Mac Mini fails to accept input from aluminum keyboard during boot.

Question

This is unbelievable. Support knew nothing of this. I tried ⌥, ⌘-S, ⌘-V, ⌘-⌥-P-R, and nothing. SUpport thought my keyboard was broken and was suggesting I take to the Apple Store. This is utterly mazing that people could be left without any recourse in trying to troubleshoot their Macs if they did not have another keyboard lying around. I wonder what the percentage of users is that have extra non-aluminum keyboards lying around. I suspect not high.

Answer 1

This has been a known issue since the release of the Alu keyboards, and there is absolutely no doubt that Apple do know about it - I'm aware of a number of reports that have been submitted to them on this issue, and there has been a significant level of discussion about it here (and elsewhere). Given the time that has passed since it was first reported, it seems pretty obvious that Apple either can't, or don't intend to, fix the issue since they have had plenty of opportunity to revise either the keyboard or the mini.
That said, this is sadly not the first time an Apple support worker has indicated no knowledge of a commonly known issue when a customer has called. It doesn't indicate anything much more than that either the individual worker was not aware of the problem, or couldn't find mention of it in the standard script. I'm not surprised that you were therefore given the standard fallback of taking the item to an Apple Store, but there is little excuse in the end to these people either not being correctly informed, or sufficiently monitored that cavalier responses to customers are better discouraged.
Boece makes the point that almost any USB keyboard will suffice in the circumstance that you need to modify the boot sequence on your mini, and sad to say that remains the only real fix. The Alu keyboard is an excellent device, but is not fully compatible with a number of Mac systems.