David Hurst

I really liked the old Apple Pro keyboard - I had one with my G3 iMac and it was a pleasure to use. The new Apple keyboard however is not so great. At £19 a pop, they’re not the cheapest keyboards in the world, so you’d think you would get something of superior quality, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The keyboards are heavy and feel of good quality construction, but the design is flawed. The open top chassis of the keyboard is just inviting debris to get stuck under the keys, and then thanks to the clear perspex base, the thing just starts to look really messy. Any pro Apple user will know exactly what I’m talking about.

The keys are a further bone of contention for me. Firstly, they seem to attract dirt much more than any other white keyboards I have owned, which means regular cleaning is necessary. Secondly, if you don’t hit the keys square on they don’t depress, and this gets worse once the keyboard has accumulated a bit of debris. Perhaps I’m a lazy typer and maybe others don’t have the same issues that I do, but I still maintain that it’s a bad design and Apple need to change it.

Having become fed up with buying a new keyboard every 6 months (there’s simply no point in wasting time cleaning them, and in order to open the damn things you need the world’s smallest hex key - I can’t find one to fit anywhere), I decided to try out some alternatives and was surprised to find just how slim pickings were. Of course, you can use any PC USB keyboard with your Mac, but I just like to have a made for Apple keyboard, with Apple keys, the @ sign in the right place, volume controls and an eject key.

My personal preference when it comes to keyboards, is to have shallow keys more like a laptop keyboard, and as such the models I recommend have that, so if you don’t get on with laptop style keys, then you may need to shop around a bit more.

I first purchased a Macally iKEYSLIM keyboard. These retail at around £12 - £15, and look pretty good in a glossy white plastic that is much brighter than the white keys on the Apple keyboard. Key arrangement is excellent, and typing is a real pleasure. I’ve found that I can code much faster now using this board. I liked it so much, I bought another for home, and my colleague bought one too. Nice one Macally.

If you have a bit more cash available, you can go for the Logitech Cordless Desktop S530 Mac. This is a wireless keyboard and laser mouse, so is only really an option if you want a complete change. The mouse is fantastic and I really like having volume keys on the mouse, but it has a contour shape that would make it unsuitable for left handed users. As for the keyboard, well it really is a good looking bit of kit in silver and white that will perfectly match your Mac. The keys are a little chunkier than the iKEYSLIM, and the action is a bit more springy, meaning a little less fatigue for your fingers, but the keys are still not as chunky as a regular keyboard giving it a nice slender appearence. I have this one plugged into my Mac Mini in the lounge, and having the wireless is just great - you can lay on the sofa and type away to your heart’s content. The keyboard itself is remarkably slim and the wireless reception is great. I think it is most definitely worth the £50 price tag if you can afford it. Logitech is a great brand, I only buy their mice.

One of the biggest complaints PC users have when switching to the Mac is how sluggish the input is. The key repeat rate is by default woefully slow, the standard Apple mice just don’t move fast enough, and the keyboard is horrible. The lack of functioning home and end keys (except in Macromedia and Microsoft apps) is also a real pain in the proverbial. Sometimes using a Mac feels like you’re wading through mud, and I just don’t understand why Apple, who can produce such brilliant hardware and operating systems, cannot sort out these niggles. Still, with a bit of tweaking and a replacement keyboard, the whole experience is vastly improved.