iFixit hasn’t been able to do its traditional teardown of Apple’s new Magic Keyboard yet (citing “social distancing and teardown schedules”), but the company has done the next best thing for anyone looking to see what makes the new $350 keyboard accessory tick: provided X-rays of the insides of the Magic Keyboard, produced by Creative Electron.
As one might expect from a $350 keyboard, there’s a lot going on inside the Magic Keyboard. For example, the X-ray confirms that, like all of Apple’s newly refreshed MacBooks, the Magic Keyboard uses proper scissor switches instead of the awful butterfly keys that plagued the past few years of Apple laptops as well as the previous Smart Keyboard for iPads.
There’s also a new trackpad design, unique to the Magic Keyboard, although iFixit can only speculate at this point what the practical differences the new design brings. There are also multiple spring-loaded hinges, presumably to help hold up the entire iPad with the “floating” design, and a truly impressive amount of tiny magnets that hold the iPad attached.
We’ll have to wait until iFixit gets the chance to fully disassemble the Magic Keyboard to see if any other interesting secrets lay within — although if it’s anything like the Smart Keyboard, odds are, it’ll be nearly impossible to open up without shredding the entire exterior.
