The Magic Keyboard with the iPad Pro 2020.
When Apple announced its new iPad Pro 2020 a month ago, the star of the show was arguably not the device itself, but the new keyboard case with a trackpad that further turns the iPad into a computer—or, more precisely, a laptop.
Named the “Magic Keyboard” by Apple, it wasn’t available to review along with the iPad Pro last month due to production delays. Supposedly, we had to wait until May. But surprise—the keyboard became ready this month.
I’ve been testing it heavily—I’m writing this article on it, as a matter of fact—and the keyboard, along with the new version of iPadOS that adds advanced trackpad/mouse support, really has turned the iPad Pro into just like a laptop. I have been working with this keyboard for the past several hours and I haven’t had to touch the screen once.
Design
The Magic Keyboard is very similar to Apple’s previous “Smart Keyboard” case, in that it also doubles as a rubbery cover case for the iPad Pro when not in use. But it is noticeably a bit thicker and heavier than the Smart Keyboard, which is to be expected, since the Magic Keyboard has so much more additional hardware built in.
The keys themselves are slightly larger than the original Smart Keyboard keys, and they’re backlit. The key travel remains roughly the same as before at 1mm, but there’s a more noticeable “bounce” to the keys with each press because they’re using scissor-switch mechanism. In other words, the Magic Keyboard’s keys resemble a laptop’s keyboard much more than Apple’s previous first-party offerings.
The keyboard itself is still thin, but slightly heavy.
Apple’s Magic Keyboard (right) next to the original Smart Keyboard (left).
There’s the aforementioned trackpad below the keys, and while they’re nowhere near as spacious as the trackpads found on Apple’s MacBooks, iPadOS’s software is really good at detecting touch and motion, so the smaller trackpad didn’t hinder my pointer navigation across the iPad Pro’s 12.9-inch screen.
There’s a single USB-C port sandwiched in the hinge/folded area of the cover, which is used to charge the iPad Pro. Now, of course, the iPad Pro itself already has a USB-C port. The idea of the new one is to free up the iPad’s port for accessories, a.k.a. dongles, because most professional users will need them.
The Magic Keyboard (bottom) with the Smart Keyboard on top.
The outside of the case is made of this rubbery material.
The “magic” part
Consumer tech brands love to give fancy, superlative names to not just products, but specific parts or features of the products, and for the most part I ignore those frivolous extra branding in my review. (Example, Samsung calls it hole-punch display “Infinity-O,” Huawei calls its camera system “SuperSpectrum”—I’ve never used those terms in any of my reviews.)
But the Magic Keyboard is the rare accessory that earns the name, because it actually props up the iPad Pro and elevates it in mid-air, making for a (slightly) better viewing angle for table-top work.
The Magic Keyboard props up the iPad and lifts it off the table top.
The Magic Keyboard’s hinge can hold up the iPad at various angles.
Virtually every tablet keyboard case I’ve seen merely supported the back of the tablet, allowing it to stay vertical, with the machine’s base still clearly sitting on the keyboard part of the case. But Apple’s Magic Keyboard holds up the iPad Pro in such a way that it seems to defy gravity. There aren't any secure slots or straps holding the machine up, too—it’s all done via the magnetic pogo pin connectors.
Apple’s figured out a good balance with how “firm” to hold the iPad Pro, too: the machine stays firmly attached to the case, even as it’s suspended in mid-air with its screen being poked; but removing it is also simple with just a pull of the tablet.
Performance
In general, the better the typer you are, the greater the benefit of using a good keyboard. I consider myself a really fast typer—I average 104 words per minute on typingtest.com on a “proper” desktop keyboard—so the Magic Keyboard has been excellent for me. I pounded my way through three tests on typingtest.com and scored 95, 97, and 96 words per minute. These numbers are actually slightly below my peak desktop keyboard speeds, but among the best for a portable tablet keyboard.
My score on the typingtest.com.
If I have any nitpicks, it’s that Apple leaves auto-correct on even when the keyboard is plugged in, and the auto-correct gets in the way more than it helps when it comes to typing on physical keys. But I can turn this off.
Using the trackpad brings a very similar experience to using a MacBook. All the basic gesture shortcuts are there, like two finger swipe for scrolling webpages and documents; three finger swipe up to get back to the homescreen immediately.
There are some iPad specific gestures, like bringing the pointer to the upper right corner edge of the screen to activate the control center.
As covered in my iPad Pro review, Apple’s changed up the cursor/pointer behavior, in that it’s not always a mouse arrow. In fact, it disappears when not being used. When it is in action, it remains mostly a circle, but will change shapes to adapt to the buttons.
Using cursor support with a trackpad makes editing text documents much easier.
The cursor changes shape and wraps around specific buttons when moved.
The keyboard draws power from the iPad Pro, and since it has a backlight, that means it will drain the iPad Pro’s battery life a bit faster, but the difference has been virtually impossible to detect for me. I’m getting the same battery usage as before with no real noticeable drop-off.
Editing videos
In terms of using the Magic Keyboard for basic office productivity like writing documents and editing Excel sheets, it is as good as any laptop keyboard. However, I use the iPad Pro to edit videos too, with the excellent LumaFusion app, and here, the keyboard is a bit weird.
It’s harder to pinpoint the exact spot in the timeline with a trackpad than by manually manipulating with my fingers. I could get used to editing with keys, but I think I’d prefer to use my fingers instead in this case. But then again, LumaFusion was designed for iOS devices specifically as a touchscreen-input device. So perhaps this isn’t a fault per se.
Steve Jobs’s vision?
One way of looking at Apple’s introduction of a stylus and a keyboard to the iPad Pro is that these items run counter to Steve Jobs’s original vision, since the late Apple cofounder famously scoffed at styluses and physical keyboards, pointing out that our fingers and a responsive touchscreen is enough.
But another way to look at it is that this new shift in direction does line up with Jobs’s vision. His ideas have always been out of the box and fundamentally alter how our digital computing experience. The iPad Pro, along with the Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil, is almost a new product category. This can do all the things a laptop can, but it can also be a sketch pad for artists, a large-screen augmented reality machine, and a computing machine.
I wrote several articles with the Magic Keyboard.
Apple’s iPad Pro marketing has asked “what’s a computer?” for the past couple of years, and finally, this is the answer—a versatile, portable machine that can do productivity, creativity as well as leisure and fun.
Of course, there’s the “Apple tax,” which is an industry joke for the high cost of Apple products. This Magic Keyboard alone is priced at either $300 or $350, depending on the iPad size.
This is expensive no matter which way to look at it—you can get an entire Android tablet with a keyboard for under $350 if you know where to look—but again, creatives and working professionals will likely pick this up. There will likely be third-party options that, uh, “borrows” from this design, available in a few months, so for those who can’t stomach the price tag, perhaps there will be other options.
