[jmzorko]

Hello, all ...

I was in Japan recently, and went to the Apple Store in Ginza. There they were, PowerBooks with the lovely Nihongo keyboards on them. I want to replace my American keyboard with the Japanese keyboard, but I can't seem to find a way to order one from Apple, and the PowerBook parts sites i've found so far only have the US keyboards. Does anyone know of a source for the Japanese keyboards?

I went to the Apple Store here in San Francisco to ask about them, and -- as usual -- they were clueless. They did try to help, and I appreciate that (and I know that my question isn't exactly one they have to deal with all of the time) but in the end they knew even less than I did, which I think is a bit disturbing, since they represent Apple, who a.) clearly manufactures these keyboards (as evidended by the PowerBooks in Ginza), and b.) clearly sells them at some level (as evidenced by the PowerBook repair outlets).

Regards,

John

[bimmerphile]

Have you tried contacting www.apple.jp?

[jmzorko]

Kris,

Of course I did -- but Apple doesn't seem to sell the keyboards on their web site or in their stores at all, as far as I can tell. If I were an authorized service center, perhaps there is a special place where they are sold, but I know not of that place. I'm going to have to call the support line (something I only do as a last resort) and see if anyone there can say ...

Regards,

John

[shreddog]

What's the difference between keyboards? Better feel or looks?

[crazeazn]

ahh, i know how you feel,i want the korean keyboard. but i have no real option of getting it unless i physically go to korea, then i have to bring the piece back then have apple care install it in order not to void my warranty. i've called the apple support line, they couldnt help me. and geniur bar tried to order the part for me but could not find it =(, u probbaly should have picked it up while u were there.

the jap keyboard must have the japanese characters overlayed with regular 'asdf'

[GSixZero]

Originally Posted by shreddog

What's the difference between keyboards? Better feel or looks?

Click Here

[jmzorko]

Thanks for the comments, all ... i'm going to go back to Japan towards the end of the year. I may end up just purchasing a PowerBook there and selling mine when I come back. I'm currently studying Japanese, so the keyboard would really help.

Regards,

John

[pcummins]

You'd need to either:

1) Specially request an Apple Service Repair store to order in a Japanese keyboard to replace your existing one. This is tough, depends how well you know your service guys, as technically your existing keyboard is OK, and getting it replaced for a trivial reason is usually not what they're there for.

or

2) Locate a 3rd party Apple Service guy in Japan (pretty hard if you are not super-fluent in Japanese) similar to ones in USA who would be willing to sell a Japanese keyboard to you direct. This may be easier to do. Technically if you're hard core, you could become a service rep yourself and handle these sorts of issues yourself.

or

3) Buy a BlueTooth or USB Japanese keyboard in from Japan and use it externally to see how you like it. If you can't adapt, at least it's cheaper than tearing your PB apart to swap keyboards around (or popping keys off to swap them around). Consider it a trial period while you're figuring it out for yourself. If you really do like it, you can hunt for a PB keyboard. Otherwise, no big loss.

or

4) Just use the default Japanese Kotoeri input on MacOS X to get Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji typed in. I find this the easier way, as I recently used a Japanese laptop and I can say that I had a huge problem typing anything in as all the special characters were everywhere else (like *, |, . and ,) and I don't find my typing is any slower to hit those extra a, e, i, o, u keys on a US keyboard (and a lot of spaces!). Adapting to the new locations of the special keys slowed me right down.

or

5) Hit www.akibado.com and ask them to get it for you, you would have to mention it is a very very difficult to get item and tell them where to look, but if it's publically available only in Japan they can ship it out for you.