Dear Apple, please make ‘Magic Keyboards’ magical

Please make keyboards more magical

I write. A lot. And I do so across several Apple devices, which means I migrate across different keyboards. A lot. For me, the challenge with this is that different keyboards work slightly differently, which means I sometimes make errors as I type.

Please make a smart wireless keyboard

Apple sells numerous devices. It also sells numerous wireless keyboards to accompany them: The Magic Keyboard, the Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad, the Magic Keyboard for iPad Air, and so on. I use them all.

Sometimes I find myself working on a desktop, notebook and iPad at the same time, all three using different keyboards and all for different tasks. I’ve no idea if that’s at all normal or even healthy, but I’ve found this multi-device set-up helps my workflow.

The challenge as I skip between three different devices is those three different keyboards – and they’re all wireless.

Now, I can use a Bluetooth keyboard with all three of these, but its a drag to change settings each time and I want it all to be more seamless than that –

Which keyboard am I using now?

Give Magic Keyboard real magic

I want a single keyboard equipped to work with them all that is also capable of auto-sensing which device I’m using it with.

I see this as working in a similar way to the auto-sensing feature in AirPods, which are really, really good at detecting which device you want to play audio from (most of the time).

Alternatively, I want to be able to tell my keyboard when I switch between devices, “Hey Siri, Keyboard iMac,” for example, or “Hey Siri, Keyboard iPad”.

You see, this would enable me to continue to use all three devices with one keyboard, much better for finger memory and typing accuracy, and a little more like how we should work, with arms held in comfortable positions.

To make this better, that keyboard may have a decent-sized trackpad just as capable of controlling an iPad using touch as it is to serve up swipe gestures on the Mac.

Frankly, I think a keyboard that works like this would be a lot more natural and useful to use than a touch-screen Mac, though perhaps this is just me.

I think something like this truly would be a “Magic Keyboard”.

All this keyboard intelligence, but…

Is it even possible?

I don’t know if it’s possible to develop something like this, but given we now have an H-chip for headphones, an M-chip for Macs, a T-chip for security and an A-chip for ahh iPhones (see what I did there), why not create a K-chip to provide stable wireless connectivity and contextual intelligence to keyboards?

I’m sure I can’t be alone in wanting this, though that’s  assuming we don’t end up with virtual keyboards visible via AR and glasses, I suppose. Thanks for listening, I’m glad to have got this off my chest. I just wonder if anyone else feels the same?

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