If you really, really want your iPad Pro to be a laptop, a new keyboard in crowdfunding called the Libra may be of interest. It’s a keyboard case with a laptop-style design, similar to the Brydge model I tested a while back, but there’s a big difference: this one has a trackpad.
I do a lot of writing on my iPad Pro, and the constant need to reach up to the screen when editing text is probably my biggest complaint about the device. It feels much more natural to be able to keep your hands in the same position when typing and editing. What Steve Jobs said about touchscreen laptops is actually more true of the iPad Pro than any Windows alternative, because at least those let you use a trackpad as well.
The trackpad isn’t anywhere near as good as what you’d get on a MacBook, of course. It’s smaller, for one thing, and doesn’t let you click from everywhere on its surface. But its performance is surprisingly solid. I’ve used many, many worse trackpads on computers running operating systems that are designed for them… For me, what matters most is that the trackpad works well for pointing the cursor and dragging to select text — and it does.
MacDailyNews Take: Ooh, is our biggest iPad pet peeve finally about to be obliterated?
Again, the main issue with iPad remains text selection. If only text selection on iPad were as precise as it is on Mac (or even close to it)! That seemingly simple issue (which is obviously not simple since text selection remains hit-or-miss nearly a decade after iPad debuted) is what keeps us buying and toting MacBooks along with our iPad Pro units while on the go. — MacDailyNews, September 20, 2019
More info about Libra via Kickstarter here.
I’m still using my Apple BlueTooth wireless keyboard with my iPhones iPads and it’s great. The AA batteries last for a year+ and text selection is easy using the arrows, and the function keys for selection, Bold type, Underlining, etc. make things almost like using my MBPro.