USB-dongle KB on iPad Pro >> wow!

I realise I am very late to the game here, but still — this tickled me pink, so couldn’t resist sharing!

I have a new KB arriving soon (Ultimate Hacking Keyboard), and received my new iPad Pro 11” yesterday afternoon.

I happened to have a USB-C dongle lying around, purchased for my wife’s 2019 MBA — and decided to try out the new keyboard/mouse options. I was convinced I would need to use my old Apple BT keyboard/Apple Magic trackpad, but thought I would at least try the following:

My current KB is the Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard, which comes with a mouse and numpad, that connects via a BT(?) usb-dongle.

Plugged the wife’s USB-C dongle in (it unfortunately is one of those that sits ‘flat’ against the body, so doesn’t work with the iPad case on), popped the keyboard’s dongle in — and voila — I am typing this on the MS Sculpt, and have the mouse and numpad available (and working) to boot! A further bonus — the USB-C dongle has a USB-C pass-through, meaning I am charging the iPad whilst writing this post! :slight_smile:

I searched a while back to look if anyone was using an iPad Pro with a usb-dongle keyboard setup, and couldn’t find anything… Might have missed it, but happy to report that it works! Not quite sure how this will fit into my everyday usage, since I would quite possibly default to using the new UHK on the iPad as well, if I need to — but still good to know!

I got my old, portable IBM keyboard with the integrated Trackpoint to work over USB to my iPad Pro. Worked perfectly, except that I couldn’t find a way to map the ever so important Cmd key (keyboard layout pre-dates WinXP and the Windows “Start” key).

Still nice to see technology playing along after so many years. Standards are good!

Talk about mixing old and new skool! :wink:
You could map Caps Lock to Cmd, presumably – but agreed that it’s not nice having differences in the keyboards one uses – muscle memory is too powerful.

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Yeah - I didn’t invest much time into getting it working (even though I do like that keyboard feel still). I’m using the Apple Magic Keyboard and Trackpad on a daily basis, as I just got myself the Logitech MX Keys for the iMac.

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