The school system in my area recently announced they were purchasing a large number of iPads as part of a new education paradigm. iPads are wonderful, and no one loves them more than me, but I will admit they are more useful for education purposes when they are paired with a physical keyboard for faster, easier note-taking or typing up reports. When I have passed along an iPad to a niece or nephew, I’ve always included a Bluetooth keyboard. They are older and can quickly and easily set up the Bluetooth connection when needed. Our school system intends to use the iPads they are purchasing with younger kids, who may not be so adept at connecting a Bluetooth keyboard. I can foresee a lot of wasted classroom time, at least at first, with the teacher having to help everyone with their keyboards.
The Wired Keyboard for iPad from Logitech is designed to be plug-and-play, so the kids (or you) would only need to plug in a cable to be ready to start working. Logitech specially designed these keyboards for the classroom, so they are built to be durable and easy to maintain, with spill-resistant keys, no battery to recharge, and a 3-year limited hardware warranty. They are available with either the old 30-pin connector or with the new Lightning connector. You can pre-order either model now for $59.99.
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It’s about time! I’ve been waiting for one of these!
$60…really? Does it come with a typist 🙂
Now if only the iPad could use a pointing device (mouse, trackball, or trackpad) like Android devices can. I have a Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 with Built-In Multi-Touch Touchpad ($40 from Amazon) and it works well with an on-the-go usb adapter.
@Martin if you jailbreak it, you can add a pointer / cursor by pairing with a bluetooth mouse.
Martin/Julie:
I’m not fond of jailbreaking my i-devices (as some apps no longer work).
That said, I’ve found a solution for the “mouse” in an unjailbroken ios device. It’s not pretty, but it works for my needs and only works for VPN’d remote sessions (vnc, rdp or logmein, for example):
Ipad:
VPN to wherever – Use (logmein/vnc/rdp) client to take over PC. Bluetooth keyboard on.
Iphone:
VPN to wherever – Use Touch Mouse by Logitech (client already having been installed on remote machine) for mouse control.
Again, it’s not pretty, but it meets my needs for a few specific workstations I need to use while away from work. Saves me from carrying a laptop quite a bit, too (which is nice).
I must have keyboard… This one will allow one to put an otter box on ipad for protection and not have to remove it each time keyboard is needed…love it.