- Apple’s MacBook Air M5 is largely the same
- Eagle-eyed reviewers have noticed a small but significant keyboard difference that removes some words
- Alignment with the iPhone and the global market are the reasons
It’s such a subtle and clever change that you might not notice it at first. In fact, most reviewers missed this design change on the new Apple MacBook Air M5. It’s on the keyboard that a handful of keys no longer have words, just images or glyphs.
How and why this happened is up for some debate, but Apple’s reasoning is pretty obvious.
First of all, it turns out that MacBook keyboards can look different depending on where in the world you buy them. Even between the US and UK there are differences. Now, however, there is some alignment.
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On the new MacBook Air M5, these keys have changed:
- Cap lock
- Change
- DELETE
- Back
They are all now represented by glyphs; the words have disappeared. In the UK, this is exactly how it happened on some previous MacBook Airs, like the first to feature Apple Silicon, the M1 (although apparently not consistently).
To be clear, there was no situation where on the previous MacBook Air we had words and images, and so in this new laptop we only get the glyphs.
Aesthetically, it’s a cleaner look and shouldn’t be confusing, especially for touch typists who aren’t looking at the keyboard anyway.
Lineage of glyphs
Picture 1 of 4
If you’re a search-and-peck type of typist, you’ll probably handle this change with no problem, too. After all, these glyphs should look pretty familiar to you. Apple based them all on the iOS virtual keyboard.
Look at Delete on your iPhone keyboard. It’s the same. Press the shift key twice and, yes, you will instantly recognize the Cap Lock key on the new MacBook Air.
The same goes for the Return and Shift keys.
It’s not a big deal or the kind of change that will impact the laptop purchasing decision, but it’s interesting to see how usability and design decisions ripple through the Apple ecosystem and the world.
Apple and its customers thrive on usefulness and consistency. These changes will likely bring a small measure of both.
Make Mac familiar
Consistency has another benefit, one that could further Apple’s future business aspirations: it makes it easier to transition to the Mac from other platforms, especially if you’re using an iPhone.
An aging statistic claimed that 70% of Windows users owned iPhones, meaning there could still be a huge, untapped addressable market that could base their familiarity with a Mac on their familiarity with their iPhone.
Imagine if a subtle change could help tip the scales in favor of the Mac, which by some measures still has a single-digit desktop market share. And, in case you’re wondering, the new MacBook Neo features the same keyboard glyphs.
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