Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro review: the best way to turn an iPad into a laptop

At first look, Apple’s new Magic Keyboard for the iPad Professional appears to be like prefer it’s precisely what so many individuals have been asking for: a well-made keyboard case with a trackpad that lastly helps you to use the iPad as a form of laptop computer.

After testing it over the weekend, I’ll inform you that it does that precise factor admirably. It’s a well-made, lovely keyboard case that’s good to kind on and makes plenty of work on the iPad way more handy — or at the very least acquainted. It’s additionally costly, beginning at $299 for the 11-inch model and $349 for the 12.9-inch model. (An entry-level iPad — sure, an entire iPad — will run you $329 earlier than any reductions, for reference.)

So sure, lastly, the Magic Keyboard helps you to use your iPad Professional like a conventional clamshell laptop computer. It does precisely what it was designed to do, and it does it very properly. I’m simply unsure that it’s the correct design within the first place.

The Keyboard

A very powerful a part of any keyboard case is the keyboard, and I’m glad to report that it’s good. Apple calls this the Magic Keyboard, which, partly, is supposed to let that it makes use of the identical scissor-switch mechanism you’ll discover on its different Magic Keyboards for the iMac and 16-inch MacBook Professional. This isn’t the dreaded butterfly swap keyboard from older MacBook Professionals, neither is it the fabric-covered keyboard nonetheless discovered on the Good Keyboard Folio for the iPad Professional.

There’s good key journey and a comparatively satisfying thunk. In truth, I feel Apple could have explicitly determined to surrender on the cult of thinness on this product so as to enhance the keyboard’s really feel.

This isn’t similar to the brand new Magic Keyboard on the 16-inch MacBook Professional, nonetheless. The keys do have simply an itty-bitty little bit of wobble to them, however not sufficient to be a priority. I solely notice it right here should you had been considering the branding meant it matched that MacBook Professional precisely.

Within the first of a number of “finallys” for the iPad, the keys are additionally backlit. They regulate routinely based mostly on the ambient lighting circumstances, and so they had been precisely the correct brightness more often than not. Nonetheless, should you simply flip them off should you’re watching a film at the hours of darkness or one thing, then you definately’re in for a problem.

To repair that, you must go to the iPad’s Settings app, then dig into Normal, then {Hardware} Keyboard, and solely then will you be capable to regulate the brightness utilizing a slider. When you’re there, you might need to additionally remap one in all your keys to Esc (I exploit Caps Lock) as a result of there isn’t any Esc key right here.

Each of those hassles might have been instantly and immediately solved if Apple had merely put a operate row of keys above the quantity row. There are many system-wide buttons that might be helpful there! Music controls, quantity, display screen and keyboard brightness, house, multitasking, search: all issues for which it might be handy to have devoted buttons.

After giving in and offering a clamshell design and a trackpad, leaving each the Esc key and a operate row out appears obstinate. You’ll nonetheless be reaching (or swiping) as much as the Management Middle to handle important capabilities on a regular basis.

The Trackpad

The trackpad is nice. That’s actually the TL;DR of it. It’s pretty small, in fact, and should you’re used to the capacious trackpads on MacBooks, it should in all probability really feel completely tiny. On the 12.9-inch unit I’m reviewing, it’s virtually precisely the identical dimension because the trackpad on my Floor Professional — so it felt acquainted to me, at the very least.

However the Magic Keyboard’s trackpad is healthier than the Floor’s as a result of it helps you to click on anyplace on the trackpad, not simply within the center or on the backside. It’s additionally easy, correct, and there’s zero lag on iPadOS.

Trackpad help on iPadOS is nice, by the best way. The cursor is just a little dot more often than not, nevertheless it rapidly modifications to a conventional textual content cursor when acceptable. It additionally expands out to turn out to be the scale of UI parts like buttons or icons, form of snapping to them whenever you get shut. That sounds annoying (and you’ll flip it off), however I rapidly got here to like it.

Past clicking, scrolling, and highlighting textual content, you should use the trackpad for navigating the system. You employ three fingers to swipe as much as house and multitasking — or left and proper to modify between current apps.

The one place the place it feels a bit off is whenever you drag the cursor to the sting of the display screen. You form of drag “past” that edge to slip in numerous issues just like the dock, Notification Middle, Management Middle, or your SlideOver apps. You get used to it, nevertheless it’s the one time when the stuff on-screen strikes in the other way of your fingers.

Now, trackpad help on iPadOS and inside Apple’s apps is nice, however trackpad help on a bunch of third-party apps is totally not. Any app that doesn’t use Apple’s normal APIs for creating buttons or textual content views feels off-kilter with the trackpad. Stuff you may swipe along with your finger can’t be swiped with the trackpad, textual content choice could be a fiasco, and the cursor doesn’t at all times do its neat shape-shifting tips. Google’s apps are notably responsible right here, however they’re removed from the one ones.

Construct high quality and design

The Magic Keyboard is constructed like a tank. That’s each a blessing and a curse, nonetheless. There’s practically zero flex to the keyboard deck. The entire thing is steady in your lap and really well-balanced. It’s not tippy in any respect.

That steadiness in all probability is available in half from the Magic Keyboard’s most original design ingredient: the floating display screen. The iPad doesn’t simply angle up from the again of the keyboard deck like your laptop computer; it floats just a little. It’s fairly fairly.

It additionally has the additional advantage of shifting the display screen that a lot nearer to your face whenever you’re working and likewise to your fingers whenever you need to attain up to make use of the touchscreen. Neither is one thing I might have instructed you I needed, nevertheless it seems, I actually did.

