While the Coronavirus has affected the Cupertino-based tech giant in the recent past, it isn’t stopping Apple from launching new products in the market. With its latest iPad Pro with LiDAR sensor, Apple has launched a Magic Keyboard for the iPads and Apple’s Senior Vice President for Software, Craig Federighi is here to tell you all about the product.
In a video shared by The Verge, Craig Federighi stepped up to showcase the new cursor features that the new Magic Keyboard enables. With the release of iPadOS 13, Apple gave cursor support for the iPads to make the device more like a laptop-tablet hybrid. Now, with the release of the Magic Keyboard, the company improved the cursor features by many folds.
The Senior VP started off the video by telling about the ideas that drive the developments in iPads. However, the video mainly focusses on the trackpad, which is a first for the tech giant, that comes with the new Magic Keyboard.
According to Federighi, the company “deeply considered the best way to bring a trackpad to a touch-first device”. So, this brings us to the shape of the cursor in the iPadOS interface. Unlike traditional pointers, the shape of the cursor in the iPads is round, “just like your finger-tip”. Now, this cursor shape is dynamic in nature. This means that the shape changes when you move over to other options in the interface. When editing texts, the cursor transforms into a precise tool to select and format the text and also easily drag and drop specific parts of the text.
Apart from these features, the VP goes on to show how the trackpad is all you need when using the iPad with the Magic Keyboard. You can use the cursor to access the dock, control centre and even switch your slide-over apps with a two-finger gesture. Oh, yes, the trackpad supports gesture controls too. You can use a three-finger swipe up to directly go to the home screen or swipe across to switch apps effortlessly. You can even access the app switcher with a three-finger swipe up and hold.
Well, the Magic Keyboard is surely a great accessory for the iPads, but the iPad is far off from being a full-fledged laptop. The company is marketing the product as a replacement for a laptop. However, I personally think that the device belongs to a category of its own.
