Thanks to the popularity of Apple’s Magic Keyboard, a new type of case for the iPad Pro has emerged over the last year. There are plenty of bags and sleeves out there that will hold a Pro and MK together and I’ve reviewed a few of those in recent months. However, the more interesting cases I’m seeing now are those that not only hold an iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard, but also allow you to use them together without removing the from it.
Anytime I see a tech journalist or blogger taking aim at the iPad for no good reason, I’m going to tee off on them. It’s already ridiculous enough when you have tech snobs looking down their noses at tablet users and their devices as some kind of lower life forms. Today, we have a writer from Tom’s Guide making what appears to be a reasonable request of Apple regarding their laptops. Unfortunately, he decided to set the iPad Pro and its users up as straw men for him to topple over (quite poorly) in his article.
Come on people. iPad users deserve better than this kind of pandering and nonsense.
So Qualcomm is finally getting serious about competing with Apple’s A and M Series chips. Apple has been beating the pants off of them when it comes to power and efficiency in mobile chip design for several years now and the gap has done nothing but widen recently.
Now Apple has taken that lead over to their Mac hardware and lapped Microsoft and Qualcomm, despite their two year head start down the same road. The company’s new CEO says he has a plan that many others have tried in similar circumstances with mixed results. Will it work for Qualcomm?
When I saw the first ad for the new Brydge 12.9 Max+ Wireless Keyboard with Trackpad, I knew I had to try it. I’ve been a fan of Brydge’s keyboards for a few years now, but just from a photo, I could tell this one is different. Very, very different. From the new design to the massive trackpad, the Max+ is a whole new ballgame. Let’s get into the reasons why and all of the fine details.
You won’t find a more consistent and reliable source for Apple information than Mark Gurman at Bloomberg. He was one of the first in what is now a growing and heavily scrutinized group of bloggers and journalists who give us varying windows into Apple’s ongoing projects, supply chain, and hardware release schedule. He’s back today with an interesting tidbit about the iPad Pro that most power users should find particularly interesting.
There was some disappointment among power users when iPadOS 15 was announced because we didn’t get some of the features and apps that many of us were hoping for. I didn’t get the enhanced external display support that I was really hoping to get this year. Others were hoping for things like iPadOS versions of Apple’s pro apps, multi-user support, or even some elements of macOS being ported over. The point is that, while the new features we did get in iPadOS 15 look great, none of us got everything we wanted.
I’m struggling with patience this year, or maybe lack thereof. Normally I’m right there with the early birds, jumping into the first beta on most of my devices on day one. That gives me no end of things to write and talk about as all of the new features are uncovered. But not this year.
I’ve waited a few days on the early reports on Beta 1 bugs a couple of times. I’ve even waited for Beta 2 to show up before making the jump before. This year is the first time since I started running betas around iOS 4 that I’ve had to wait beyond the release of Beta 2.
In case you missed it, there was an interesting story that surfaced yesterday covering the opinions of a group of Apple users on iOS and iPad OS. The polling, which covered 3,000 iPhone and iPad users, was conducted by electronics reselling site SellCell and had some interesting results. Primarily, it says that a fair percentage of people find iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 to be less than exciting.
If you carry an iPad Pro around with you, a case that provides at least some basic protection is almost a requirement. Even if you prefer to use it au natural, you are risking your investment if you aren’t at least transporting it from place to place inside of something.
This is one reason why sleeve cases have always been popular with iPad users, back to the earliest days of the device. Even though I prefer to keep my iPad Pro in some kind of case, I still like to carry the pair in something that provides more drop protection when I’m out and about.
I have no problem tooting my own horn here. I called it. The US House of Representatives tipped its hand this week and revealed that they have absolutely no interest in giving us, the users of products and services from the big tech companies, what we really need. That would be measured, steadily implemented regulatory changes to restrain legitimate abuse of power by those companies. Instead, the five bills that were revealed this week are exactly what I expected to see from contemporary American politicians- a fair amount of grandstanding and political theater.
A few months ago I got an email saying that Brydge was working on a new firmware that would bring multitouch to their Pro+ keyboard case’s trackpad and I got really excited. All of the sudden, this accessory that I had completely given up on was back in the game with a fully functional trackpad. The beta firmware was impressive and gave Brydge’s first iPad Pro keyboard with trackpad a whole new lease on life.
A few weeks later, I saw even better news from Brydge. They announced that they were coming out with a new keyboard case for 12.9” iPad Pros (including the new, slightly thicker 2021 version) that was very different than their previous models. It was the 12.9 Max+ Wireless Keyboard Case with Trackpad, and it looked like a legitimate competitor to Apple’s Magic Keyboard.