Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro Review

Name: Apple Magic Keyboard
Brand: Apple

Alex Kidman

Last updated: May 28, 2020

Quick verdict: Apple's take on a premium keyboard to turn an iPad Pro into a more serious productivity machine is very well built, but its asking price is well above what you should pay.

Lifted hinge works well on laps or desks
Good key travel
Backlit keys are nice
Trackpad can change how you use your iPad Pro

It's too expensive
USB port doesn't carry data
Adds a LOT of weight to an iPad Pro
It's also too expensive

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Finder score: 3.0

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Apple really, seriously wants you to think of the iPad Pro – and especially 2020's new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro as serious laptop competitors.

If you just want a tablet for watching Netflix and reading web pages, Apple would prefer to sell you an iPad Air or regular iPad for that matter.

The lack of a keyboard is a big problem for many, and Apple's solution to that up until now has been its $299/$329 Smart Keyboard Folio, one of the better keyboard cases for iPads generally, but predictably priced at Apple's premium.

With the new iPad line, Apple also announced an even more expensive keyboard option, the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. It does provide features you won't find on the regular Smart Keyboard Folio, including a trackpad, different key mechanisms and an expanding hinge, but it's absolutely a luxury buy that Apple does rather overprice.

If somebody else is paying, then sure, it's a great device, but it's very hard to justify if the dollars are flowing out of your own wallet.

Design

You can have it in black, black or black
Very solid
Hinge mechanism only really has a few angles
Adds a lot of weight

In its closed folio style, the Apple Magic Keyboard doesn't look that different to the existing Smart Keyboard Folio. Apple only sells it in a black finish, no matter what colour iPad Pro you opted for. It's got an embossed Apple logo on the back and a cut-out section to accommodate the camera bump on the rear of the iPad.
Like the Smart Keyboard Folio, connection is via magnetic pins found in the internal rear casing of the Magic Keyboard, with a strong connection that doesn't easily "drop" the iPad Pro when it's in place. I tested with an 11-inch iPad Pro, and never really had any issues with it moving around while in use.
My very first impression of the Apple Magic Keyboard was that it was quite heavy, and that was before I'd even placed it onto the iPad Pro. Apple doesn't list specifications and weight for the Magic Keyboard that I could find, so I quickly weighed it on a kitchen scale – in these coronavirus times, you've got to get a little creative with solutions – to see if I was simply imagining it.
The Apple Magic Keyboard weighed in at 595 grams, which doesn't sound like all that much. However, to give that context, the actual iPad Pro I was placing into it is only 473 grams, so you're slightly more than doubling the weight when it's installed. By way of comparison, the Smart Keyboard Folio only adds around 305 grams of weight when it's in use.
That extra weight is a noticeable matter if you're carrying the iPad Pro around with you; we've seen more than a few ultraportable laptops – full devices – that weigh less than the combined 1.08kg of the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard.
What that weight does buy you is rigidity and heft when you're typing, which is quite central to the typing experience. It also allows Apple to include a short but wide trackpad at the base, a new addition that requires iPadOS 13.4 to function at all. It also limits the Magic Keyboard to iPad Pro owners only.
The lower left hand side of the Magic Keyboard houses a USB-C connector, and the core idea here is that you'll use it to charge your iPad Pro while using other USB-C accessories from the right hand side USB-C port on the iPad Pro itself.
The other big selling point for the Magic Keyboard is its use of a raised hinge. Where the Smart Folio just flips up the iPad Pro screen, laptop style, the Magic Keyboard places it in a floating position above the keys.
Apple's claim here is that – and I quote – it offers "a floating cantilevered design for smooth adjustments of the viewing angle up to 130 degrees".
The cantilevered bit is true, but that 130-degrees claim is stretching the truth in a way that I'm not entirely comfortable with. Apple can afford much better lawyers than I can, but I'm almost tempted to call them fibbers.
It is true that from fully closed to entirely leant back, there would be 130 degrees of motion in where the iPad Pro sits.
That's not what you thought of when you read that sentence, did you? You thought it offered viewable angles with 130 degrees of adjustment once the iPad Pro is in a viewable position, right? Lots of angles, lots of choices?
It ain't so.
Once you've fully opened up the Magic Keyboard case, at which point the screen is "viewable" but tilted down about 5 degrees towards the keyboard, a position nobody wants, you can then adjust the secondary hinge through about 30 degrees of movement. Realistically most folks are going to go for full extension, or maybe flat 90-degree style. That's two angles, not 130 of them, and it's not even close. Nobody is going to be excited by the fact that you can have the screen open at a 45-degree angle when that angle doesn't support you actually seeing the screen at all!

