Hi, everyone. Aaron here for Zollotech,
and this is the magic keyboard with touch ID.
Now this was previously available with the iMac only,
but now they've released it as a standalone,
so you can buy it and use it with your Mac. So I thought we'd take a look at it.
Now, the first thing is this is not an inexpensive keyboard. It comes in at
$149.99. If you don't have the numeric keyboard on it, or the keypad on it,
it's $179.99 with the numeric keypad.
So it's fairly expensive, but it does have touch ID.
And if we flip it over here, you'll see,
it just says magic keyboard with touch ID and to new mirror numeric keypad.
And there are no color options available.
There's just this silver and white variant that looks like the original magic
keyboard. Now let's go ahead and open it up.
So we'll get the unboxing knife here and you'll see there's a pull tab here,
but in order to get to it, we need to cut the plastic off.
So we'll just cut that
and let's pull the plastic away
and let's see what we've got here.
So looks like we just pull this out so we don't have to unpeel anything.
We just slide the keyboard out. And so here's the keyboard itself.
So nothing particularly special,
but we'll take a closer look at that in a moment. And with the keyboard,
you've got some paperwork here.
It says magic keyboard with touch ID and a numeric keypad,
regulatory compliance. And then usually we have a warranty summary.
So nothing particularly exciting there, no apple stickers or anything like that.
But one thing that's really nice as we get a braided cable.
We've seen the braided cable since the Mac pro the iMac pro and the new iMac.
Now we finally get it with the apple keyboard,
so you can see it's got a nice braid on it and it's USB-C to lightning.
So the keyboard is lightening, but you've got USB-C to connect to your computer.
So we'll set this aside. Let me open it up though, pick this out,
open it up and set this aside and take a closer look at the keyboard itself.
And let's take the cover off the keyboard or the wrapper.
And here's the keyboard itself. Now.
It's just like most of the other ones and I'll compare them in just a moment,
but you'll see that we have the touch ID button here.
And then you've just got your new mirror,
numeric keyboard or key pad here on the right now, as far as the back,
you've got lightening on the back here,
and then you've got your power switch and then on the bottom,
nothing really exciting, but there is an apple logo.
I don't know if you can see it under this light,
but there's an apple logo and then four rubber feet in the middle.
So pretty typical. It's basically the same thickness as all the others.
And for comparison, I have one that came with the Mac pro.
So you can see here with the Mac pro it's very similar as far as that goes,
but the keyboard layout is slightly different. So as you can see,
the top of the new keyboard is curved a little bit differently.
There's a different on the corners. So if you can see that a little bit closer,
let me put them on top of each other and you can see the corners here.
So there's a little bit different radius on the corners, not a huge deal,
but something to note. And the button is curved as well,
where it isn't on the older keyboard. So it's not too much older,
but the pro keyboard has the curved edges or does not have the more radius
edges. And then you've got curved keys here in the upper, right,
and the bottoms as well. So it's a little bit different as far as that goes,
of course, you've got the normal brightness controls,
you've got mission control search, and you also have microphone.
You have a do not disturb button,
your media controls as well as volume controls.
So everything here is basically the same,
but the globe here for different keyboards or function is right here in the
middle. So that's a little bit different than what we got with the iMac. Now,
as you can see here, this is the iMac keyboard in blue,
which doesn't have the numeric keyboard.
So you've got your little globe in the bottom left for function.
And instead on the new one,
they've moved it up into the top or in the middle here.
So it's a little bit different.
Now there's a couple of requirements for this keyboard as well.
And that is mostly M1 based Macs.
Now I'm going to try it with other Macs,
but in order to use the touch ID capability, you'll need one of the M1 Macs.
So that means a MacBook air, MacBook Pro, iMac,
or Mac mini all with the M1 CPU and probably any future Apple Silicon.
So let's go ahead and connect this and try and pair it.
And just for a comparison with the braided cables,
it's the same braided cable that you get with an iMac, just a different color,
and there's no color options, like I said. So you've got that.
And you actually have a little piece of plastic here as well.
The tiny little wrapper around the lightening port. So not on the other end,
though, nothing on the USB-C end. So just a slightly different color,
but it's still super nice that it's braided.
Let's go ahead and pair this and see what it's like.
Now we'll go ahead and turn on the keyboard.
So we'll flip the switch on and then we'll connect it to the iMac and we'll just
plug it in here.
And you can see that it pops up on the screen and it recognizes it.
Now we need to go and set up touch ID. So we'll go to our system preferences.
Then we'll go to touch ID and you'll see it already has a fingerprint listed,
which is from the previous keyboard, the iMac keyboard,
the blue one that came with it.
