Apple has officially announced its new MacBook Air lineup for 2025, powered by the latest M4 chipset for improved performance and efficiency.
But aside from the internal improvements, the iPhone maker has also made a discreet but meaningful modification to the keyboard—one that corrected an omission since 1999.
Apple Updates the Mute Button Icon for Consistency
Apple Finally Fixes 25-Year-Old MacBook Keyboard Mistake—You Won’t Believe the
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One of the changes most prominently applied to the fresh MacBook Air variants is a reworked mute button icon. As reported by MacRumors, Apple has, at long last, overhauled the mute key to be represented by an icon of a small speaker having a strike mark drawn across it.
Before, the mute button merely showed a speaker symbol without any sign that it was meant to silence sound. The macOS interface, on the other hand, has always indicated a speaker with a strikeout line when users click the mute button. This age-old discrepancy has now been resolved, with the keyboard symbols aligning with the system’s on-screen graphics.
Although it may be a subtle change, the adjustment introduces a fresh level of consistency to Apple’s hardware and software experience, something that has long been touted as important by the company in its product designs.
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A Fix 25 Years in the Making
The old mute button design had not changed since the PowerBook G3 debuted in 1999. Apple users had lived with a small inconsistency between the physical keyboard symbols and the way macOS represented them for decades.
While this inconsistency might not have been a significant annoyance for the average user, Apple’s focus on detail makes it surprising that the problem existed for so long.
Now, with the 2025 MacBook Air and the newest Magic Keyboard releases, Apple has finally achieved visual consistency across its devices.
The Magic Keyboard Too Receives the Update
Apple did not confine this update to the MacBook Air series. The new Magic Keyboard, which now comes along with the 7th-generation iPad Air, has also gotten a new mute button icon.
This suggests that the new design will likely become a standard feature across Apple’s future Mac keyboards, ensuring that all users whether on a MacBook, iMac, or iPad experience a consistent visual interface.
What Else is New in the 2025 MacBook Air?
Aside from this long-awaited keyboard fix, the new MacBook Air models boast several notable improvements including the M4 chipset, better battery life, brighter and more crisp display, and updated Magic Keyboard and trackpad, according to TechRadar.
The company’s next major announcement will be the release of the M5 MacBook Pro later this year. If this inconspicuous yet impactful mute button redesign is anything to go by, then Apple will surely keep making subtle improvements to enrich the user experience.
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