Performance

Typing is very comfortable
Trackpad does change how you use the iPad Pro
Some screen angles don't work well

Apple uses the term "Magic Keyboard" for any of its products that utilise a scissor-switch mechanism, after many years of pushing the idea that the flatter butterfly-style switches it was using on MacBooks were better. As many Mac fans could tell you, they rarely were for either durability or typing comfort.
At the time of writing, the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is only the third Apple product to carry a "Magic Keyboard" brand, alongside the Apple MacBook Pro 16 and Apple MacBook Air 2020.
As tablet keyboards go, it does have good response when typing, and that's rather key. The extra weight of the Magic Keyboard folio gives it particular resistance to individual keystrokes, which is great if you're a rapid touch typist.
I tested it out in a home environment because the current experience around the coronavirus pandemic meant I couldn't check its ability to work in transit to speak of. However, that does mean I've been able to test its ability to work when I was writing not only in my home office but also from my couch, my kitchen table and a bean bag. I was also able to test it as an impromptu movie-watching stand in bed.
Yep, it's an exciting life as a keyboard reviewer stuck at home, folks.
As a desk-based keyboard, the Magic Keyboard is fine, but you do actually lose some of that benefit in rigidity relative to the cheaper Smart Keyboard folio because your desk provides just as much support for each key. It's when you're using it on your lap or other surfaces that it's markedly more responsive than the regular Smart Keyboard or cheaper third-party alternatives.
The smaller size of the iPad Pro — I tested with an 11-inch iPad Pro, but the layout on the 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard is no different — means that you don't quite get the full range of keys or key size as on a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro 16.
It's most noticeable if you have the iPad angled outwards because the iPad itself sits just above the row of number keys. If you've got to do, for example, a lot of spreadsheet work in Office 365 or Apple's own Numbers app, you may find that lean forward in the gap under the screen but above the number row just a little harder to reach than you might like on a premium-priced keyboard.
The presence of the USB-C connector on the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is an interesting one because you might be tempted to think that it effectively doubles the number of USB-C ports on the device. That could be very handy for some workflows, but there's a big catch. The USB-C port on the Magic Keyboard only works for charging purposes, not any kind of data or peripheral usage. It's true that you don't have to give up your single port for charging any more when using it, but it would have been even better – and gone a lot further to justifying the Magic Keyboard – if Apple was able to engineer in full data connectivity, not just power.
The trackpad works acceptably well, but it is rather counterpointed by the fact that any Bluetooth mouse or trackpad will do exactly the same thing with an iPad Pro. Still, I did find during my review period that I slowly started to use the iPad Pro more like I'd use a regular laptop, simply because the trackpad was there. There's still a gap in multi-tasking and even the way some gestures and interfaces work that saw me reach for the touchscreen in certain circumstances, but as a way to make an iPad Pro more "laptop-like", I can see what Apple's getting at here.

Verdict

A really nice peripheral at a really high price point

Should you buy it?

At $499 for the 11-inch model or $589 for the 12.9-inch model, the Magic Keyboard has a lot to live up for. The 12.9-inch model is actually more expensive than the entry-level iPad, which just sounds crazy on the surface of it.

The price is the single biggest problem that the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro has. There are smaller issues, like the lack of data throughput on the USB-C port or the way Apple's counting 130 "viewable" degrees of the iPad Pro when it's in place, but overall this is a very well-built keyboard case. It does just that little bit more to make the iPad Pro feel like a "real" competitor to a full productivity laptop, which is Apple's promise that it largely fulfils.

Is the Magic Keyboard a luxury buy? Without a shadow of a doubt. If you simply want a keyboard to work with an iPad Pro, there are plenty of much more affordable alternatives, including Apple's own Smart Keyboard case.

But at $499/$589, it's a very hard ask even if you do want to work with an iPad Pro as your primary work tool.

Pricing and availability

Price

RRP $499 for the 11-inch model | RRP $589 for the 12.9-inch model

Where to buy

Apple

Alex Kidman

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A multi-award winning journalist, Alex has written about consumer technology for over 20 years. He has written and edited for virtually every Australian tech publication including Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and more. He has also been the Editor of Gizmodo Australia, PC Mag Australia, CNET.com.au and the Tech and Telco section at Finder. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.

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Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro Review