Apple wireless bluetooth keyboard - The missing manual
I got an Apple wireless keyboard for Christmas to use with my iPad. The manual doesn't discuss the iPad so I was left to figure out some things on my own. I thought it would be helpful to others to write down a few things I learned. Hopefully there are more tips that others can add.
The most important thing is how to turn the thing on and off. Pressing the on/off button produces a green light for a few seconds and then it goes off. So is the keyboard on or off? Press the Caps Lock key and if the light comes on, the keyboard is on.
To turn it off, press the on/off button and hold until until the green light turns off. Confirm that it's off by pressing the Caps Lock key. If the keyboard isn't off, then a keystroke will wake up the iPad. This could be a real bummer if (as I plan to do) you put both in your backpack and random pressure on the keyboard results in keystrokes that keep waking up your iPad.
When the keyboard is connected, the iPad expects keystrokes to come from the keyboard and will not present the virtual keyboard when you want to enter a URL, write an email, etc. To get the virtual keyboard, press the eject key in the upper right. Press again to toggle off the virtual keyboard.
I found that some of the function keys do what they are supposed to do: adjust screen brightness, adjust sound volume, and audio player forward, back, and pause/play. Others don't do anything. fn+ another key doesn't seem to do anything.
For Windows users, you might not figure this one out right away: the Windows Delete key (i.e., delete a character to the right) is "fn-delete". The Apple "delete" key by itself is what most (all?) Windows computers call "Backspace".
Another tip for Windows users is that the keyboard shortcuts for "copy", "cut", and "paste" are "command-c", "command-x", and "command-v", respectively. To highlight text to copy or cut, put the cursor in front of the first character you want to copy and press and hold the shift key while pressing the right arrow key.
If I ruled the world, I would make Macs and Windows use the control key consistently. Windows apps let you use "control-right arrow" to move one word to the right, as an example. I've never found any consistency with the Mac and couldn't find any consistency with the iPad either.
My keyboard was previously owned and came with up someone else's name when I paired it. This kind of bugged me. I searched the web and couldn't find out how to change it but oddly enough when I read the manual it told me. You can pair with a Mac and change the name there. Maybe you can do the same with a Windows computer. I couldn't find a way to change it on the iPad.
Hopefully Apple will update the drivers on the iPad to make better use of their very excellent Bluetooth keyboard. I think it would be great, for example, if you could use a keystroke to go from the lock screen to the home screen, to move between home screens, and to use the tab or arrow keys to move from app to app, then press enter/return to launch an app.
Hope this helps!
Mike
The most important thing is how to turn the thing on and off. Pressing the on/off button produces a green light for a few seconds and then it goes off. So is the keyboard on or off? Press the Caps Lock key and if the light comes on, the keyboard is on.
To turn it off, press the on/off button and hold until until the green light turns off. Confirm that it's off by pressing the Caps Lock key. If the keyboard isn't off, then a keystroke will wake up the iPad. This could be a real bummer if (as I plan to do) you put both in your backpack and random pressure on the keyboard results in keystrokes that keep waking up your iPad.
When the keyboard is connected, the iPad expects keystrokes to come from the keyboard and will not present the virtual keyboard when you want to enter a URL, write an email, etc. To get the virtual keyboard, press the eject key in the upper right. Press again to toggle off the virtual keyboard.
I found that some of the function keys do what they are supposed to do: adjust screen brightness, adjust sound volume, and audio player forward, back, and pause/play. Others don't do anything. fn+ another key doesn't seem to do anything.
For Windows users, you might not figure this one out right away: the Windows Delete key (i.e., delete a character to the right) is "fn-delete". The Apple "delete" key by itself is what most (all?) Windows computers call "Backspace".
Another tip for Windows users is that the keyboard shortcuts for "copy", "cut", and "paste" are "command-c", "command-x", and "command-v", respectively. To highlight text to copy or cut, put the cursor in front of the first character you want to copy and press and hold the shift key while pressing the right arrow key.
If I ruled the world, I would make Macs and Windows use the control key consistently. Windows apps let you use "control-right arrow" to move one word to the right, as an example. I've never found any consistency with the Mac and couldn't find any consistency with the iPad either.
My keyboard was previously owned and came with up someone else's name when I paired it. This kind of bugged me. I searched the web and couldn't find out how to change it but oddly enough when I read the manual it told me. You can pair with a Mac and change the name there. Maybe you can do the same with a Windows computer. I couldn't find a way to change it on the iPad.
Hopefully Apple will update the drivers on the iPad to make better use of their very excellent Bluetooth keyboard. I think it would be great, for example, if you could use a keystroke to go from the lock screen to the home screen, to move between home screens, and to use the tab or arrow keys to move from app to app, then press enter/return to launch an app.
Hope this helps!
Mike
iPad, iOS 4
