I got on chat with Apple. I already submitted the following feedback, but I hope others at Apple see it as well:
I spent a good deal of time describing the problem. Apple technology dropped my first chat. Got on with another agent after a wait, could not help. Sent me to a third agent. I was asked for the keyboard's serial number. I had to use my iPhone's camera to enlarge the SN on the Apple box because it is hopelessly small, even though there is tons of extra space to make it large. Futher, and I have been experiencing this with Apple products for 3 decades, including leaning over a super tight space in a (rack) server room to read serial numbers off Xserve servers, and Apple does not use a font that distinguishes with any ease at all between zero's and oh's, and upper case L and 1. Come on Apple, you have Monaco for that! The agent said the SN was not in the system. She reversed what I recognized as zero's (from years of Apple tech) to oh's; still no success. I tried to send a photo of the SN on the box using my iPhone, but the .heic format native to the iPhone/camera is not supported by Apple's chat. I know how to export as .jpg, but c'mon. The agent still said the SN was no good. I then tried to read the SN on the bottom of the keyboard. Even more ridiculously miniscule. And a lightish shade of gray against white. Horrible user experience. I took a photo, exported to .jpg, and uploaded; still a no good SN after the agent also transcribed it. This is not the kind of Apple experience I know from over 3 decades of tech work, with a hardware and software spend of over $1 million. Apple could make its customers life a lot easier, and save on their own tech/chat support costs. I now must take it to Apple. But the agents were very friendly, and no complaints in that regard. But a two hour waste of my time, for sure.
