NYT’s David Pogue writes:

My brand new Apple MacBook doesn’t have the embedded numeric keypad the Macbook used to have; there are no small numbers on the U, I, O, and other letter keys, and no NumLock key on the top row that normally activates those keys. I was on the phone with Apple’s tech people for more than a half hour (2 people) and all they could figure out was that Apple must have quietly eliminated that feature in the new MacBooks. They found no announcement of such an omission, but could not find it listed on the specs.

They even had me take a digital photo of my keyboard and send to to them by e-mail, and were surprised themselves that it no longer seems to be included in the MacBook.

I asked my PR contact at Apple, and she confirmed that it’s true: the embedded number pad was eliminated to make the MacBook more closely resemble the aluminum Apple keyboards, even though the MacBooks manufactured up until now had one.

I can’t say I’ve ever used the keypad on my MacBook Pro, or on any regular keyboard, aside from a previous part time job where I had to do a little accounting.