I never thought I’d see the day. Apple is making a gaming keyboard for the Mac. Well, technically, the keyboard is made by Corsair, but it’s an officially licensed peripheral, fit with Apple’s unique colorways, that’s geared toward Mac gaming.
Corsair is bringing the K65 Plus keyboard and M75 wireless mouse to the Mac with two different color options. You can choose between Glacier Blue or Frost, both of which match up with the new iMac M4 — and the older iMac M3, for that matter. Both of these peripherals have already been released, and you can use them with a Mac. But the updated variants come with these specific color options, as well as Mac legends on the keyboard.
Apple isn’t just teaming up with Corsair to release these peripherals, either. The Glacier Blue option will be sold exclusively in Apple stores, and it’s a limited-edition run. The Frost option, meanwhile, will only be sold online, first through Apple, and eventually through Corsair. At the moment, Corsair says the keyboard and mouse combo will come to its website “at a later date.”
Although I haven’t seen these Apple versions in the flesh, I’ve used the K65 previously, and it’s a surprisingly competent gaming keyboard. It comes with a comfortable 75% layout, fully mechanical keys, and hot-swappable switches, allowing you to completely change the sound and feel of the keyboard. It also includes board foam, which goes a long way toward cleaning up the sound. Apple is finally digging into gaming keyboards, and thankfully, it’s not settling for a subpar base.
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The keyboard and mouse remain mostly unchanged compared to their non-Apple counterparts. The biggest difference is the color, but Corsair also defaults to the Mac layout on the keyboard out of the box (it still supports Windows through a toggle) and it has a new version of the iCue app that will show your peripherals with the proper colors. In addition to macOS, Corsair says the keyboard will work with iPadOS as well.
Corsair and Apple are charging a bit of a premium, at least for the K65. It comes in at $180, which is $20 more expensive than the regular version — and again, nothing is different outside of the color. The M75 remains unchanged, clocking in at $130.