Shiny & expensive gear for your Mac UPDATE

Jonathan Ive must cringe every time he sees Mac accessories. Latest in the long line are:
GarageKey, a mini USB keyboard. It seems to be pretty much the same as the E-Keys, but with a slightly fancier plastic finish. E-Keys=$49, GarageKey=$119.
MicFlex, a USB microphone. Seems like a slightly better idea (the plastic dome thing is just a stand, it will plug straight into a laptop USB port without it). Obviously you could spend £2.25 on a PC microphone, but this does look nice, and you'd look suave singing into your laptop at the airport. It's $49.99. UPDATE: Jack from MacMice got in touch to point out that their keyboard has full-sized keys, unlike the E-Keys. Which does make it a lot more appealing. Oh, and did you notice that it's white?

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

Thanks for the mention, but, there can be no comparison between our GarageKey and the E-Keys unit you mention. While aesthetically simple, the GarageKey uses a from-scratch built pro-quality keybed and key action mechanism that we developed over the past 14-months. The E-Keys uses an off-the-shelf keybed system shared among dozens of Chinese toy keyboard manufacturers.

E-Keys:
not velocity sensitive
miniature size keys
spongy amateur keybed and key feel

GarageKey:
64-step velocity sensitive
full-size keys
crisp pro-level keybed and key feel

# posted by

Jack Campbell : 8:58 pm

I'd like to point out that many current Macs only have line-level [stereo] audio inputs so using a 3-buck mike will get you nowhere. Think this whole post should be rewritten as "I'm sorry for being a big grumpy pants, and dissing things without considering that not everyone in the world is me".

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:59 am

Yes, that's pretty much a fair assesment. I have been thinking that garagekeys thing a bit, and realising that I can't really spend half the time slagging off horrible cheap M-Audio shiny silver plastic, and the other half slagging off anyone who produces something that costs more than $10...

# posted by

Tom Whitwell : 8:22 am

I suspect if GarageKeys had 24 more keys and was called LogicKeys, then I'd be desperately trying to find out if it would on my PC

# posted by

Tom Whitwell : 8:52 am

GarageKey is compatible with Mac and PC. And it says on the packaging that it is familiar with all the important Sequencer Softwares - whatever that means. I'm definitely thinking about getting one and I use PC (...proud of it :D ).

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:49 pm

If you want 3 octaves, full size keys, to fit on a small computer desk, there is no other choice... Garagekeys :)

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:59 am