Apple's Touch ID-enabled Keyboard is Finally Available on Its Own (techcrunch.com) 61
Three-and-half months after launching the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, Apple is finally breaking it out from its iMac bundle. The accessory is now available as a standalone through Apple Stores and the company's site. From a report: There are two versions: the standard and a longer model with a numeric keypad (pretty much what the company offers with all of its Magic Keyboards), running $149 and $179, respectively. There's also a $99 version that keeps the new rounded, compact design, but drops the Touch ID in favor of a key that locks the system. But where's the fun in that? All of the models have keys devoted to Spotlight, Dictation, Do Not Disturb and Emoji.
Re:Wish it wasn't available anywhere (Score:4, Informative)
If you want proper arrow keys, you need the full-size keyboard [apple.com], not the compact version used by regular people.
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I don't think that is what eduardr meant. The "Magic Keyboard"s on MacBooks and for iPads have half-height Left-Arrow and Right-Arrow keys that are easier to find by touch.
The pre-"Magic" compact aluminium keyboards did too have these keys, or rather: they were actually better as the entire row was slightly larger on the vertical to begin with, thus making the "half height" keys slightly larger than on the 2020 laptops even.
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Slightly larger or not, those stupid half-height up/down arrow keys are the stupidest idea I've ever seen for laptops.
There is room for full-size keys in inverted-T configuration on all laptops of all sizes. Nobody has to fit all the keys of the keyboard inside a "visually perfect rectangle". That's the fault of form over function and I wish Apple would stop doing that (i.e. being stupid).
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I read your comment wrong (you were talking about the left/right arrows, I was assuming the up/down arrows), but my point of view still remains: half-height keys are the stupidest thing ever.
Buried the lead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Touch ID only works on Macs running the M1 chip
Not useful for most people.
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I find it really odd on why a keyboard option would need a particular CPU.
My Laptop has a fingerprint reader what sends the data to the CPU where it does it calculations and works or more than often failed to work. To let me into my system.
Sure Macs with the M1 chip may have the OS setup to use that feature, but what is really stopping a Windows Driver from using it.
Re:Buried the lead. (Score:4, Informative)
Touch ID requires a "secure enclave", something the Intel-powered Macs don't have.
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But we get to pick the colour!
Sent from my "you can pick any colour you want as long as it's silver" 2010 Mac mini.
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Indeed, however I didn't recall that fact before you mentioned it because the 2019 Macbook Pro in front of me doesn't have one.
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* doesn't have Touch ID, I mean.
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And for $179, they could have put a dedicated T1/T2 chip inside. This keyboard costs almost half the retail cost of an iPhone SE which has both a fingerprint reader and a secure enclave chip (and a screen, CPU, cellular modem, multiple cameras, etc).
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c.f. Raspberry Pi 400 for $US70.
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Oh, and the T2 is in the Intel based Macs and Macbooks too.
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Right! The T2 chip! How could I forget the Terminator 2 reference?!
Sorry, my mistake!
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As others have mentioned below (above?), Intel-based Macs have the T2 chip with the secure enclave, so really this is Apple shooting themselves in the foot and losing sales with that Apple-silicon-only compatibility requirement thing.
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Touch ID requires a "secure enclave", something the Intel-powered Macs don't have.
No... No it does not.
Touch ID has been on the MacBook Pro since 2016.
Super +4 misinformative though. Thanks.
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Honest mistake.
One correction: TouchID has been supported since the T1, not the T2.
And yes, this is simply Yet Another Artificial Apple Limitation that will undoubtedly be defended by the dumbest motherfuckers you've had the displeasure of parsing language from.
Applebots, roll out.
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Touch ID requires a "secure enclave", something the Intel-powered Macs don't have.
Touch ID requires "the" secure enclave, as in Apple's specific one. Intel-powered Macs absolutely have a hardware security features which are comparable, and unlike Mac's one, they use one based on open standards, TPM.
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All the Intel-powered Macs from about 2019 and on have either the T1 or T2 Apple silicon for secure enclave (for Filevault encryption and touch ID on supported laptops).
Key That Locks (Score:1)
There's also a $99 version that keeps the new rounded, compact design, but drops the Touch ID in favor of a key that locks the system. But where's the fun in that?
Reading this, I stupidly pictured a physical key&keyhole and thought that would be cool, and fun to fidget with at least. But then I looked [apple.com] and (of course) they mean a "key" as on a keyboard. Should be at least as fun as giving Apple my fingerprints though.
Like typing on a piece of plywood ... (Score:1)
The last usable keyboard Apple released was the white w/ transparent body "Apple Keyboard" (A1048) - that had proper keys with good travel and the keyboard curvature required to reach most of the other keys with your fingers starting on the home row without having to move your whole forearm.
