New Macbook Keyboard Views

General Goods

Probably the second most striking feature of the new MacBook is the keyboard. In doing research for this review (asking smart people what they'd like to know about the machine), I kept getting requests to describe how the keyboard felt, whether there were dividers between the keys, and if your fingers got all confused when typing on this obviously alien device.

Before I answer any keyboard questions, I should just say up front that I'm no keyboard snob. Give me an input device that is quieter than the music I'm listening to, and I'm content. I will, however, do my best to describe how the keyboard feels. That's not to say that the new keyboard t"feelsn" that much different from the keyboard on any other Apple portable I've used. It certainly looks much more i"integratedh" with the machine (mostly because it's no longer a removable part) but I'd be hard pressed to describe the b"action,i" "response,e" and d"travel " of the keys to be very different from those on the MacBook Pro, PowerBook, or iBook G4.

As some of you might have noticed: the new 4th generation Macbook has a new keyboard layout which looks much like their standalone keyboards. The keyboard is still the same floating-keys concept, but Apple moved around some buttons and deleted some others. As I had an old Macbook and now have a 4th generation Macbook, I thought it would be nice to quickly walk through some of the mayor changes.

Finally, Apple decided to give the new Macbook keyboard the same feature as they gave their normal keyboards: anti-accidental-CapsLock-prevention. The idea here is that most people never use the CapsLock but most of the time accidentally hit it when they didns’t want to. To solve this Apple made sure that this new key doesnp’t turn on the CapsLock if you tap it very quickly. Only when your really press it and hold it will it turn on. Reinier noted that this obviously isno’t a real fix, but more of a dirty hack. A proper solution would be to replace the CapsLock in its entirety with something far more useful. Maybe a left-side return key?