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Comment by alexis_fr | Hacker News Reader

But the Apple keyboards are already $150, with no “lower” model available. Add a touchbar and it will be a $300 keyboard. Note that the price bump for emoji-enabled Macbooks is about the same.

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Third party keyboards are a lot cheaper and work just as well, plus you get real F-keys if you want.

While I personally wouldn't buy it (I'm kind of picky about the tactile feel of the keyboard), you can get this fully functional Bluetooth keyboard for $20.

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Bluetooth-Ultra-Slim-Keyboard-D...

Apple also sells external keyboards with real F-keys. Their newer external keyboards are meh, but the previous model, the A1243 Wired Keyboard with Numeric Keypad [0] is amazing. It goes up to F19, and I just generally prefer their layout. I've been using an A1243 as my programming keyboard for nearly a decade. When they stopped selling them I even bought a used spare as backup for when my current keyboard dies.

My only complaints with the A1243 are that the top row is half-sized, and that it has a useless eject button between F12 and F13 which can't be remapped.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Keyboard#/media/File:App...

The eject button can be used in the combination “Cmd Alt Eject” to put to sleep. If it can’t be remapped, at least let’s find a way to use it ;)

I have a theory that Apple will eventually replace the entire keyboard with a giant “Touch Bar.”

Try the HHKB. There's even a BT version (with USB as well). It does come at a price though.

I've never been able to justify spending $250 on a keyboard that put the backtick/tilde in the wrong place.

Plus, I actually use the "Windows" key now, so its absence would be missed.

Fair enough, it is an expensive keyboard, so any major issues you have with it make the price harder worth it.

I don't use tilde much.

There is no absence of a super key. Its on the spot where alt often is, and alt is on the spot super often is. It shares key with shift.

The ctrl is where caps lock is on today's keyboards. If I have caps lock I rebind it anyway. So ctrl and super are easiest to reach, whereas the spot where ctrl often is is difficult to reach (there is nothing there on the HHKB).

So in short this keyboard assumes you normally rebind caps lock to ctrl, it assumes you never use the ctrl elsewhere. It assumes you use super more than alt. It is pretty close to a traditional Sun keyboard.

Funny thing is also, you can buy the keyboard without print on the keys, so that you can rebind it in any way you prefer.

> I don't use tilde much.

What?? I use it all the time: Tilde in vim for upper/downcase and bash for home and backtick for jumping to marks and in JS for template strings. Great key.

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