All the new ones are just cheap Carpal Tunnel Syndrome inducing pieces of cr*p.
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All the new ones are just cheap Carpal Tunnel Syndrome inducing pieces of cr*p.
How else are they going to convince you to use Siri?
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Upon liking the machine and keyboard so much, I purchased my aunt a new M1 iMac. Magic Keyboard is the same feel as the Air's keyboard- and really, it's pretty fucking fantastic.
maxOS is still a steaming pile of shit for an OS. Like someone
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maxOS is still a steaming pile of shit for an OS. Like someone picked out every annoying and stupid thing about Windows and asked, "how can we make this... even more obnoxious?"
Back (~15 years ago) when I first switched to Macs, I remember how many little things threw me off. I bought a program that changed the mouse acceleration to be more windows-like. Eventually you get used to things, and then going back the other way feels "off."
Out of curiosity, what are some things you don't like or are having trouble adjusting to?
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Out of curiosity, what are some things you don't like or are having trouble adjusting to?
Oh, they're things of technical nature.
I've been using linux on my work machines for about 15 years now, and I use windows on my home gaming laptop and streaming machine. I've owned a few macs here and there (which frankly, all pretty much sucked when compared to their PC competitors, but that's because Apple insists no not cooling the fucking things, a problem they have obviated with the M1- smart move)
So I'm not really bothered by UI differences. It's understood that I'll have to tweak those and learn
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Apple has really neutered the Unix functions of macOS in the past 5 years or so. Even if you install Homebrew, you’ll also have to disable Apple’s security thing (SAP?) to get basic things like a DNS server to run.
Even using something basic like Apache is a mess with the way they have configured things. It’s still possible to do these things, but documentation is pretty nonexistent so you’re stuck figuring out how Apple has customized things.
It’s sad because macOS was once a pr
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It's a great machine. Like really great. Probably the best value of any laptop I have ever purchased.
It's small, very light, and has nearly the performance of my 230W i9-9980HK laptop... using 30W.
There are certain obvious things that annoy me, like the non-expandable RAM and non-replaceable SSD, for which the reasons given are such marketing bullshit as to be openly offensive to anyone who actually knows a
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Apple has really neutered the Unix functions of macOS in the past 5 years or so. Even if you install Homebrew, you’ll also have to disable Apple’s security thing (SAP?) to get basic things like a DNS server to run.
Even using something basic like Apache is a mess with the way they have configured things. It’s still possible to do these things, but documentation is pretty nonexistent so you’re stuck figuring out how Apple has customized things.
It’s sad because macOS was once a pretty good *nix. Now all the BSD underpinnings are so obfuscated that they’re not even worth messing with.
macOS has deviated fairly far from the old BSD days. I haven't used it in years, but there are still things like MAMP that provide basic apache installers.
OTOH, Linux -- specifically systemd -- has been moving basically TOWARDS the macOS model.
I guess my question would be...all the the things you mention...wouldn't those be mest performed in a VM (e.g. web server)?
If you look at macOS as only a consumer OS many of their security features make sense. I just wish that they would have kept the separate macOS Server version going not just as a viable server, but as the developer OS. I don’t think it’s possible to have a decently secure OS that has all the functionality a server admin or developer needs while also functioning as a consumer OS (even *nix is struggling with this, but the shear number of distros give you choices—for example, I have a desktop running a Linux distro I would never use as a server and my servers run FreeBSD, which I would never use as a desktop; what I don’t like about Ubuntu, for example, is it tries to do both instead of doing one thing well). This has always been the problem with Windows. Apple has ceded server functionality while trying to keep the developers, but they could have had their cake and eaten it two by maintaining two branches of macOS.
Couldn't agree more. Getting rid of the Xserve and the server version of OSX was a huge mistake. Think of how amazing it would be if you could ru
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DNS is managed in 3 different places, differently, with functional overlaps. It doesn't seem to support the advanced routing I'm used to in linux. Apple's management of pf is a fucking nightmare, and should you need special rules to handle a VM over your VPN or some such, be prepared to hate your life.
Hah! I've used OpenBSD for almost 20 years and mac's since ~2004, and I had no idea pf was part of macOS. I've never needed to do anything the gui couldn't handle with the firewall, so that's that though. I have done some DNS tweaking with OpenVPN, custom hosts files, and semi-regularly use dscacheutil, but my DNS needs are very, very minimal.
The OS is a mess. It's a bigger mess than Windows even, which is pretty terrible by itself.
Now that I will disagree with in a heartbeat! There are still basically NT4 dialogs in Windows 10, and you actually have to access them as the Windows 10 interfaces ar
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Now that I will disagree with in a heartbeat! There are still basically NT4 dialogs in Windows 10, and you actually have to access them as the Windows 10 interfaces are so ... unfinished. I would argue that macOS is far and away the most consistent user experience, and I think that's been true since the old "classic" System 7/8/9 days.
