Re: New iMac keyboards

In article <300720071846344311%dogbreath@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
sbt <dogbreath@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <uce-C591CD.21300430072007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Gregory Weston <uce@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1185830156.183061.262180@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Bob Vogel <bobvogel2004@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jul 30, 4:46 pm, Gregory Weston <u...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


I don't buy it. I don't buy it because the low profile keys will
gratuitously turn off a lot of people. I don't buy it because there are
a number of subtle and fairly pointless deviations from the keyboard
designs Apple has been using for 20+ years. I don't believe it because
frankly, it's ugly (although some of that might be attributable to it
being a prototype).

So you think this is a hoax?

I'd bet a functioning, albeit legacy, Mac and a lunch on it.

Sure looks an awful lot like the keyboard on a MacBook Pro (slightly
extended) to me.

Not too familiar with the MBP, but it deviates quite a bit (per point 2
above) from my MacBook Amateur.

Since you responded to this message, I won't assume that you saw the
continuation I included (and Bob snipped) for the second point.

1. The icon on the forward delete key deviates from what it's been since
that key debuted on the Mac.
2. Not sure what that is to the left of the 'home' key. It doesn't say
'help'. It _looks_ like it might safe 'fn' but a key to activate
function key behavior of the function keys is frankly stupid.
3. The Command key has a text label (which is not inherently a problem)
but
3a. The Option key doesn't have an icon. I'd think if after almost 24
[years] if they decide to label the cloverleaf and get rid of the apple
[that's been there since 1987] that they'd also put the funky 'option'
glyph that shows up in menus on that key.
4. Label placement is inconsistent. Both compared to existing/prior
designs and within itself.
5. Moving the media control keys to share space with function keys that
have a default behavior in a stock OS X install while introducing
higher-numbered function keys that no extant program expects to find and
which don't have overloaded features is brain-dead.


<seguing slightly>

The one area into which Jobs' vision and RDF has never successfully
penetrated is that relating to keyboards. The original Mac/MacPlus
keyboards were bad, the keyboard on the original iMac was bad, and even
the keyboard on the NeXT Cube was bad. Each computer and its
accompanying software was groundbreaking, but the keyboards should have
been buried deep underground.

For my particular taste, the current Mac keyboard (the one with 16
function keys, etc. that ships with the iMac and MacPro) is one of the
better keyboards I've ever used -- almost as good as the "Saratoga" or
my second favorite, the one on the old IBM Selectric typewriter.

I'm curious how you reconcile that sentence with the first sentence of
the paragraph above (in particular the word 'never'). Do you contend
that Jobs was intimately involved in the design of the original and
first USB keyboard but had nothing to do the current one?
.

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