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I have been using a keyboard cover on my Apple MacBook Pro. It’s easy to wipe clean and keeps oil, grease and debris from clogging the individual key mechanism. This is particularly important for Apple keyboards with their infamous butterfly key mechanism keyboards.
I have been using keyboard covers by Mosiso. The first ones that I used were moulded silicone rubber. They fit like a glove and don’t affect your ‘feel’ as touch typer.
Finite life of cover
The big problem with the silicone cover is that it tends to change shape over time. It no longer neatly fits the keyboard and slides out of position. I have had two of them and they tend to last about five or six months.
Here’s what a tired keyboard cover looks like. I seem to cause most of my keyboard cover wear on the lefthand side of the keyboard by the look of this picture.
TPU
Given that I seem to be wearing out my current covers at a rapid rate I chose to go with an alternative keyboard cover material this time. The current material I am using is TPU – thermoplastic polyurethane. Thermoplastics have the relative toughness of plastics, with rubber like qualities in terms of flexibility. So the keyboard cover is floppy rather than a rigid sheet.
TPU has a wide range of uses from high performing films to tough plastics, for instance the ‘indestructible’ Nokia 3310 phones had TPU moulded cases that would pop off to absorb some of the kinetic energy of a fall.
The caster wheels on your office chair will be predominantly TPU.
What I’ve ended up with is a cover this is more form fitted to my keyboard than the silicone version, thinner and more transparent. It has all the original benefit of being able to be wiped clean and keeping debris away from my keyboard.
It remains to be seen how hard wearing the keyboard cover will be.
More about the original Mosiso silicon cover that I’ve been using here, and the TPU version that I am now using here.
More on the Apple MacBook Pro keyboard here.