I wasn't referring to the GUI side.
That's all very consistent and fine.
It's the very very loosely connected mix of multiple different framework managed registry analogues (that can have mutually conflicting configuration primitives htat interfere with each other) and with BSD primitives. It reminds me of a circa 1998 linux distribution, minus its cherry graphical polish.
I actually like the Terminal app..pretty much always have it running.
I found Terminal to be nearly as garbage as Windows new terminal app.
iTerm2 however offers what you would expect from a standard gnome-t
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It's the very very loosely connected mix of multiple different framework managed registry analogues (that can have mutually conflicting configuration primitives htat interfere with each other) and with BSD primitives. It reminds me of a circa 1998 linux distribution, minus its cherry graphical polish.
Is that really that different between modern Linux distros that are a mismatch of traditional unix, a mismatch of Linuxisms, and a mismatch of systemd and related daemons? I'm not so sure the way that Linux and macOS work in terms of subsystems is really all that different. The vast majority of macOS users are not commandline users, so the documentation is not always readily findable, but I'm mostly a FreeBSD guy, and I think its docs and system layout is way more coherent than modern day linux. I seem to r
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Is that really that different between modern Linux distros that are a mismatch of traditional unix, a mismatch of Linuxisms, and a mismatch of systemd and related daemons?
I don't really know what "traditional unix" means in any meaningful context with regard to the configuration of userspace.
On macOS, you'll need to manage a complex arrangement of text configuration, and registry like configurations for sc-util and dns-sd.
For most things, these are all kept in sync for you. i.e., if you can do your configuration in the GUI Settings app, you're gonna be in good shape.
If you want to do something special like domain specific resolvers, you get to fight the system. Worse, ma
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I don't really know what "traditional unix" means in any meaningful context with regard to the configuration of userspace.
All of the Linux deviations from the posix or "traditional" unix way of doing things. Since "traditional" unix is basically dead now, Linux has become the de facto standard (so just to be clear, I'm not at all arguing against the various Linux ways of doing things). I'm thinking of things like filesystem layouts, unique usage of procfs, etc., and most recently systemd. I haven't used Linux as a daily driver in at least 15-16 years, fwiw! macOS is certified "official" UNIX, fwiw :-)
On macOS, you'll need to manage a complex arrangement of text configuration, and registry like configurations for sc-util and dns-sd. /etc/resolvers/* domain-specifics can all end up fighting each other. They're all live at the same time, and they've all got their fingers in the "macOS DNS Routing Library", and not one of them has all the functionality you need for advanced operations.
For most things, these are all kept in sync for you. i.e., if you can do your configuration in the GUI Settings app, you're gonna be in good shape.
If you want to do something special like domain specific resolvers, you get to fight the system. Worse, making changes via dns-sd, sc-util, network-setup, or modifying the
The last time I had to pl
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All of the Linux deviations from the posix or "traditional" unix way of doing things. Since "traditional" unix is basically dead now, Linux has become the de facto standard (so just to be clear, I'm not at all arguing against the various Linux ways of doing things). I'm thinking of things like filesystem layouts, unique usage of procfs, etc., and most recently systemd. I haven't used Linux as a daily driver in at least 15-16 years, fwiw! macOS is certified "official" UNIX, fwiw :-)
There is no POSIX standard for how systems are managed, and every POSIX compatible system does it their own way.
What I was saying, is there is no traditional UNIX way of doing this. That's a myth.
macOS is certified "official" UNIX, fwiw :-)
macOS is certified POSIX compliant, which is just a matter of it conforming to POSIX system calls, which only have to do with user application portability.
https://cloudmaniac.net/macos-domain-specific-dns-client-configuration/ [cloudmaniac.net]
Yes.
However, that page doesn't write out the pitfalls.
ObjC framework devices will grab the scoped resolvers from the registry in scutil, and set them up via t
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What I was saying, is there is no traditional UNIX way of doing this. That's a myth.
Sure, there's no _one_ UNIX way of doing things. I would say There's More Than One Way To Do It, but that's the perl motto, not unix. Within the BSD and SystemV lineages, there were certainly many, many commonalities. Linux has really evolved beyond that (and macOS). I think the BSDs have generally stayed much closer.
macOS is certified POSIX compliant, which is just a matter of it conforming to POSIX system calls, which only have to do with user application portability.
I wasn't joking, and I wasn't referring to POSIX. macOS is literally certified UNIX® (one of the more irrelevant features of macOS). It's been that way since quite early on in the developm
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I wasn't joking, and I wasn't referring to POSIX. macOS is literally certified UNIX® (one of the more irrelevant features of macOS). It's been that way since quite early on in the development of OSX. I think Jobs even mentioned this is as a talking point in a keynote.
