Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and iPad

I picked up an iPad on release day, but didn’t bother to get the Apple Bluetooth keyboard until today. Here are a couple quick thoughts about it:

1. This is the only way to type on an iPad. It turns the device from a content consumption mechanism into a totally reasonable laptop replacement. All I need now is a way to build Rails and iPhone apps directly on my iPad :P

2. It’s a lot smaller than I expected. It’s just a little bit longer than the iPad itself, but still totally comfortable to type on. It reminds me a lot of the keyboard on my MacBook Pro.

3. Some keyboard shortcuts work, some don’t. Things like Option+Delete and Option+Left Arrow/Right Arrow work perfectly. Things seem to work pretty much as you’d expect while you’re in UITextView controls (i.e. big text fields); things fall apart when you’re in UITextFields (like in a table with editable fields). Playback, sound, and brightness all work perfectly.

All told: $70 is absolutely worth it to pair your iPad up with this keyboard. If I was not a developer, I’d start seriously considering leaving the laptop behind and just bringing the iPad + keyboard with me everywhere I went. It’s that good. Run, don’t walk to your Apple Store and buy one!