I had the Logitech for my old iPad Air and use the Magic Keyboard for my iPad Pro. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.
The keyboards on both are great but I found the Apple trackpad to be superior.
I got an 11" Pro with Magic keyboard recently and it is terrific. I thought the best feature would be the magnetic “stand” connection, as I could remove it easily, but it turns out I leave it connected 99% of the time. The reason? Having an external keyboard means there’s no on-screen keyboard and the full 11" of screen is available for your content. With the onscreen keyboard active, you can only see about a third of the screen! Terrible for editing text.
I also hadn’t realized how much better the trackpad would be. I’ve had BT keyboards for iPads for years, but they didn’t have trackpads, and I didn’t like rewriting/editing text on the iPad because I constantly had to touch the screen with my fingers in order to select/move text (very common with editing/revising). With the trackpad, I’m almost as productive on the iPad as on the Mac!
Another cool feature of the Magic Keyboard is that there’s a charging port on the left side. Since the iPad sits on it with its charging port on the right, you now can charge from either side. This is great as I move the iPad around and can charge from different sides depending on where I am.
After the recent discussion on iPad usage and sales, I notice Mark Gurman is saying Apple will announce new iPads with M3 chips, OLED screen and new Magic Keyboards with larger trackpads in an effort to halt recent declines.
Last weekend my wife and I went for a short trip and I only took my iPad. It was fine for ‘catching up’ on stuff, but even trying to update a basic Numbers spreadsheet was a poor experience. Why does pressing Tab in Numbers revert the screen keyboard to letters instead of keeping it on numerals? Boy that was annoying.
I can see having a real keyboard and trackpad would help but it does raise the question of why not just use a MacBook Air? The existence of the Magic Keyboard suggests the standard user interface is somewhat inadequate.
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Everyone is different, but my answer to that is that I can get by with an iPad, it costs a lot less, so if it breaks it’s more easily replaceable, it has cellular and a MacBook does not, it’s much better imo for watching video, and for those times when I need a Mac, I can use Screens to connect to a Mac back home and get things done, albeit more slowly.
But, again, everyone has different needs.
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I haven’t checked US pricing but ‘down here’ in Oz, the cheapest iPad Pro is $1400, pencil (one of the key reasons to use iPad imo) is $220 and the Magic Keyboard - which many seem to think is the ‘key’ to making it usable - is $400. $2020 vs $1800 for a MacBook Air.
I suppose it’s like buying anything really - cars, cameras, houses. You can buy options to be a more pleasant experience or keep a base model and live with the limitations. It is nice to have the choices available.
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Sure, but you don’t need to replace the keyboard or pencil when it’s time to upgrade, while the MacBook Air is always that price (or more) - plus I get by just fine with an iPad Air and without an external keyboard.
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