Apple Keyboards: US vs UK

I really should have posted this months ago, when it was first news (and I'd thought that I had, but I can't find a trace of it). Anyway. Apple now offer US keyboards in the UK, as a build to order option. For example, here's the page for customising a black MacBook, and look at what's in the Keyboard section:

Anyway, this was great news when I joined Six to Start, as I was able to get a US keyboard layout. Why do I care? Well, all Apple keyboards used to be US layout: my Wallstreet and Pismo G3 Powerbooks both had the same layout as a US laptop would have. It was only some time into the life of the Titanium PowerBook G4s that Apple started using the ISO layout, with UK mappings, on British laptops. (Fortunately for me, I've been able to buy laptops in the US since then, but now, as mentioned above, I don't have to.)

So, what's the difference and why do I care? Firstly, and probably most importantly, I really don't like the narrow, two-row return key on UK keyboards. It seems far easier for me to deal with the long, single-row return that US laptops have. Secondly, `~ is at the top left of a US keyboard, whereas it's next to a (narrower) left shift key in the UK. This is a big deal because I use the command ~ shortcut to flip around an application's windows a great deal. Thirdly, while most people probably don't notice the other keys - like / and \ - moving around, for a programmer those are a really big deal. Fourthly, and by far least importantly, the US keyboard has names on the meta keys: option, command and tab are labelled, rather than having symbols on them.

There is a rather odd postscript, though: I use a logical UK layout (ie, the UK key mapping) on my US keyboard. This means that to type # I use option 3, while £ is shift 3. I'll admit this is a bit odd, but it dates from the time when, as I said above, UK keyboards shared a physical layout with their US counterparts. My behaviour for using # is so ingrained that to break myself of the habit and move would be almost as annoying as moving to a physical UK layout.