There is going to be so much more of this, putting your nice new Apple iPad into a case or slot or docking station which contains some form of keyboard. Apple Insider has spotted one coming over from China, already in the UK at £60, and on its way to the US.
Almost every blog that has written it up has jeered that people just cannot forget the form factor of yesterday and are trying to make the lovely new iPad look like a rubbishy old Netbook. Far from it. Apple itself came out with a docking station and keyboard at launch. The only step Apple hasn’t completed, despite hinting at it, is to make the keyboard part of the case you carry around with you and that’s what a swathe of new companies are sure to try.
We all know that typing speed on an iPad touch screen, or any touch screen for that matter, is roughly 50% that of a proper physical keyboard. So when you are at a workstation kind of job, sitting typing, it’s better to have a keyboard. Once the iPad comes down a little in price, corporations will buy them in large number especially if their they can make corporate Apps speak to /run on it. Of course keeping track of all those iPads which people will then take home with them is perhaps another matter.
We do see the issue with putting an alien wraparound on your lovely new iPad, because if you just need to send one email the touch keyboard is plenty good enough. But there will be some people who never sit still and yet have a ton of typing chores to get through, and a carry case version is perhaps for them.
The pictured device apparently comes from Shenzhen Paoluy Silicone Technology, and has the catchy name of the BL-BKB76. The two devices talk to each using Bluetooth, naturally (the Apple one is physically connected through the dock) and can be powered by a single iPad connector.
This particular device became discovered because Apple Insider and other blogs keep an eye on the FCC approval requests and because this uses wireless Bluetooth connection, it has to be screened by the US regulatory authority, which shows it is on the way to the US.
The overall effect of this particular design is to turn the iPad into something more like a clamshell styled Netbook, a little like the iPad carry case, but with a keyboard thrown in. The device has already been seen on shopping site Gearzap for sale in the UK, at £60.
The device manual claims a standby time of 100 days and working battery time of 90 hours, but people have already tested it at around 45 hours, about a week’s work. It would be irritating to have to remember to charge two things, instead of one, even if a charge lasted a full week on the keyboard. It charges through a USB iPod connector cable.
Having said all this, the iPad can be used almost any Bluetooth keyboard and Apple certainly has those, so then you only need the charging dock to stand the iPad up.
