iPad Accessories—The Break Down

iPad Accessories—The Break Down February 4, 2010

Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Apple, tablets , trackback

Last week we covered exactly what the iPad is, now let’s take a closer look at some of the accessories Apple plans on rolling out alongside the new device. Apple announced 5 main accessories along with the iPad; let’s take a close look at what exactly they are:

Keyboard Dock– This is a must have add-on in my book—a dock that props up your iPad for ideal vertical view, as well as including a full-sized, physical QWERTY keyboard. The dock, which comes with a keyboard very similar to the Apple wireless Bluetooth keyboards for Macs, also gives you a iPod 30 pin connector for syncing with your computer, charging, or using other add-ons like the ones below, as well as an audio jack let’s you connect to better speakers if you want. If you plan to use the iPad as, say, your computer in school for taking notes or writing papers (for example, using the Pages app), this truly is a must-have, even at it’s price of $69.

iPad Case– This is Apple’s case for the iPad, that not only protects the screen while keeping it usable for typing and, well just using the device, it also has a built-in stand that can be used in many different ways, such as setting on a table for viewing slide shows or videos. The iPad Case will be priced at $39, though we’re sure there will be many other cases coming out for much less than that.

iPad Dock– Pretty much the Keyboard Dock, minus the keyboard. It’ll cost $29.

iPad Camera Connection Kit– This takes the regular iPod dock connector on the iPad and turns it into either a USB port or SD card slot for importing pix from your digital camera right to your iPad. This is some of the most basic functions found on even the cheapest netbooks and we would’ve really liked Apple to have put both of these into the iPad from the outset, but I guess thinness has it’s price. The price for this add-on kit is also $29.

There also is an extra power adapter for charging off of a regular outlet (with a greater range, thanks to a 6-foot cable) and a VGA connector for hooking this up to a computer screen or TV with a VGA port available.

So there you have it—a round-up of all the iPad accessories Apple plans to sell alongside the new iPad. The big thing here of course is the new keyboard dock, which should definitely throw a whole new dimension on what this device can do (we all know how much people wanted a real keyboard on the iPhone).

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