Apple's iPad Pro Magic Keyboard: The heavy truth

It weighs as much as a laptop—and works like one. And it’s just one option among many.

- JASON SNELL

When Apple announced the new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro (go.macworld.com/mgky), it decided to play coy about how much it weighed. The result is that, despite some accurate speculation (go.macworld.com/acsp), none of us found out for sure until the first keyboards arrived in the hands of reviewers and customers. And so, during the midst of our global isolation event, we were all spared a couple of weeks of bad takes from tech pundits. Alas, those days are now over.

But I’ve got good news! While the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro does indeed make an iPad Pro weigh as much as a laptop, you only have to buy one if you want to use your iPad that way. It’s your choice—and that says it all about the iPad’s greatest appeal.

WEIGHS AS MUCH AS A LAPTOP

There’s no getting around it: the new Magic Keyboard is heavy. So heavy, in fact, that when you attach one to the 11-inch iPad Pro, it’s almost as heavy (go. macworld.com/hevy) as the old 11-inch MacBook Air. And when you attach one to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, it’s almost as heavy as the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

This is a revelation that will come as no surprise to those of us who have been using the iPad with heavy laptop-style keyboard cases for the last few years. When I’m sitting in my backyard writing on my iPad Pro with a Brydge keyboard attached, I’m essentially working on a 13-inch laptop, and it weighs just as much as you’d expect.