A few weeks ago, I was looking through some of my older devices and accessories and decided to clean house a bit. Anything I didn’t need was either offered up here for the cost of shipping, or on eBay. My Brydge Pro+ has been collecting dust for several months now, so it definitely made the list.
I had high hopes for this keyboard case when it was first announced. I was using a Brydge Pro as my daily iPad Pro keyboard at the time, so a version with a usable trackpad sounded great. Then Apple beat Brydge to the punch by adding true multi-touch trackpad support to iPadOS out of the blue last spring, greatly inproving on the earlier Accessibility features that they had rolled out in 2019.
Brydge’s Pro+ was based on those earlier features, so their hardware and software were unfortunately not set up for multi-touch. The fact that the Pro+ was also released after Apple’s Magic Keyboard just added insult to injury.
Brydge talked a good game at the time and even released a couple of firmware updates for the Pro+ after it was released. They helped a little, but the Pro+’s trackpad just didn’t operate anywhere close to as well as Apple’s. It’s a real shame too, because Brydge’s keyboard is top shelf and the Pro+’s hinges allow the user to position the iPad Pro at pretty much any angle.
When Brydge fell silent and stopped releasing firmware updates, I gave up on the Pro+ and stopped using it. As much as I liked certain aspects of this keyboard case, it just didn’t measure up to the Magic Keyboard. It had been sitting in a drawer for a while before I finally sold it on eBay recently.
Imagine my surprise when I got an email from Brydge Wednesday morning offering me a spot in their new Beta program for the Pro+. Evidently they have finally gotten multi-touch figured out and will be releasing their new beta firmware to 500 participants starting March 3rd.
Now I am suddenly regretting letting go of my Brydge Pro+. I’m also considering checking the used market to see if I can pick one up for the same price or less than I sold mine for. Then I can join Brydge’s beta program and see how these improvements work for myself. I like the rest of the Pro+ hardware enough that I’m strongly considering it if I can keep from losing money in the process.
Hopefully getting another Pro+ works out and Brydge’s beta agreement won’t prelude me from discussing their progress. If I can, I will keep you all posted on how this goes.
