How does that happen?? Zune software for mac download. I know it will all come back to me if I can even get it to turn on. I am thinking I may need to replace the battery, but are zune's even serviced by Microsoft anymore?

Where am I supposed to learn the meaning of the weird key-combination symbols on a Mac? I'm specifically talking about the hollow up arrow, the broken switch circuit symbol, the hollow up arrow with a hollow square under it, the caret, the forward arrow with a bar or pipe in front, and the circle with an arrow leading out of it. The only weird symbol I have actually drawn on my keyboard is the command symbol which is like a clover.

( ^) The caret symbol is the control key. ( ⇧) The single arrow up is the shift key. ( ⇪) The arrow up with the line under it is the caps lock key. ( ⌘) Most people don’t miss the command key since the symbol is on the keyboard. ( ⌥) The upper right to lower left slash with the line above it is the alt/option key. One hint to remembering this key is the symbol has two parts and the print on the keyboard has two words. Using a non-Apple conventional keyboard, it is also possible to delete an entire word and one adjacent space in only two strokes by using a combination of the control key and the delete key. The same can be done in the other direction using the control key and the backspace key.

The other symbols I mentioned respectively mean: shift, option(alt), caps lock, control (only one I got right away), tab, and escape (the most frustrating one). Clearly these must be documented somewhere (although why they're not on the keyboard is very odd to me) but where are they discussed? Update: I totally forgot the other, much sillier ones: strike-through caret is enter (number pad), up-left arrow is home, down-right arrow is end, and the fairly more obvious right, u-turn, left arrow is carriage return.!

I'm missing an image for caps lock, but you see what I mean. I've seen some app short cuts as: which leaves me wondering okay, command-option, what? Here's the images from which isn't nicely formatted.

Here's a chart from that lists all the main icons, their primary names, and alternate names/symbols: has a similar list on a page with other Mac hints. OS X Keyboard Shortcuts also provides. This is similar, but is targeted at new users making the switch from Windows. And as a bit of historical trivia, explains where the Command icon came from.

The original idea was to use the Apple logo, but Steve Jobs decided there were 'too many Apples on the screen!' And ordered a change. The icon you call 'weird' and 'like a clover' actually started life as the campground symbol on Swedish road signs.

I remember seeing some of these icons drawn on the keyboards of older Apple computers; why they were discontinued, I don't know. (An earlier revision of this answer contained links to Apple documentation that stopped working.).

By • 10:36 am, July 27, 2012 • Is this what the Option (⌥) symbol is supposed to represent? The Apple Command key (or, as you might better know it, ⌘) has a.

Originally, the ⌘ key was an Apple symbol instead, but Steve Jobs thought that using the Apple logo as a keyboard shortcut in the original Macintosh’s menus was “taking the logo in vain” so he tasked the great icon designer Susan Kare to find a solution. The symbol she chose was the traditional clover symbol we all know today, chosen because it is commonly used in Scandavaniva to indicate a tourist attraction or place of interest. Interesting, right? Unfortunately, there’s no related story as to why the Option key has its own unique (and very abstract) symbol: ⌥. Brilliant take on what the ⌥ symbol means is doubtless revisionist history, but I love the visual metaphor of a train switching tracks. That may not be the real tale, but it should be.