This version of the site is now archived. See the next version at v5.chriskrycho.com.

The Apple Magic Keyboard

What Cherry Blues are to some mechanical keyboard lovers, the Apple Magic Keyboard is to me.

November 11, 2018Filed under Tech#design#hardwareMarkdown source

Assumed audience: nerds who care about keyboards, most of whom will probably think I’m crazy for my views in this post.

I was sitting at my kitchen counter this evening, doing a mishmash of things—from writing a little Rust, to sending some text messages to my family, to leaving a note on a programming forum. The whole time, I’ve just had this quiet sense of deep pleasure about the typing. I was slightly confused about why I was enjoying the feel of the typing specifically… until I realized what exactly I was typing on.

I’m sitting in front of a 2015 MacBook Pro… but I’m not typing on that keyboard. I’m typing on the Apple Magic Keyboard instead, which I brought upstairs from its normal perch on my desk and started using everywhere.1

This keyboard is perfect for me. It’s not what other people love, I know—people who prefer “mechanical keyboards” find it far too shallow. But there is something about the feeling of typing on this particular keyboard that I simply love. For me, it’s a perfect bit of industrial design, because it simultaneously looks good and works exactly the way I want it to, right down to the feeling of every keystroke.

Mechanical keyboard lovers: you can keep your Cherry Blues. I’ll just stockpile Apple Magic Keyboards and be happy.


P.S. Apple should totally just figure out how to put exactly this keyboard in their next-generation MacBook Pros. They won’t. But they should.


  1. What prompted it? I ordered a stand for it for all the times I’m not at my desk with its 5k monitor. And then just decided it was worth doing this way all the time.