Why does the MacBook Air M5 keyboard look different? Blame your iPhone

• Apple's MacBook Air M5 is largely the same
• Eagle-eyed reviewers noticed a small but important keyboard difference that removes some words
• Alignment with the iPhone and the global market are the reasons

It's a change so subtle and crafty that you might not notice it at first. In fact, most reviewers missed this design switcheroo on the new Apple MacBook Air M5. It's on the keyboard where a handful of keys no longer have words, just images or glyphs.

How and why this happened is a subject of some debate, but Apple's reasoning is fairly obvious.

First of all, turns out that MacBook keyboards can look different depending on where in the world you buy them. Even between the US and UK, there have been differences. Now, though, there is some alignment.

On the new MacBook Air M5, these keys have changed:

• Cap Lock
• Shift
• Delete
• Return

They are all now represented with glyphs; the words are gone. In the UK, this is just how it's been on some previous MacBook Airs, like the first one to feature Apple Silicon, the M1 (though not apparently 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 get just the glyphs.

Aesthetically, it's a cleaner look, and it shouldn't present any confusion, especially for touch typists who aren't looking at the keyboard anyway.

Glyph lineage

Image 1 of 4

If you are a hunt-and-peck sort of typist, you'll probably navigate this change fine, as well. After all, these Glyphs should look quite familiar. Apple based them all on the virtual keyboard of iOS.

Look at Delete on your iPhone's keyboard. It's the same. Double-tap on the upper case key and, yes, you'll instantly recognize the Cap Lock key on the new MacBook Air.

It's the same for the Return and shift keys.

It's not a big deal or the kind of change that will impact your laptop buying decision, but it is interesting to see how usage and design decisions bleed out through the Apple ecosystem and around the world.

Apple and its customers thrive on utility and consistency. These changes will likely bring a small measure of both.

Making Mac familiar

Consistency has another benefit and one that may favor Apple's future market aspirations: it makes transitioning to the Mac from other platforms easier, especially if you've been using an iPhone.

One aging stat claimed that 70% of Windows users owned iPhones, which means there may still be a huge addressable and untapped market that could base their familiarity with a Mac on how well they know their iPhone.

Imagine if one 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 hot, new MacBook Neo features the same keyboard glyphs.

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