shift-/ gives you ¿ so you can type questions in Spanish. You also get the accents to type foreign words.

So whichever keyboard layout you buy you can always figure out how to type any symbol.

 

[199708]

could hve been much worse....

just picked it up today. got 60,000en discount, thats about $600US.for this 2.4hz

 

[Adamo]

...how?! That's great.

Anyways, yes! That ALT+ is amazing, I never knew about all these other letters and symbols!

¡€#¢∞§¶•ªº–≠œ∑´®†¥¨^øπ“‘åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬…æ«`Ω≈ç√∫~µ≤≥÷

That's just flicking through the letters and symbols on the keyboard with alt held down.