You're correct, I was referring to the UNIX 03 certification macOS has when I said POSIX, as they're essentially the same thing. Version 3 of the SUS is tied to POSIX 2001. The SUS just covers silly things like whether or not "awk" is available.
As I said, it's largely meaningless from system to system.
Multiple linux distributions are also SUS v3 compliant. You just have to pay the money and make sure you have (reasonable) POSIX compliance, and the existence of all the standard SUS tools.
You may be able t
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I can type about as fast as physically possible and I’ll never understand how some people have an attachment to old keyboards with excessive travel. High travel keyboards just slow me down. The ~2015-2018 MacBooks took low travel too far, but the Apple Magic Keyboards (full size) are what I would describe as the perfect keyboard. Not only are the keys perfect, but the aluminum build and weight keep them nice and anchored while still maintaining minimal size.
I use a Magic Keyboard for ~8+ hours a day.
That's great and all.... (Score:2)
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Supposedly in the future models.
Re: That's great and all.... (Score:2)
Ya I have been waiting for that since 2 years or so now.
They could have put it in the power button or the back if they aren't able to perfect the underscreen sensor, instead of just removing it suddenly.
Even the smaller chinese cos have it working underscreen or on the power button or side of phone
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iPhone SE 2020 (also called iPhone SE 2) has touch ID and is much better than iPhone 8 & iPhone XR
And quite cheap rn since SE 3 is rumoured to be coming this year
It has the same A13 bionic CPU as iPhone 11. Even the size is good and not so wide like iPhone XR/11/12
Only problem is that 4.7" display with such low resolution (sub 720p - 1136x640) and such huge bezels on top & bottom
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I have a bigger display and better resolution on my current iPhone.
If I wanted something functionally inferior, I have plenty of options.
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Right... all of which are inferior to the phone that I already have: 5.5 inches and 1920x1080 resolution.
Sorry state of mac peripherals (Score:2)
I use a macbook pro for work with multi monitors and an external keyboard. Their magic mouse is horrible!!! It definitely contributes to carpal tunnel for those of us who use it for real work and not just trying to look fashionable at Sta
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Magic Keyboard and the touchpad peripheral are pretty nice though.
I've never suffered from RSIs, so I've mostly judged keyboards by how close I can get to my peak WPM. I can hit 135 on the Magic Keyboard, which I can only really do on a few, so if you're looking for... feel, for me at least, it's excellent.
Most programmers get RSI eventually (Score:2)
I've never suffered from RSIs,
You will. :) ...or at least most who need to type a lot daily, like programmers and most people who do some form of writing will. I have been a professional out of college for 21 years now. In the last few years, I get very mild RSI...nothing crippling, mostly from using that stupid Apple mouse. It's like how professional athletes need to keep an eye on their joints and especially their knees, most computer professionals need to keep an eye on RSI.
Agreed about the touchpad and their keyboard is nice.
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You will. :) ...or at least most who need to type a lot daily, like programmers and most people who do some form of writing will. I have been a professional out of college for 21 years now. In the last few years, I get very mild RSI...nothing crippling, mostly from using that stupid Apple mouse. It's like how professional athletes need to keep an eye on their joints and especially their knees, most computer professionals need to keep an eye on RSI.
Probably. I've been pumping out around 35k LOC a year for the last 15 or so, and design+configuration of multiple PoPs and infrastructure around the country, including 9 datacenters, and services and routing for approximately 25k fiber internet customers around the country... I do a lot of typing. Like... a lot a lot. My 2012 Samsung doesn't have any paint left on any of its keys. Hope you learned to touch type ;)
I've been waiting for the RSI to come. I've just been lucky. I was typing well over 80wpm by t
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There is a wide range of mechanical keyboards, with different feel and sound profiles.
Unfortunately the mainstream industry cater to gamers rather than office workers, so they don't really make that many that are silent while being properly tactile: you'd have to build/modify that yourself.
I switched eleven years ago, after finger pain, and I have not experienced finger pain since. I also use exclusively (semi-)vertical mice, with the scrollwheel removed.
I have got shoulder-pain or forearm-pain though -- wh
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re: Bluetooth mouse. That's interesting. I have a Surface Precision mouse with 3 connectors, and it works better on my MBP than on my windows desktop.
News that matters or an Ad? (Score:2)
Couldn't give a rats ass about Apple Touch ID... I'm guessing this is an ad
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But it has Apple in the title. Those clicks help keep Slashdot alive!
(Typing on a generic USB keyboard)
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It's relevant because it is a feature that desktop Mac users have requested for a long time -- since the first Apple laptops and phones with a fingerprint readers.