Do we need yet another person crashing out about Apple’s design decisions? Am I doing it only because it’s fashionable to be on Apple Design Hate Train these days? I’ll be honest: I don’t know. But I have been bothered by Apple’s approach to some of its keyboard design for a while.
Even if you don’t care about any of this, it might be a fun visual history of the most tricky of modern modifier keys: the [Fn] key. Hope you like it!
@mwichary Nice overview of function key and modifier history with your post, but you lost me with trying to narrow down existing modifier keys in the end. There's too much legacy and muscle memory to them. As to perhaps explaining Apple's inconsistent history with keyboard design, I think it's because so much of it was emotionally driven as Steve Jobs apparently hated function keys and most likely was the largest champion for the Touch Bar when it was a thing. (see https://trev.com/2016/11/fing-keys/). We still see to this day Apple's desire to reduce key count with the removal of the Esc key on iPadOS keyboards, which I find frustrating.
Apple having an inconsistent specification for Fn and Globe keys is something I work with daily being a Logitech Slim Folio keyboard user. Appreciate you calling this out.
@kickingvegas I really liked the NeXT keyboards as Jobs zigging where Apple was zagging with AEK: https://aresluna.org/steve-jobs-jef-raskin-and-the-first-great-war-for-your-thumbs/
They had some interesting ideas, including ditching (or not including) function keys as you mentioned.
@kickingvegas As an example, if Apple wants to cater to the rare people who use Ctrl in Linux/terminal/etc. – allow them to do whatever they want with Globe, or remap from Caps Lock (both are already possible in stock macOS).
Removing the Ctrl key and relabeling Caps Lock to Caps Lock/Control and some nicer UI atop is a relatively easy step in my opinion. And for those with motor memory expectations – you can make Globe step in for Ctrl.
@kocienda I understand the complexity emoji add to the mixture since there is really no “physical emoji keyboard” to hark back to.
But Apple shepherded three separate CPU architecture upgrades really well. They should be able to handle complex transitions.
Back when Mac OS used control, alt, and shift in addition to ‘Apple’ as modifier key combos, the drop down menu pathway to the same actions would refer to them only by glyphs. I was lucky I could remember what the symbol for shift was.
Of course they are trying to avoid having to localize keyboards for international markets, but I don’t care for learning hieroglyphics or thinking in emoji.
@mwichary That (slightly) cursed Fn key has very much been mis-used by all and sundry.
As soon as I started reading this, I was reminded of the "Fctn" key on the TI-99/4A. But there it's just another shift key because TI didn't want to add more keys to the keyboard. So that one is more similar to the Commodore key or the Atari key on their respective home computers. Which is probably why the Apple II had an Apple key... (Now I'm wondering why TI didn't put their own logo on it...)
@mwichary thx, that worked. I kept looking in the Function Keys setting which shows me nothing useful.
Sheesh…
@mwichary Ok, but Terminal is a standard system component - it has to support it somehow by default , especially that POSIX conventions specifically mention „ctrl” as the button for those functionality, so it avoids confusion.
And „Control" on Macs at this point is also widely used in shortcuts across the system. I use it all the time.
But for globe/fn confusion - I fully agree 🤓
@mwichary Sure - but in this case - I'll keep my position 😉
Globe - do not use it for system control, that's awful
Control - keep it, it's useful and used for decades 🙏
Another argument for Control - it allows for better compatibility with other OS'es on the Mac - and some users do use them, in the VMs for example, or via emulation.
@mwichary How so? I really wouldn't consider developers as <0.1% of Macs userbase - even if I might be a little bit biased 😉
But even for regular users, what are the downsides, truly? I kind of get it, that with more advanced apps, more shortcuts were needed, and Control key somewhat allows for that.
Control key on the Macs is present on their keyboards since I was born, according to your article (1987) - almost 4 decades - I can only imagine the backlash 😅
(I would be pissed too)
@mwichary My biggest frustration with the fn key is that I use two different Macs, and the key is different places on each of them. Although it looks like this problem has since been rectified, on my MacBook Pro and my Magic Keyboard ca. 2023, it is at opposite corners of the keyboard!
The only saving grace is that the thing I use it most for (fn+delete=forward delete) has a dedicated key on the Magic Keyboard, so it doesn’t get much use on that keyboard.
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