One of Apple’s best accessories is its keyboard case for iPad Air and Pro, called Magic Keyboard. To go along with the newly-designed, thinner iPad Pro, Apple introduced a new sleeker Magic Keyboard. It’s got almost everything we loved about the old Magic Keyboard like pass-through USB-C charging and quality backlit keys (sadly the high price tag comes with it), but makes the following improvements:
- It’s thinner.
- There’s a half-height function row to control quick settings like brightness, volume, and media controls.
- The trackpad is larger and has haptic feedback.
- The keyboard deck is aluminum.
Apple
Between the aluminum keyboard deck, larger trackpad with haptic feedback, function row, and all-around thinner package (together with a thinner iPad Pro), the whole thing feels more like a MacBook than ever before. Of course, the price is still sky-high: The new 13-inch iPad Air starts at $1,299 and the Magic Keyboard at $349. So you’re up to $1,650 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage before you even begin looking at Apple Pencil Pro or other accessories. That’s a lot more than a 13-inch MacBook Air and even a little higher than a 14-inch MacBook Pro.
The new Magic Keyboard supports only the new M4 iPad Pro; the slimmer design is made to fit the new slimmer iPad Pro specifically. If you have the new M2 iPad Air, you’ll have to use the older Magic Keyboard.
Author: Jason Cross, Senior Editor, Macworld
Jason has written about technology for more than 25 years - first in the gaming press, then focusing on enthusiast PCs and general technology. He enjoys learning how complicated technology works and explaining it in a way anyone can understand.