John Gruber reviews the iPad Magic Keyboard
John Gruber of Daring Fireball reviews the Apple iPad Magic Keyboard.
Greatly anticipating its arrival, I unboxed the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard as soon as it appeared at my door, and before I even attached my iPad Pro, I was put off. It felt too stiff to open. Then I did attach my iPad Pro (immediate thought: “Man, these magnets are strong”), closed and opened the iPad-as-laptop configuration a few times, and formed a crushingly disappointing first impression. I didn’t like it.
The hinge was way stiffer than I expected. I mean like “What the hell is going on here?” stiff, “Is there some sort of packaging attached that I neglected to remove?” stiff — which, needless to say, was not what I was expecting at all. And I knew the iPad-as-laptop was going to be top-heavy, but not this top-heavy. But where I say expecting I really mean hoping for. What I was hoping for was something approximating the feel and experience of a MacBook — a little more top heavy, a little stiffer at the hinge to accommodate that extra top-heaviness — but basically I wanted an iPad-as-laptop that feels like a MacBook Air.
As a committed iPad user who is trying to get as much use out of his device as possible, which includes most of the work done on this website, I was looking forward to reading about the latest iPad accessory from Apple.
It always takes a while for the half-arsed review-come-unboxing posts to die down on places like Reddit, where you need to wade through dozens of fan-boy posts before you get to something sensible, which is precisely what this piece from Gruber is.
It’s an eye-wateringly expensive piece of kit, but to worry about the price is, as has been pointed out by sensible commentators like Gruber and Federico Viticci, to miss the point somewhat.
I’ll soon be in the market for a complete refresh of all the Apple gear I use on a daily basis: iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple TV, and more. I love the freedom and extended battery life of the iPad; I don’t love the keyboards, and do own the Smart Folio for my iPad Pro. I love the sheer usability of my trusty MacBook; I don’t like that I’m tied to a device I can’t comfortably use when I’m parked on my arse browsing Reddit, for example. I also want to try and reduce the number of devices I use, and that extends to the two Mac Minis I have and removing my dependency on the MacBook Pro I own.
A new iPad, with the Magic Keyboard, might give me the flexibility and portability I really want, regardless of whether I’m bashing out words, messing about with code, reading news, or browsing the web, or even playing the occasional game.
Say it quietly, but with a little more maturity in the iPadOS space, a top spec iPad with the Magic Keyboard might just be the best of both worlds, but we’re not quite there yet.