Oh, man. Today is totally turning into Kickstarter day here on Cult of Mac. The latest accessory from everybody’s favorite crowd-funded idea factory is the Brydge, another keyboard case which will turn your iPad into a miniature MacBook Air-a-like.
This case has a little twist, though. Instead of offering an entire laptop-shaped shell into which you can drop the tablet, it has a clever hinge which holds the iPad and uses it as the entire lid of the clamshell case.
The Brydge is a Bluetooth keyboard with a hinge that clamps onto the iPad and turns the whole thing into a bundle which is roughly the weight of the 11-inch MacBook Air. The keyboard itself looks to be of a decent size (the promo video says that it is full-sized, but clearly it isn’t. Perhaps the keys themselves are full-sized?), and has iPad-specific functions (although like many other keyboards, it seems to think that we need copy and paste keys in the top row instead of screen brightness controls).
But the neatest part is the built-in stereo speakers (optional) which also work via Bluetooth, and should be quite a bit better than the built-in speaker.
So how much will it cost you? The cheapest Kickstarter pledges have sold out, so the minimum buy in is $210 for the be-speakered model. That’s a little bit rich for me, even though I do most of my writing on the iPad these days, but with its aluminum construction and the fact that it is made in the union-encumbered USA, that seems like an inevitable enough price.
[Thanks, John!]
