In yesterday’s purgative disgorging of iPad news, it was easy to miss some of the details about Apple’s iPad accessories… and what they cost. Here’s a quick run down of four of them.
The first accessory was the iPad Keyboard Dock, priced at $69. Although it also functions as a charging and syncing dock with stereo out, though the addition physical keyboard is what is likely to make this the most popular iPad accessory: it will theoretically allow the iPad to be used like a netbook… but in some ways, it feels like an omission of defeat by Apple: “Yeah, we want you to be able to work on this thing… but we just couldn’t figure out a good software data entry solution. Sorry.”
The iPad Case, costing $39, seems like a similar admission of data entry failure: you’re just not going to get as good a look at the screen when typing on the virtual keyboard if it’s flush with a surface. The soft, rubbery case solves this problem with the addition of a triangular kickstand. This will also likely make watching movies when the iPad is on a surface in front of you a lot more pleasant.
The iPad Dock, which costs $29, is the same as the Keyboard Dock, just without the keyboard.
Finally, the last accessory is the iPad Camera Connection Kit, costing $29. In the absence of a USB port or a multi-card reader, the Camera Connection Kit will let you import photos directly from either source, through a pair of little dongles.
In most of these accessories, I personally spy a trend: they’re all mostly apologies for missing functionality that people expected, rightly or wrongly, from Apple’s tablet. The keyboard’s an admission that Apple didn’t solve the software keyboard problem; the case an acknowledgment that looking at a screen when it’s flush with a table’s surface for long periods of time isn’t ideal; and the Camera Connection Kit basically apologizes for making a device that would work perfectly as a photo album without any easy native functionality to get your pictures onto the device.
What do you think? Which of these accessories are you most likely to pick up?