You are probably all aware that the iPad supports keyboards. In fact, Apple makes available two of them. One, full-size, with an integrated dock connector for the iPad, as well as the smaller Apple Wireless Keyboard, which is, well, smaller and Bluetooth. However, even that is still pretty large in size, perhaps similar to the keyboard on a large notebook computer. Essentially, it just lacks the numeric keypad. It seems very well made, but I am not sure it is something I would want to carry with me traveling, even if I could.
Portable Bluetooth Keyboards
We have covered in recent posts the methods of using portable Bluetooth keyboards, such as the Freedom Pro Bluetooth, as well as many others, with the Blackberry and Android platforms and using the KeyPro drivers. With those devices, the keyboard must be used in the SPP mode. However, almost all keyboards of this type will also support the HID mode with a simple switch. The iPad uses the HID mode, so any of these keyboard should work without issue and you don’t need to worry about a driver, because it is already included with the iPad.
How-to:
Switch your Bluetooth keyboard to HID mode
Turn it on and enter pairing mode (this will vary depending on the keyboard, but is usually just something you press or poke)
On your iPad, go into settings and choose Bluetooth pairing. When it sees your keyboard, press to choose and it will give you a unique key to enter on the keyboard.
Enter the key and you are connected and ready to go! Total time from beginning to end should be less than 60 seconds.
From this point forward, if you need to enter more text than seems appropriate with the virtual keyboard, you can quickly open up your portable Bluetooth keyboard and start banging away. I can hardly wait to try this on my next trip. Enjoy!