Booting with new aluminium keyboard

If you have read this thread so far then you'll be aware that no, no-one at Apple is 'listening' - at least not to this thread. They clearly are aware that the aluminium keyboards don't have startup functionality with the Mac mini and they have clearly had sufficient time to resolve this if it were resolvable and they were minded to do so. The only conclusion one can reasonably draw at this point is that they are have no interest in resolving this, or cannot. Given the problem is that the keyboard is not recognized at the start of the boot sequence but only somewhat later when it is too late to modify the bootup, I would suspect they cannot resolve the problem without a major hardware redesign of one or other component.

The only solution is to have a spare USB keyboard on hand for those few instances where modifying startup is necessary. Not elegant, but effective.

They should at least acknowledge the problem, and maybe provide effective "substitute combinatons" using the remote, like pressing menu for option, etc.

I agree they should, but they haven't, and typically don't.

Thanks for posting that about the menu button on the remote however - if Apple can't provide helpful information, you can bet users can!!