PC keyboard/mouse on iMac?

ubersonic · 14 Dec 2011 at 11:37

Yeah, getting further on my road to mac this week as I have been to an apple store and tried them out, quite impressed although not by the KB/mouse. The keyboard is a work of art and is gorgeous however as a keyboard its pretty useless, it feels like a big leap back from the clear USB ones that the G3's in college had and the mouse seems no better (don't get me started on the magic pad things).

My overall impression is that Apple have put more effort into aesthetics and being "cool" than actually being useful. So I have two ideas in mind, either just use the keyboard off my PC or grab a G3 keyboard off eBay. Would the PC (before some ocd nerd points it out I know macs are PC's, its just so much easier to type repeatedly than Windows or IBM compatible) keyboard idea work? and by work I mean would OSX be smart enough to map the mac key to the windows key etc not just make QWERTY work.

The mouse problem isn't really an issue as I use an intellimouse explorer 4.0 which has OSX drivers available.

Thank you for helps

EvenBowl075 · 14 Dec 2011 at 11:41

I used to use a PC (Windows compatible or whatever its supposed to be called) keyboard on my G5 tower without any issues. I had to look up which keys corresponded to which on a Mac keyboard but OSX seemed to pick it up automatically.

The Saitek mouse I have also worked without issue.

ubersonic · 14 Dec 2011 at 11:50

Awesome, tyvm

Vonhelmet · 14 Dec 2011 at 13:29

Yeah, I have both the bluetooth Apple keyboard and trackpad and wired USB PC keyboard and mouse hooked up to my iMac and everything works fine.

Josh P · 14 Dec 2011 at 14:15

If you were to get a mac mini you have to K&M separately anyway. i personally really like the Apple keyboard, really don't get on with the mice at all. I would be tempted to give the trackpad a try though - the one in my MBP really brings OS X to life. I find Windows (especially on a laptop) so clunky afterwards.

I think on the whole 3rd party keyboards work pretty well too - as far as I know, the basic media keys often work out of the box.

Driver-wise, my Razer Mamba has mac drivers available - it may be Razer has good support across their range.