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?
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
29 responses to “What the iPad’s accessories cost, and what they’re apologizing for”
I have a zagg that has a raised hinge. Just a little nuisance…  I noticed that the other models don’t have that. I was wondering if Logitech would be able to upgrade that for me at a lesser cost than buying a new one? Mine is only about 1 and 1/2 months old