The entire motion of opening it up and angling it in its floating place is one easy movement. You positively want two palms to do it — however making a one-finger raise was in all probability by no means within the playing cards within the first place. One factor you are able to do one-handed is pull the iPad off the Magic Keyboard when it’s open, which makes it straightforward to make the most of the flexibility that an iPad has over a laptop computer.

You may tilt the display screen from 90 to 130 levels, which sounds fantastic on paper. However in observe, 130 levels just isn’t practically sufficient. It may well really feel cramped, particularly should you’re used to pushing a laptop computer’s display screen again when it’s in your lap.

There’s a USB-C port on the facet of the hinge, nevertheless it solely does passthrough charging, not information switch. Meaning should you plan to make use of an exterior show or USB hub with the iPad, you’re nonetheless caught with dangling adapters off the facet of the pill. However it doesn’t appear to cost a lot slower than simply plugging instantly into the USB-C port on the iPad itself, and — extra importantly — it’s a lot nicer to have a cable again and out of the best way should you’re simply charging.

However again to that tank analogy: I don’t make it (excuse the pun) calmly. The Magic Keyboard is heavy — so heavy that once I requested Apple for the official weight for each sizes, the corporate declined to share.

In response to my kitchen scale, then, the 12.9-inch iPad Professional with the Magic Keyboard weighs simply shy of three kilos, about 25 % heavier than the iPad Professional with the older Good Keyboard. Three kilos is similar weight because the 13-inch MacBook Professional and heavier than the brand new MacBook Air.

As I discussed above, the Magic Keyboard can also be pretty thick. For the typing expertise, that’s nice. For my bag, it’s not. The entire equipment is thicker than my 13-inch MacBook Professional when closed. After all, neither the MacBook Professional nor MacBook Air can shrink to half their thicknesses and weights once I simply need to sit again on the sofa and watch YouTube, however the iPad Professional can simply ditch the Magic Keyboard and be an iPad.

Look, I’m simply going to make a comparability right here that I do know goes to harass a bunch of individuals, however I feel it’s instructive. I’ve Microsoft’s Floor Professional X, which has a 13-inch display screen, LTE, and runs Home windows on ARM. Relying in your configurations, the value of the Floor Professional X and its keyboard is roughly similar to the 12.9-inch iPad Professional with a Magic Keyboard. There are 5,00zero phrases I might write evaluating their software program ecosystem variations, however let’s simply discuss {hardware} right here.

The screens are about the identical dimension. The trackpads are additionally about the identical dimension. The Floor keyboard has a operate row, and it additionally helps you to tilt it up a bit. However it’s barely extra awkward in your lap. Nonetheless, the Floor helps you to tilt the display screen to just about any angle, even virtually totally flat. The Floor additionally helps you to flip the keyboard beneath so you may prop the pill as much as watch films. When closed with the keyboard hooked up, the Floor is thinner. The Floor with its keyboard is lighter than the iPad with its keyboard. The Floor’s webcam is positioned within the high middle of the display screen as a substitute of off to the facet.

I level all of this out to not say the Floor Professional X is healthier. (That’s extra of a software program and ecosystem query.) The Floor {hardware} is healthier suited to a big selection of laptop computer and pill duties, however its software program is admittedly greatest at being a laptop computer. The iPad software program is nice at a big selection of pill and laptop computer duties, however the Magic Keyboard {hardware} is admittedly greatest at being a laptop computer.

What I’m making an attempt to say is that {hardware} design isn’t inevitable. Apple made decisions with the iPad Professional. It selected the place to place the good connector. It selected the place to place the webcam. It selected to not put a kickstand on it. It selected to design the Magic Keyboard the best way that it did.

All of those are rational decisions, however they’ve real-world penalties on ergonomics. The Magic Keyboard turns the iPad into an important laptop computer, although one which’s just a little heavier and thicker than you may anticipate. However to me, the entire level of the iPad is that it isn’t a laptop computer.

For the previous few years, there’s been an ongoing argument about whether or not the iPad is a pc — at the very least about what sort of pc it needs to be. So it’s pure to ask if the Magic Keyboard makes the iPad a greater pc. That’s the mistaken query.

The proper query is whether or not the Magic Keyboard makes the iPad a greater iPad.

The iPad Professional is by far essentially the most versatile display screen that I personal. It’s extremely transportable. I exploit it like a laptop computer once I’m sitting at my desk or lounging in a chair. I watch films on it. I learn books. I exploit it as a second monitor for my MacBook by way of Sidecar. I exploit it simply sitting there as a second pc for little issues when my MacBook is overloaded. And although I’m not a heavy stylus consumer, propping the iPad up at a shallow angle for drawing is one more factor {that a} MacBook can’t do. Hell — now that there’s trackpad help, you might plug it into an exterior monitor and use it as a literal desktop machine, like a Mac mini however operating iPadOS.

The Magic Keyboard solely improves a handful of these conditions. It’s an extremely good, albeit costly and heavy, approach to make use of your iPad Professional like a laptop computer. If that’s what you need, this can be a big improve over what was out there earlier than, and also you’ll like it. However what makes the iPad nice is that it’s extra than a laptop computer.

For all the opposite issues I need to do with my iPad, the ergonomics of the Magic Keyboard are noticeably worse, which is why it’s good that it’s really easy to take away the iPad and use it with no case in any respect. It makes the iPad a greater iPad by its absence.

For all its faults, the Microsoft Floor feels prefer it was designed from the begin to have a removable keyboard. The iPad doesn’t — and never even the superb Magic Keyboard can change that.

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