“Many of Apple’s certified watcher crowd, yours truly included, long for the casual use of the iPad, but with the power of a Mac,” Bambi Brannan writes for Mac360.
“Never the twain shall meet, says Apple’s famous designers and engineers,” Brannan writes. “Instead, the Mac has become thinner and lighter– down to two pounds. And the iPad has become as powerful as the most popular Macs.”
“What I want is a one pound diminutive iPad that can replace my MacBook Pro travel companion,” Brannan writes. “Here it is. The ugly iPad Pro.”
“Wait. What? Ugly? Isn’t that image just an iPad Pro with an attachable keyboard? Yeah, kinda sorta mostly. Not quite. But still ugly,” Brannan writes. “Apple’s Smart Keyboard for the 10.5-inch one pound iPad Pro is hefty hefty hefty; in weight and price. First, it’s a nearly full-sized keyboard, but that extra keyboard space beyond the older 9.7-inch Bluetooth external keyboards matters. It’s also overpriced at $159, so I started looking around for an alternative for my soon-to-be-in-my-hands iPad Pro. What I found is the Logitech Slim Combo smart keyboard. It has more features, costs less, does more, uses the iPad Pro’s built-in smart connectors, and is as ugly as sin.”
Brannan writes, “Like the Lunar Lander of the last century, that little beast that could, and did, get astronauts to the moon and back, Slim Combo is so ugly it’s beautiful.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What we like about it is that it’s so utilitarian-looking makes you look like you’re working really hard.
SEE ALSO:
New Logitech Slim Combo keyboard case for iPad Pro, the next generation of personal computing – June 5, 2017
2016 MacBook.
No fingermarks on the screen.
A wonderful trackpad.
Slimmer.
Lighter.
Better.
End of.
Not really end of……it’s really horses for course, personally I like using my brilliant Apple pencil, my 2015 iPad pro is lighter than a Macbook and it’s perfect for demonstrating my products to customers, a laptop would be too geeky for that task. I rarely use the smart keyboard I bought. What’s great is that people like you and me now have serious choices, you choose the MacBook, I choose the iPad, everyone wins everyone’s happy especially Apple.
Logitech>>>backlit keys too. A must when flying. Other logitech ipad keyboards allow using on 2 devices, switching via bluetooth. Not so with this one due to direct power connection. One can only wish.
Geez MDN has been really pushing the Apple Surface lately.
could you please relegate iOS garbage to a different section from Mac news?
Also, you really need to ser up a separate ad laden trump fellation site. Every time I visit i see more and more clickbait political garbage overrun with fact free dittoheads parroting GOP or alt right propaganda. Nothing whatsoever to do with Mac daily news.
AdBlock
Andy,
You should know that the ads that appear are actually a function of your own browsing habits. Your browser tracks you and feeds you ads based on what kind of sites you visit. I get ads for furniture and stand-up paddleboards. If you go to political or news sites (or you live in certain states where they have bought extra internet penetration), it will feed you items related to that, unless you use an adblocker.
“…Trump fellation site”. 😂 LOL!
Calm your lonely ass down
I have a Zagg SlimBook for my iPad Pro 9.7 and I love it. It uses Bluetooth but that’s a non-issue for me. The basic design is similar to the Logitech, it seems. The SlimBook can be used in video or presentation mode as well as in regular mode. What the Slimbook doesn’t need is that “kickstand”. The hinge on the SlimBook has enough tension on it that you can position the screen however you like it but it doesn’t fall over backwoard. Although Zagg doesn’t have one yet for the 10.5″ I’ll bet they will soon and it’d be worth a look. I actually got mine for $69 price matching at my local Best Buy. I also have an older ZaggKeys Cover (it’s just a keyboard – no plastic cover) that I bought for my original iPad Air. With a little bit of Gorlla Tape, I modified it (sort of a shim like you’d do with a Brydge keyboard) so it works with my 9.7″. I think the Apple Smart Keyboard is a nice concept but the 3rd party products are far more useful, IMO.
I’m waiting for iOS 11 to see how it works on my 9.7″ before I consider buying a new 10.5″. I have enough invested in the Zagg products and use them heavily that buying the new iPad may not really be necessary if the new iOS features are as cool as they seem to be. I’ve been using Readdle’s drag-and-drop feature daily and they are really fun and productive. IOS 11 could really improve the operation and productivity of the 9.7″ that I could be happy with my current keyboards/covers and postpone purchasing the 10.5″ for a while.
So to make the long story short, when Zagg comes out with their offering for the 10.5″ it’ll be a serious competitor to the Logitech product.