keyboard

Hi, yes I am using an Apple wireless keyboard (late 2009, the most current one). Although I live in England I have it with a US layout, which does mean my typing skills had to adjust slightly (the enter key being in a different place).

The keyboard its self is very good.
Its easy to clean,
A joy to type on due to the key spacing,
It has a quite a good battery life (although it does chirp on a bit when the batteries are dying but that doesn't happen often. So far I've had it since 1/1/10 and its now 28/3/10, still haven't had to change the batteries).
It just looks gorgeous from every angle.

The only very little niggle I have is when on Windows the distance between ctrl, c and v makes it very slightly uncomfortable to copy and paste using just your left hand.

The Windows button is the command key and is in the wrong place (between alt and space, not ctrl and alt) but this isn't a problem at all.

If you live in the UK (or anywhere else where the " is supposed to be on the 2) you will find the @ is on the 2 like on a US keyboard on every English language model keyboard; however personally I prefer @ being on the 2 because it puts " on the ' key which makes much more sense to me.

Other than these few minor discrepancies with key layout which really shouldn't be a problem anyway, the Apple Wireless keyboards are fantastic and I would recommend one to you any day.

Oh and the reason I bought mine from the US is because its about £15/$25 cheaper to buy from the USA than from England.

UK price: £56
US price: $69

Oli

larryddd said:

hi osholt
thanks for your reply. I have been using the the wired version for a week now, the reason I got the wired version is because I like the numbers block on the right, I didn't see the numbers on the wireless one. so ctrl, c and v is copy and paste, is there any other short cuts or are they the same as on other keyboards. I am also in the UK and use the us layout. I agree with you typing is so easy with this keyboard and it does look very good. I got mine for 29.00 in the apple shop it was the same price as the wireless one.( just noticed you cant get the pound sign it should be above the 3 is it anywhere else)

As long as you set the keyboard language to English (UK), the pound sign will still work if type you type shift+3, the only other thing that will change if it isn't set to English (US) is that that key directly below escape will produce a § and not what's printed on the key.

The keyboard you saw for £29 was the compact wired keyboard which looks pretty much the same as the wireless one except it has a wire on it, obviously.

All shortcuts on Apple Keyboards are exactly the same as on any other Keyboard, the only difference is that some of the keys are in different places (and annoyingly there is no way to type hash, which is annoying if you tweet a lot)

Oli

larryddd said:

hi osholt
cant get the pound sign,shift + 3 I get a grid like noughts and crosses I think its called a hash key, where can I change the layout of keyboard in windows 7. thanks

There are 2 ways of doing this, to be honest I'd just skip straight to the second one near the bottom.

Right click on the task bar;

Go to toolbars;

Click on language bar;

Now either a little black toolbar will appear on screen or a little keyboard icon will appear on the left of you system tray. If it's in the system tray, right click on it and press 'Restore the language bar'

Now in the bottom right of the language bar you will see a little downward facing arrow; click on it and then click 'settings...'.

A new windows should open entitled 'Text Services and Input Languages'.

Click the 'Add' button.

Scroll down to English (UK) and select the tick box.

Now in the language bar you should be able to select United Kingdom.

This technique will allow you to use your keyboard as if it were a UK one or (rather annoyingly because I just typed all that before finding this out) you can go to Apple Keyboard Layout (KBD) for Windows XP and Windows Vista and do what it says.


I hope this isn't too rambley and that it solves your question.

I didn't know these key combos worked but I just tried them and they do:

Ctrl-Alt-2 = €
Shift-3 = £ (or if set to English UK #)
Ctrl-Alt-3 = # (or if set to English UK £)


Oli