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- Verified Buyer
UPDATE:After two years, this keyboard is still a gem. Works great. OS X support is fine, iOS is fine. I use it with my iPad at home now. Reliable, respectable battery life, comfortable. What more can I say?I write a lot.... I've used ergonomic keyboards since the early nineties, and have had numerous Microsoft, Logitech, and even Apple boards. But I've never been a fan of Apple's keyboards. In the past 15 years Apple has utterly failed to produce a decent keyboard. They are either thick with sticky keys, or the new minimalist design lacks essential tactile feedback. But I absolutely love Mac OS X. What to do?The Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000 is a lovely blend. The keyboard size is just right for matching with my 13" Macbook Pro. The the keys are full-sized (except for the arrow keys), and the curve is just what I'm used to with other ergo keyboards. The thin design is as portable as it is stylish, and they keys have a quiet, shallow travel with a perfect, gentle 'snap.'One must remember that this is a MOBILE keyboard, not a desktop replacement. Although home/end are under the control of the Fn+PgUp/PgDn, I feel it is a logical adaptation. I especially appreciate the "Del" key beside the standard location for the "Backspace" I found all of these portable adaptations very intuitive. Even the volume controls were reasonably placed. The other machine controls on the function keys, (brightness, media controls), don't work, which would have been very nice, but the laptop keys aren't far away, and not so frequently used. In all, the choices Microsoft made to put the essentials literally "at your fingertips" where great. And I must say that the smarts of having a separate number pad are just too cool. It works. It is there when I need it (at home, doing spreadsheets and accounting), but it isn't a bulky dead weight when I don't need it, (writing prose at home or away).As far as wireless goes, it was as easy as it gets for Bluetooth. No problems for me getting it paired, along with the number-pad, and the Microsoft Bluetooth mobile mouse. No manuals needed, it was all intuitive (Mac OS X 10.6.3). OS X deftly handled swapping the "Windows" and "Alt" keys to behave like the Mac layout for "Command" and "Option" through the System Preferences Keyboard pane under "Modifier Keys," while leaving the laptop's keys untouched. A seamless integration.If you're new to bluetooth, this may not satisfy. There is a reconnect delay of a second or two, but that's Bluetooth. The 2.4ghz are speedier in this regard, and can explain why they remain popular. But I wasn't ready to sacrifice 1/2 of USB ports on my Macbook Pro for a 2.4ghz dongle. I have backup drives to connect, iPod cables for syncing and so on. I just tap the keyboard as I'm sitting down, and it's reconnected before I'm ready to type. No worse than waking a screensaver.If the compact key layout is a problem for you, then you should instead consider a real desktop keyboard with full media keys, home/end and the works. The compromises made on the Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000 are very thoughtful, keeping priority on the most used/necessary keys, while adapting to the demands of mobility. (It is a mobile keyboard, after all.) I would have preferred just slightly larger arrow keys, but in all, Microsoft has achieved a great balance.For me, this is a perfect pairing with a MacBook Pro and OS X. It has exceeded my fairly high expectations. (I even synced it with my PS3 and iOS devices without a hitch.)
