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[Weaver]

I read this about the iPad Pro’s ’Smart Keyboard'.

I have no idea whether or not this would work for me in bed. The keyboard’s angle as shown in the diagram look like some say 45% so it implies that someone is sitting on a chair, looking down onto the device which itself is on a desktop. Is that right?

So I need it to be vertical so that the image is not squashed down to 1/sqrt(2) = 71%. Also my elsesight is shot so I need the screen to be really close to the end of my nose - measured it crudely and the distance is the length of the short side of the iPad Pro 12.9" v1 (is it, well it’s the largest screen size).

(The problem with having the screen at such a crazy angle, is that while it’s correct for movies, the iPad tends to fall forward to hit me in the face.)

I can’t imagine being able to use a keyboard bending my wrists like that.

Am I completely mad or am I right in this?

[Moderator edited to fix the link.]

[tubaman]

Certainly looks like it's designed for desk use as per your thoughts. The keyboard also acts as a case/screen cover when it's all closed up.
I don't think it'd work as you would like as there would be nothing to prop the screen - it would just want to fall backward or forwards all of the time.
Wouldn't you be better with a compact laptop that will allow you to set the screen at pretty much any angle you like?
 

[Weaver]

I have a special sort of contraption that has a clip with a beanbag cushion and that is for the purpose of keeping it upright.

I couldn’t use a laptop, for many practical reasons.

[tickmike]

I use one of these.
http://www.eoso.org/ipad-keyboard-c-108/
I got it from Amazon for I think £25.
Works well, you can set three different angles of the screen, blue tooth connected.

[chenks]

for all the "post PC" boasts that apple make/were making, they seem to be doing a lot to make the ipad into a laptop/PC!
external keyboard and mouse support!

[flilot]

for all the "post PC" boasts that apple make/were making, they seem to be doing a lot to make the ipad into a laptop/PC!
external keyboard and mouse support!

Mainly because end users have repeatedly asked for it, though, it has to be said, mainly for the iPad Pro. Apple just decided to trickle down the features to its smaller brethren.

[sevenlayermuddle]

for all the "post PC" boasts that apple make/were making, they seem to be doing a lot to make the ipad into a laptop/PC!
external keyboard and mouse support!

No, an iPad is not a PC.   I like my iPads, I may even be addicted to them, but personal computers (Macs, in Apple’s case) are different beasts.  Pretty sure Apple have offered external keyboards support on iPad, both OEM and 3rd party, for a long time now.  Iirc, as long as I have been using iPads, which goes back to iPad 2 launched 2011. 

Personally, I don’t like using keyboards with iPads, “when in Rome”, and all that.  If I have a task that needs a keyboard, I’ll use the iMac.   But Weaver’s requirements are a bit untypical, and I wish him luck.

[chenks]

but PC simply means "personal computer", if you connect a keyboard and a mouse to an iPad then surely it becomed a "personal computer"?
it certainly can't be called a "tablet" any more if you using it on a desk in a mode that could be described a "laptop-like".

in fact, when was the last time used the "post PC era" marketing nonsense? have they realised it was mostly bollocks and dropped it like they do with most of the nonsense they come up with?

[sevenlayermuddle]

The distinction is subtle, but I have never viewed iPads as ‘computers’.

Yes, tablets contain processors and memory, and are controlled by software.   But so does my coffee grinder (microchip PIC within) and that will always be a coffee grinder, not a computer.

I had an amusing encounter a while ago, explaining my MythTV setup to an even older programmer than myself.   I pointed to the small diskless box under the TV, explaining that it ran linux with a decent graphics chip, that rendered the full HD video and 5.1 audio.   He looked doubtful, so I switched to a linux command prompt on the TV screen, at which point his eyes lit up, “Ah, now it’s a computer!”.

I knew exactly what he meant.

[Weaver]

I very much view my iPads as ‘computers’. I develop applications on them for my own use and which run on them. To my horror I found I have about 130 iOS Shortcuts programs and functions. (I can look at it two ways; either where files containing functions that are meant to be directly invoked by the user are for my purposes to be referred to as ‘programs’, or where files containing a single function that require parameters be passed to it are not called ‘programs’).

It’s just that Apple have gone out of their way to cripple the machines and make them very unusable. But there is a benefit in that the paranoia that caused these restrictions has been effective in promoting security that really works.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Thinking back to the advent of personal computers IBM PC and clones, early eighties, come to think of it... I may remember dismissing them too, as  “not real computers”.     

Working on mainframes, a real computer was to me recognisable as a system of huge cabinets, with hissing tape drives, clattering printers, and disc drives that resembled top-loading washing machines, filling a specially constructed air-conditioned room.   There would often be an adjacent room, where the manufacturer’s engineers could hang out.

I suppose I do now recognise my iMac as a computer, as well as my recently deceased Dell box that ran XP.   So I guess I must be moving with the times after all.   But an iPad..?   Sorry, that crosses a red line for me, definitely not a computer, regardless of whether it has a keyboard.  Won’t try to justify it, just my irrational gut feeling.   

[g3uiss]

Well an iPad isn’t an AS400 or a PDP11, but can I do more ?