Apple will launch a trackpad for the iPad alongside new Professional fashions, report claims

Enlarge / The 2018, 12.9-inch iPad Professional with the Sensible Keyboard Folio.

Samuel Axon

Apple has developed a trackpad-equipped keyboard attachment for the iPad Professional and plans to introduce it alongside its new iPad Professional fashions someday this yr, a report from The Info claims. The report cites one unnamed individual aware of the matter, and it asserts that Apple has been contemplating this transfer for a number of years.

This might make Apple’s iPad Professional compete extra immediately with Microsoft’s Floor lineup, 2-in-1 convertible laptops, and numerous Chrome OS gadgets. Apple’s iPad has bought effectively within the market, however energy customers typically complain that its interface is just not all the time appropriate for heavy obligation work.

Apple tried to deal with lots of these complaints with iPadOS, a department from iOS first launched final yr that drastically expanded multitasking, file administration, and different productiveness options of the iPad. We examined a number of of those adjustments in our iPadOS assessment final yr and concluded that whereas lots of the adjustments are profitable, it led to a type of conflicted identification for the platform.

The corporate additionally gave customers the flexibility to regulate iPadOS with a mouse pointer, however that’s an accessibility characteristic particularly designed for customers with disabilities. In the meantime, pointer management behaves in another way from what customers with out disabilities are usually in search of in quite a lot of ways in which we additionally explored in our assessment.

In keeping with The Info’s supply, the brand new keyboards can be made by Foxconn, a significant manufacturing companion to Apple that operates primarily in China. The report didn’t present a lot perception on how the unfold of the coronavirus would possibly have an effect on this product’s launch, although there have been different stories of supply-line issues with Foxconn and different Apple companions in China that will influence the launches of Apple merchandise deliberate for 2020.

Quite a few rumors beforehand instructed that the iPad Professional refresh was due within the subsequent couple of months, however the coronavirus-related provide struggles have led to uncertainty about Apple’s plans. The refreshed pill is definitely nonetheless coming, however the timeline is unclear. If this report is true, it seems to be like this replace could possibly be about extra than simply nicer cameras and quicker processors.