And so let's see if we don't need to set up a new one and it will just work with
the keyboard we already have. I really wanted the numeric keypad.
So let's see if it will work. I'll go to something that requires touch ID.
And so I'm at my apple account and we'll see if we can sign in with touch ID.
I have not set up a fingerprint on this, this computer with this.
And it seems to have recognized it right away and we can log in.
So it's storing that information securely on the Mac, not the keyboard itself.
Now let's see if we can use the keyboard on maybe the Mac pro or
any other Mac that's not supported with the M1.
Maybe we can use it as a keyboard, but just not touch ID.
So let's give that a try.
So I have my Mac pro in a different room,
and you can see here's the pro display XDR,
it's just on an old desk where I edit sometimes.
And let's go ahead and plug this in.
So we'll plug it into the back here and see where this plug is.
So we'll plug it in.
There we go.
And it shows that your keyboard is wirelessly connected to this Mac,
and we can go to the settings and it looks like everything works.
So if we go into our preferences, we don't have touch ID on the Mac pro,
but we can use the keyboard for everything else. So it does work.
You just won't have access to touch ID.
Now I wanted to try the magic keyboard with an iPad as well.
So here I have an iPad air force that has the touch ID sensor integrated into
the power button.
So I thought we'd try that out and see if it works and let's go ahead and
connect it. Now, this iPad has USB-C at the bottom,
so it's going to make it very easy to connect just like you would to a Mac.
So we'll plug it into the bottom here. It's not officially supported,
but it seems like it should work and we'll plug it in here. Now we're connected.
So on the iPad, if maybe I do command tab,
now we can switch through different apps. So it seems to work.
We can do command space type in what we're looking for, switch back,
and we can go into different apps if we want to do that.
So the keyboard does seem to work with it. Now, as far as touch ID though,
I don't think that will work. Let's try that out.
We'll go to touch ID and passcode.
We need to put in our passcode and let's go ahead and add a fingerprint.
It's telling me to place my finger on the touch ID sensor.
So if I place it on the, on the magic keyboard, it doesn't work.
So you can't use the touch ID sensor with an iPad air with the fingerprint
sensor. Maybe a future update would allow it,
but currently you're not able to do that. So I thought we'd test that out,
but you can use the keyboard with an iPad.
It seems to work without a problem now that we know touch ID works without
setting up any new touch ID. If you already have one associated to that Mac,
let's go ahead and see if we can add another one.
So we'll go to our system preferences, go to touch ID,
and we can add a fingerprint. So we'll click on add.
We need to put in our password first and just like touch ID on the previous
keyboard or on an iPhone. You just press and lift your finger over and over.
And so we'll just keep pressing my finger down, lifting it up and down,
moving it all over the place a little bit.
And you could go a little bit faster than this,
but it says your touch ID is ready. So you can assign multiple fingers as well.
But again, they're tied to the Mac and then you can use them to unlock your Mac,
use apple pay iTunes store, app store, and apple books, fill passwords,
and then just for use it for fast user switching as well.
So if you want to set up for multiple users and you want to switch between them
quickly, you can use touch ID for that.
Now key travel seems to be pretty decent and it feels a little bit more tactile
than we had with the Mac pro keyboard.
So it seems like it has a little bit more pushback to it. Now,
as far as overall typing,
I don't expect it to be much different than what we already have.
So let's just type something quickly. Hi, how are you today? And you'll see,
I don't type traditionally.
And so it seems to be about the same also here, take a listen to this,
what it sounds like while typing.
It's pretty much just like any other magic keyboard.
You've used sounds the same and it's super lightweight as well.
The battery should last, at least usually for me, at least a couple of weeks.
And then of course you can just plug it into your Mac when you need to charge,
leave it, walk away, maybe leave it for a day or so,
but it charges pretty quickly as well.
I normally see a warning on the Mac saying that it's low.
I plug it in and then unplug it a little bit later.
And it's usually pretty full. So it seems to last without a problem.
Usually at least a couple of weeks to a month. For me,
it just depends on how much you're using it, of course.
And so that's everything with the new magic keyboard with touch ID.
Let me know what you think about it. Are you going to pick one up,
have you already picked one up or maybe you have one with an iMac I'd love to
hear from you in the comments below. Of course,
if you'd like to get the wallpaper that I have on the iMac,
of course I'll link that in the description. Like I normally do.
It'll be sized for an iPhone as well. If you haven't subscribed already though,
please subscribe. And if you enjoyed the video, please give it a like as always.
Thanks for watching. This is Aaron. I'll see you next time.