Laptop keyboards have no number pad and anyone who spends the day in spreadsheets feels it by the third column of figures. Apple sells a desktop keyboard that restores it and that model is cheaper than usual right now, since the Apple Magic Keyboard with numeric keypad goes from $129 to $109 on Amazon in white.
Number Pad, Full-Size Arrows and a Month per Charge
The extended layout is the reason to choose this version over the compact Magic Keyboard. On the right sits a full numeric keypad, which Apple recommends for spreadsheets and finance applications, and between it and the letters are the keys a laptop squeezes or drops: full-size arrows and document navigation controls for moving quickly through a long file. Whoever edits text for a living, or scrolls through code, will use those as often as the numbers. The top row carries hotkeys and media keys, so a podcast can be paused without leaving the document you are in.
Power comes from an internal battery that Apple says lasts about a month or more between charges, depending on use. The keyboard ships with a Lightning to USB cable, and plugging it into a Mac both charges and pairs it in one step, which removes the usual trip through Bluetooth settings. I’ll be honest about the connector: Lightning feels dated on a desk where everything else has moved on, and it means keeping one more cable in the drawer for the monthly top-up.
Compatibility is wide. The keyboard connects over Bluetooth to a Mac, an iPad or an iPhone, and the list published on Amazon runs from the 2017 iMac Pro to the M5 MacBook Pro and the MacBook Neo, with dozens of iPads in between. The minimum requirements are old enough to cover almost any device still in service: macOS 10.12.4, iPadOS 13.4 or iOS 10.3. Paired with an iPad on a stand, it makes a credible writing station for a hotel room or a kitchen table. MacBook owners who work at a desk with an external monitor get the other benefit, which is being able to close the laptop or push it to the side and type at a comfortable distance from the screen.
Physically, this is a long and very flat board, 16.48 inches wide and 4.52 inches deep, light enough to push aside when the desk is needed for something else. Apple describes the typing as comfortable and precise, and I’d add that it is a matter of taste, because the keys are shallow and people used to mechanical keyboards may find them abrupt. The listing makes no mention of Touch ID, so I would not count on a fingerprint sensor.
