This is Apple’s Best Keyboard

No, it‘s not the MacBook Keyboard

Image courtesy of the author.

A good keyboard is (pun intended) key to productive work. And yes, it is a very personal thing. Membrane keyboards, mechanical keyboards, a first-party or third-party — the choices are manyfold.

But, I think we can agree on the fact that a keyboard must enable fast and accurate typing. For me, this is associated with at least a few millimeters of key travel and an appropriate key spacing. I‘ve been on a hunt for the perfect keyboard for quite some time and, being anchored in the Apple ecosystem, I tried all of the current keyboards in Apple’s line-up and own some of them. But which one is the best? Let‘s dive into a small round trip through the world of Apple keyboards!

The candidates

According to the tasks I need to accomplish, I use either my 14-inch M2 MacBook Pro, my 12.9-inch iPad Pro, or my M1 Mac mini. For all three devices, I use different kinds of keyboards. So let‘s get the list of test candidates ready:

1. Apple Magic Keyboard with TouchID and num pad
2. Apple Magic Keyboard with TouchID
3. The build-in MacBook keyboard
4. Apple Smart Keyboard Folio for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro
5. Apple Magic Keyboard for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro