Magic Keyboards with Touch ID now available standalone, only work on Apple silicon Macs

Apple’s colorful iMac ships with redesigned Magic Keyboards that you couldn’t buy as a standalone accessory, until today. Versions with and without Touch ID are available, with the former requiring an Apple silicon Mac to function.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Apple’s Magic Keyboard with Touch ID is now available standalone
  • Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad, too
  • Touch ID models ship with a braided Lightning to USB-C cable
  • These standalone purchases are limited to silver-white
  • Magic Keyboard without Touch ID was also updated

A top-down photo showing Apple's Magic Keyboard with Touch ID for Mac models with Apple silicon

iMac’s Magic Keyboards now available as a standalone purchase

Unfortunately, Apple has limited the $149 Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and the $179 Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad to the same silver/white aluminum finish as before. When bundled with the redesigned iMac, however, these keyboards are color-matched to one of the computer’s color finishes: blue, green, pink, yellow, orange and purple.

Here are your Apple store purchase links:

With Touch ID integrated into your keyboard, you can quickly log in to apps and websites and securely authenticate purchases like you would on your MacBook Pro with Touch ID.

Apple's promotional graphic showing the iMac's new Magic Keyboard in purple with a female index finger resting on Touch ID

Check out Apple’s description of the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID:

Magic Keyboard with Touch ID delivers a remarkably comfortable and precise typing experience. It’s also wireless and rechargeable, with an incredibly long-lasting internal battery that will power your keyboard for about a month or more between charges. It pairs automatically with your Mac, so you can get to work right away. And it includes a woven USB-C to Lightning Cable that lets you pair and charge by connecting to a USB-C port on your Mac.

We said it before, and it’s worth repeating: Magic Keyboards that integrate wireless Touch ID functionality only work on the Apple silicon-powered Mac models. That’s due to Apple’s exacting architecture requirements for biometric security that include the use of a dedicated Secure Enclave cryptographic coprocessor.

Again, these Touch ID-equipped Magic Keyboards won’t work on Intel-based Macs.

In addition to these keyboards, Apple has also updated the standalone Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse accessories with under-the-hood features allowing the accessories to pair with and work on Apple silicon-based Mac models. Unfortunately, neither the trackpad nor the mouse isn’t provided in the iMac’s colors so you’ll have to put up with their white-silver appearance until Apple (hopefully) decides to release colorful trackpads and mice.

Image credit: Apple