Apple Announced new iPad Pros today. Pretty much along the lines that we anticipated, with a processor spec bump and new camera cluster with ultrawide and depth sensing.
However, what I’m most excited about is the new pointing device support, including a new magic keyboard with a trackpad. Even better, not only will iPadOS 13.4 bring pointing device support to all iPads, the new keyboard hardware is backward compatible with existing USB-C equipped iPads! I won’t be buying the new iPad, but the backward compatibility makes the keyboard an automatic buy for me (not available until May though).
That floating hinge is wild. And evidently you can plug a USB-C cable into the keyboard and it will charge the iPad (hopefully faster than that weird Logitec smart connector dock).
That backward compatibility has really made my day w/r/t Apple news!!! I am no longer on an annual upgrade cycle for my iPad (it’s too expensive for me personally to keep cycling through them like I used to). But to make the new keyboard work with my current set up, I seriously want to hug Tim Cook (but won’t…social distancing and all).
Really? I just assumed that the new keyboard would only work on the newest iPads. That’s amazingly good news, and something to look forward to for sure!
Edit:
Counterpoint. It costs $400 CAD for this keyboard. That’s… well… yeah.
That new keyboard looks really interesting to me. I wonder how stable it’ll be: If it’s good enough for “couch work” then it could very well be in my future (ETA: The keyboard, not the iPad. My 2018 11" Pro is still ridiculously overpowered for the stuff that I do with it. (ETA the ETA: I am absolutely not complaining about the fact that my iPad is overpowered for my kinds of work ))
I’m in the same boat. Likely will sell my current keyboard folio to bankroll this new one. Still wish they had added a function key row, but maybe the new cursor support will alleviate some of the issue to access control center more easily without lifting my hands off the keyboard.
I mean, Apple’s iPad keyboard have always been severely overpriced, but this is … wow.
Don’t they sell an entire iPad for that much?
I was thrilled to see my iPad Pro was compatible, but that price is absurd.
Then again, once my MacBook Air is out of AppleCare and the butterfly keyboard dies again, getting this for my iPad will probably be cheaper than replacing the keyboard, so maybe I’ll have one someday.
That keyboard price sure is something, but it’s only $120 more than the new Brydge Pro+, with trackpad, which says something about construction costs in addition to Apple’s normal pricing of peripherals above 3rd-party options. So I wasn’t surprised. I’m probably getting the new 11" Pro, and given that I’ve been pining for a trackpad and this uses the same keyswitches as in the new laptops, I’m probably springing an extra $300 for this thing too.
But Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac makes a persuasive case I don’t disagree that when it comes to recommending new hardware to someone else the new MacBook Air could be a better (and cheaper overall) option than an iPad Pro + keyboard. His summary:
I don’t quite see how the keyboard is backwards compatible. Wouldn’t the cut-out for the camera be specifically designed for the square camera module of the new ipad pros? I mean, I guess it could technically work, albeit showing some skin for last years model.
))
