A possible new iPad Pro accessory could provide a good home for the Apple Pencil.
If you’ve used an iPad Pro, you’ll know that the way the Apple Pencil attaches magnetically to the side for pairing and charging is excellent. However, you’ll also likely know that it doesn’t feel so securely connected that you can throw the pair in a bag together and know they’ll still be linked by the time you take them out again.
That’s true even if you have clad the Pro in a Magic Keyboard. There’s still no place for the Pencil to sit securely, which is where this new patent comes in.
Spotted by Patently Apple, it shows a new-design Magic Keyboard which will have, joy of joys, a retainer for the Pencil to slot into. Even the sketches in the patent show something much better, likely to keep the Pencil and Keyboard in good, inseparable company.
There’s more to the new keyboard, according to the patent. A new series of magnets, it looks like, and a different hinge could add greater versatility to the iPad Pro.
The next Magic Keyboard could allow a new position for the iPad Pro to sit.
The Magic Keyboard is already highly useful and you can angle the tablet screen as you need it, but there’s a limit to how far back you can put it. This new design seems to offer a new option to place the iPad Pro higher up, so it’s leaning further back and you can see it from more angles.
Could a new Magic Keyboard let you fold the iPad Pro almost flat?
Additionally, there’s also an all-new position that you could put the tablet in, so that it’s almost flat to the base of the keyboard but with the screen itself still exposed and accessible. This last one looks perfect for drawing on the tablet, with it angled slightly for an extra-convenient ergonomic effect. Using, of course, that Apple Pencil that you’ve snuck out of the Keyboard slot.
Apple’s patents are never guaranteed to reach fruition, but maybe there’ll be an all-new Magic Keyboard for the debut of the next Apple iPad Pro, expected this fall.
It’ll have use beyond the iPad Pro, too: let’s remember that the Magic Keyboard comes in two sizes, for the 12.9-inch and 11-inch iPad Pro models, but the smaller size is also a fit for the iPad Air.
