Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Apple iPad MacBook Pro”.
You can blame Willie do for this one because he’s just he’s on the Internet, but this one is even more intense a little bit because in the time that we received the product, there’s also been a dispute sort of launching off popping off between this product and A different product, this product map is a B light. Cardboard box, you don’t know what it is and then you’re like. Oh that’s, a keyboard, sort of thing and you’re right. It is little cable on the inside, but what’s unique about it or interesting. Is that this keyboard aims to turn your iPad pro into a full-fledged laptop type of setup? Now you may recall, in the past other products kind of similar to this, particularly from a company called bridge, but without the trackpad that was the missing piece.
It was the missing link. This puts you squarely into matchbook territory. Now that you have the keyboard the trackpad, this one even comes with like a magnetic cover for the back of the iPad, and this hinge system that lets you fold down the iPad screen as if it were a MacBook. Now, of course, it all matches up in a space grey, it’s got the chiclet style.
Keyboard Apple has positioned this new iPad in many ways for marketing and even in the keynote, as a replacement for a computer. What’S a computer, the girl in the commercial? What’S what’s computer? Well, what’s a pewter, exactly Apple, they put out this product. This is the smart keyboard cover. It’S super thin and light, but the keyboard itself, this soft touch material.
I tried to live life without a laptop and instead I replace my laptop temporarily with an iPad pro in this case, and I started to miss the tactility and the scale of a traditional keyboard. This baby goes for 200 bigs, so these aren’t cheap, even though they kind of look and feel a bit cheap it just it’s it’s so easy on and off you want it to be versatile and work in these various situations. That’S what Apple is pitching in the first place.
Other products emerged like this one from Logitech, which gives you more protection for the iPad. As a case, it gives you tactile feedback on the keyboard. It gives you a similar form factor, but it eliminates the ability to have the easy on off, because now you’ve got this rubber thing around the iPad. So then bridge came along. They came along with something that looked like this.
The trackpad – and these guys took it to the final place. You might expect it to go with the trackpad keyboard, the full thing you’re now turning your iPad, essentially into a touchscreen MacBook. This company here is called Libre. They launched on Kickstarter raised 230 thousand USD 1,800 backers at which point Bridge who has a product similar to this. They they were like. Let’S go ahead and and sue those guys all right. I don’t know if they’re officially suing them, but there’s definitely a dispute, because this product looks like the other product, even though this one adds the trackpad now. All of this is culminating in this moment right here right now, because the iPad recently got some new software iPad OS, which I talked about on the show downstairs that aims to make the iPad more like a laptop which reignites this conversation about the iPad, macbook alternatives. So those hinges feel fairly strong to begin with type-c. This is an out DC out and then in so to charge it up, and I guess you can get some power out of it to charge your iPad from here.
Oh four thousand milliamp power built-in battery, so sure you could. You could use this device to charge up your phone or plug it into your iPad for some extra battery life. This is how you do it loop, and then you fold it down when you go up like this.
It kicks up the foot a little bit here. This is the hinge style, that’s causing the dispute, and it gives you a nice little angle to the keyboard itself. Whew that feels a lot like a laptop jack.
Oh there goes the pen. They also include this back panel that just slides in like that, and now I guess you can just carry this around right like that yeah, it’s magnetic it’s magnetic as well, so you can pull that off. Put it on whatever you choose, one of the nice things about this design. You still have a spot for the pain, the pen at the top, but when you want it out, oh my god, it comes out crazy, easy, but there’s tons of friction when you’re going front to back that’s sort of what it looks.
Like one thing I was worried about was the multitasking from the bottom there, the pulling up like that. You can do it, but just keep in mind. You got a ridge there to compete with, so you really got to make sure you’re down at the bottom of the display. It’S just screened, starting at the very bottom, so that’s kind of cool and head over to bluetooth.
Oh, I got it iPad keyboard. Here we go youtube.com/. Look at that whoo, it’s so strange! Every time you get the keyboard input by default. It keeps the on-screen keyboard off when you have a Bluetooth one attached, so your screen real estate goes up as well, while you’re typing, you can see more of what you’re typing.
So let’s go ahead. The quick brown they’re a little smaller, the keys are shorter. This way, but once you’ve used it for a little bit, you’re, probably gon na get used to it.
The trackpad is a different story, because you have to enable it, I believe, as an accessibility thing, and now you can see the issue with reaching I’m not reaching the bottom right now. Here you can use that button to go home instead, so you’re probably going to be using the gestures, less anyways, so keep in mind. This is a prototype.
Things could change about this design at the moment. I think the iPad sits a little too low, where the ability to multitask and head home. The gesture from the bottom of the screen is a bit screwed up if it’s sitting all the way down. So if I push it all the way in all of a suddent reach that section whoo, I got it working and it’s uh better than I expected. The pointer is like this target thing hang on a sec here, so assistive touch scrolling sure has an auto hide feature 15 seconds. It will auto hide, so you can see the screen better.
I guess alright, so it’s this little circular style pointer. I think I’m gon na make it white it’s a bit brighter. The scrolling is definitely laggy err. That’S crazy! You’Re! Definitely gon na want to scroll like this. It’S a tough one to analyze at this moment, because it’s a type of feature that Apple’s letting you use, but is it really encouraging that you use if I had to try a mouse now like? Is that how a mouse Scrolls on here, here’s a mouse yeah! The scrolling is still a bit wonky, the pointing is good, it’s okay, but it’s still not what you might be used to on a laptop and definitely when you’re using the trackpad even more so it works, but it’s a little laggy.
So what can I say? Maybe this is the reason why bridge didn’t release the trackpad version of their keyboard case for the moment, even though they say they’re working on it. This is still a touch based OS when you start introducing these traditional input methods like a keyboard and a trackpad, which is what you would have in an environment where you couldn’t reach up and touch the screen now, there’s this overlap. My experience with this trackpad right here sort of showcases some of the drawback, but it also showcases how good the touch input is on something like this.
It does support gestures. It does work as a trackpad, but for me, particularly with an iPad you’re gon na, want to reach up and touch it anyways. So I don’t think the trackpad should be the biggest differentiating factor for you. The keyboard and battery, on the other hand, will probably increase your productivity.
You can imagine, will Apple releases, another version, the next version of the software and possibly they improve the assistive touch or make it a more native feature. And now people are happy. They had the track pack ready to go overall, it’s a pretty cool package. It’S still not enough for me to give up on laptops, because all these flippy, versatile eggs, apples to me don’t offer enough of an improvement in functionality. For what I do where I still want a solid slab. I want a thing more like a laptop iPad is good, but it’s still not a laptop .