Just a few years in the past, Apple used to have a a lot less complicated iPad keyboard lineup. It simply supplied a Good Keyboard for every of their iPad fashions, and so they all basically served as the identical product. These days, after the introduction of trackpad help in iPadOS and the Magic Keyboard, every thing is unnecessarily convoluted – with every iPad mannequin having a barely completely different Magic Keyboard and ranging options.
Whereas the keyboard lineup is a large number, that’s not what I take situation with proper now – it’s the truth that we’ve misplaced the Good Keyboard Folio, which in hindsight was an unimaginable providing.
There’s magnificence in simplicity, and the Good Keyboard Folio was simply that. Earlier than the times of switching to a conventional scissor mechanism and having a trackpad, we used to have a lot lighter iPad keyboards. Additionally they had an extra advantage of being a typical folio if you happen to wished the keyboard to get out of the best way.
With the present Magic Keyboard, it seems like one thing it’s important to decide to. Certain, you’ll be able to take your iPad off the newer Magic Keyboards fairly simply, however then you don’t have any form of safety in your iPad. Even if you happen to don’t care about that, theres the straightforward indisputable fact that the keyboard then turns into a separate factor it’s important to carry round.
The truth that you possibly can fold the Good Keyboard Folio backwards and nonetheless have it in your iPad was nice. It was an answer that you just didn’t actually need to assume a lot about, it simply did its job.
For context, for an 11-inch iPad Professional, the Good Keyboard Folio got here in at round 300 grams (0.66 lbs). A Magic Keyboard is round 600 grams (1.32 lbs). That’s double the load.
iPad keyboard historical past
Although Apple launched the Magic Keyboard again in 2020, it didn’t begin to ramp down the Good Keyboard Folio till plenty of years later. They stored it round for the 2021 iPad Professional and subsequent iPad Air launches. The writing was on the wall beginning in 2022, when the corporate didn’t introduce a Good Keyboard Folio for the tenth technology iPad.
Then, in 2024, with the launch of the M4 iPad Professional, the Good Keyboard Folio died for good, on account of its up to date array of magnets.
Whereas it’s unlikely to return, I do assume there’s a unbelievable marketplace for a light-weight iPad keyboard that really will get out of the best way. Not everybody desires their iPad to be a full-on laptop computer that you just decide to, and in a method, the Magic Keyboard packing containers you into that nook.
My favourite Apple accent suggestions:
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