Crowd-funded Keyboards for the iPad Pro: Where Are They Now?
Successes? Failures? Or are they in limbo?
There are so many iPad Pro accessories on Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Some of them have been wildly successful, and some less so. With the Apple Magic Keyboard costing so much, people have looked for other, cheaper alternatives. Here is a list of the ones that have succeeded, still in limbo, or failed. To help sort out all the possible campaigns, we will only talk about those that received significant funding from backers.
Successes
- Brydge Keyboard. Perhaps one of the original iPad accessory that revolutionized the way we thought about keyboards for the iPad. Started in 2013, it raised close to $800,000 and launched one of the top keyboard makers for tablets today.
- Chesona H1 Pro. Received $191,113 from over 1500 backers and starting shipping around late 2019. It’s a detachable keyboard with a built-in ports, including 2x USB A, 1 USB C, HDMI output, and headphone jacket. It has a slot for your Apple Pencil, and the case is pretty protective. The product did come out before Apple came out with the Magic Keyboard, so no trackpad was included. It looks like they have closed down ordering but are continuing to slowly ship out pre-ordered units.
- Touchtype Pro. While not a keyboard, the Touchtype Pro case raised more than $150,000 to solve a simple problem: how to carry your Apple keyboard with your iPad Pro? Especially for the 12.9 inch iPad, many people preferred using a full size keyboard. Salman Sajid, the man behind the product, updated that all the orders were shipped out, provided ways for ongoing support, and ended the campaign in September, 2019. It is always refreshing to see a campaign from the beginning to the end.
- moky. Pitched as the “invisible touchpad keyboard,” the moky or Mokibo keyboard aims at having a keyboard that allows touchpad input over the keys. Sounds cool, right?! Their demo page shows off the impressive utility of the keyboard. Of note, there are two campaigns for the same product. It looks like the earlier campaign, under the name “moky” was started in 2015, while the later “Mokibo” was started in early 2019. It is the same product, and they have shipped more than 80% of their orders out!
Still in Limbo
- Libra. After iPadOS support for mouse input became available in the fall of 2019, many people wondered if Brydge would make a keyboard with a trackpad. Libra by Sentis beat them to the punch by launching on Kickstarter. Between Indiegogo and Kickstarter, they raised over $500,000. The keyboard received a lot of media attention, including a video by Unbox Therapy shown above. But anyone could tell the similarities in design between Libra and Brydge. Of course, Brydge sued, and Libra promised to change its design. Since then, there have been a few updates and a lot of unsatisfied backers. Who knows if we will ever see a finished product.
- Doqo Case . Similar to the Chesona H1 Pro, the Doqo case adds a built in ports, power bank, and a trackpad. The company raised over $500,000 between Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The downside is that it doesn’t allow you to detach the iPad that easily, and the design of the case looks a lot better for the 12.9" than the 11". From an update on 6/10/20, it looks like they are finally in production. Let’s see if they can ship these out! Despite not yet shipping out the campaign orders, they are already hard at work with new designs. That might be a bit too ambitious for now.
- DoBox Pro. Here’s another case that has a keyboard with a trackpad, plus a slew of ports on the back for connectivity. The interesting part is that this is meant more like a docking station rather than an all-in-one case. It raised about $150,000 between Kickstarter and Indiegogo and is currently closed for preorders. Their updates are still talking about design stages, so there might be a long wait for the backers ahead.
Failures
While there aren’t any keyboard related failures yet, I’m sure you can see a few of the ones in the “Still in Limbo” category might eventually move to this list.
However, there is one iPad Pro accessory that looked so promising but eventually failed.
MagicDock. A seemingly perfect dock for your iPad Pro. I remember reading about this in the summer of 2019. Back then, I still had a Surface and immediately thought of the similarities this has with the Kensington Surface Pro Dock. This product looked really cool, and it raised over $100,000 (the goal was listed at $8,000). Reading through the updates revealed issues with calculating the cost to produce this. As of January, 2020, the campaign is closed and a 40% refund has been promised.
Note: it was interesting that each of the MagicDock founder’s update on Kickstarter included a list of ads for other campaigns from other people. I did not see this with other Kickstarter campaigns’ updates.
I started looking into crowd funded campaigns when I was researching for Magic Keyboard alternatives. While it is nice to see some of the projects that make it through, it is also frustrating to see when projects don’t work out. Reading through the comment section shows that most people still don’t understand the risks of funding a crowd-sourced project. If you are interested in supporting one of the campaigns that is “Still in Limbo,” please read the Indiegogo and Kickstarter FAQ pages. Good luck!
