Apple Firmware Update For Magic Keyboards Decides To Change The Fn Key

Linux has supported the Apple Magic Keyboards since 2018 handling the Bluetooth connectivity and also needing some special handling for the numeric keypad. While that normally would be the end of the story, recent firmware updates to the Apple Magic Keyboard have caused problems.

Newer Apple firmware updates to the Magic Keyboards have caused the function (Fn) keys to be reported differently. So on current Linux kernels when running on an Apple keyboard with updated firmware, the Fn key may not behave correctly.

Ultimately a simple patch is now queued up as part of the HID-next material for Linux 5.7. With that basic patch, the Fn key behavior should be working with the Apple Magic Keyboard on their newer firmware. Of course, it wasn't Apple supplying the fix but left up to the community when encountering unexpected behavior as a result of firmware updates.