I learned something today. I don’t know when it happened, but I feel like I don’t take the time to have my finger on the pulse of the computing world anymore. This one slipped by me at least a year ago, probably much longer.
If you own a Mac, you may be familiar with how the eject key requires a longer keypress than a normal key to eject your media. When this feature was introduced, it was disturbing at first, but I quickly grew to be OK with it, since ejecting media isn’t that common compared to pressing other keys, and is kind of a big commitment that will take at least several seconds to rectify if you do it without meaning to. A slightly more purposeful press of the key isn’t that hard.
When I upgraded from a 2007 to 2010 MacBook Pro, I thought there was something wrong with my caps lock key. Sometimes it just wouldn’t activate until after several presses. It happened often enough that I knew it wasn’t just my imagination, so I got this nagging feeling that there’s something wrong with my computer. Not something big enough to be worth fixing, but I started thinking, “What if my keyboard is defective? What if the problem starts to affect other keys? I can deal with having to hit caps lock more than once and make sure the green light comes on, but what if it happens to the ‘A’ key? Is it serious enough that I should get it repaired rather than suffer with a defective keyboard for years?”
Well today, as I said, I learned something.
Let me tell ye: this is a feature.
Yes, your caps lock key is designed not to activate when you press it. I don’t know exactly how many milliseconds you’re supposed to press it for. Based on my non-scientific method of pressing it for different periods of time, I’d say that if you tap it the way you would tap a normal key in the process of typing, it won’t activate, but if you give it a determined press (less than a second, for sure), it will work.
I’m not so much angry about this design choice (which might actually be a good one) as I am annoyed that I’ve spent over a year with this machine thinking it’s broken. I don’t know how I was supposed to know about this unusual feature, but if I knew about it, I might have saved myself a lot of time by learning to press the caps lock key more firmly rather than failing to activate it, having to delete what I’ve typed, then spending a good 30 seconds testing the key to make sure it works, and wondering whether the computer needs to be repaired.
I don’t know when this feature was introduced, obviously sometime between my last two laptops, and I don’t know if the current desktop keyboards support it, but I’ll bet they do. Anyway, I’m mostly blogging this not to rant, but as a public service announcement, if anybody else is as perplexed by their caps lock key as I was. Had I not read a blog comment that mentioned it in passing, I’d have never known.
Well, thank you so much sir! I have noticed this too, but I didn’t have a previous Mac to compare it to (my older Macs were second-hand and finished by the time I got my new MBP). I always wondered why I had to press harder. This makes so much sense now.
Again, just wanted to thank you!
[Reply]
Comment by Habib Alamin — November 30, 2011 @ 8:36 pm
Hmm, I’m not sure I can deal with this. I am currently looking into getting a new mac and this would be a problem for me. I am not a fan of the “shift” key (couldn’t tell you why). I have grown a custom to tapping “caps lock” every time I want a capital letter. Is this a software issue or somehow a hardware issue?
[Reply]
KP Reply:
December 23rd, 2011 at 10:10 pm
It appears to be a software/firmware thing, but not one that has an easy software fix, as far as I can tell. It appears that if you remap the caps lock key to something else, the delay goes away, so it should be theoretically possible to shut this “feature” off, but I’m not aware of a terminal command or anything else that does it.
How much of a pain it would be for you depends on how quickly you tap the key when you type. The delay isn’t really long, but if you’re typing very fast it might trip you up. If you’re near an Apple Store or a Best Buy or any place that sells Macs I’d suggest trying it out first.
[Reply]
KP Reply:
December 23rd, 2011 at 10:14 pm
OK wait, I just found another answer in the last link I looked up: http://superuser.com/questions/317900/eliminate-macbook-capslock-delay
Apparently through some weird bug, if you go into prefs and set caps lock to “no action” and hit OK, and then set it back to caps lock, the delay disappears. I tried it and it seems to work. I don’t know if you have to do that after every reboot or something, but that is weird.
[Reply]
Maximilian Reply:
December 23rd, 2011 at 10:28 pm
That sounds promising. I need to go an Apple store anyway to check out the glossy vs matte display, anyway. This will just be one more detail to check out.
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Comment by Maximilian — December 23, 2011 @ 9:54 pm
Most people think that’s a broken key. Thanks, KP for sharing your personal experience with us and letting us know about this feature in Macbook Pro through your valuable post.
[Reply]
Comment by Replacement Laptop Keys — December 3, 2020 @ 6:15 pm