Set up and use Magic Keyboard for iPad
Learn how to set up and use your Magic Keyboard with your iPad Pro.
What you need
- An iPad Air (4th or 5th generation), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation or later), or iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation or later)
- iPadOS 14.5 or later
The first generation of the Magic Keyboard (A1998) is functionally compatible with the iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) with Liquid Retina XDR display. Due to the slightly thicker dimensions of this iPad Pro, it’s possible that the Magic Keyboard may not precisely fit when closed, especially when screen protectors are applied.
Connect your Magic Keyboard to your iPad
- Place your Magic Keyboard on a flat surface with the hinge away from you and the Apple logo on top.
- Open the lid. The top portion of the lid will tilt away from you.
- Keep tilting the lid until it’s at the angle you want, or until it resists further opening.
- Place your iPad on your Magic Keyboard. The rear lenses should be in the top left corner, so that they’ll go through the cutout in your Magic Keyboard.
Learn what to do if you can’t connect your Magic Keyboard to your iPad.
How to use your Magic Keyboard
After you’ve connected your iPad to your Magic Keyboard, you don’t need to pair, turn on, or charge your Magic Keyboard.
Open Magic Keyboard with your iPad attached
- Place your Magic Keyboard on a flat surface with the hinge away from you and the Apple logo on top.
- Open the lid until it’s at the angle you want, or until it resists further opening.
Wake your iPad with your Magic Keyboard
To wake your iPad, press any key on your Magic Keyboard. Another keypress will bring up the Lock Screen. Unlock your iPad with Face ID or Touch ID, or you can enter a passcode with your Magic Keyboard or by tapping on the screen as usual.
Adjust your viewing angle
You can tilt your iPad up or down to find your ideal viewing angle.
Adjust trackpad settings and keyboard brightness
To adjust your trackpad, go to Settings > General > Trackpad. You can change the tracking speed — the speed that the pointer moves — as well as the scrolling direction. And you can turn on or off Tap to Click and Two Finger Secondary Click.
Like an iPad, the brightness of the Magic Keyboard automatically adjusts based on the light conditions around you. If you want to manually adjust the brightness of the keys on your Magic Keyboard, go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Hardware Keyboard.
Charge your iPad
You can charge your iPad as usual by connecting your USB-C cable to the USB-C port on your iPad. Or you can connect your USB-C cable to the USB-C port on your Magic Keyboard. Your Magic Keyboard doesn’t need to be charged.
Find out what to do if your iPad Pro doesn’t charge when it’s connected to your Magic Keyboard.
The USB-C port on Magic Keyboard provides power, but it doesn’t transmit data.
This means you can’t use this port with an input device such as a USB-C mouse. Never connect one end of a USB-C cable to the USB-C port on your iPad and the other end to the USB-C port on your Magic Keyboard.
Switch to the onscreen keyboard
You might need to use your onscreen keyboard instead of the Magic Keyboard to do things like type accented characters or use dictation.
To show the onscreen keyboard, tap a text field, then touch and hold on the lower-right corner of your iPad screen until the onscreen keyboard appears. To hide the keyboard again, tap on your iPad screen.
Learn more
Published Date:
How to Adjust Backlight Key Brightness on a Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro
Apple’s Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro offers one of the best typing experiences available for Apple’s most powerful tablets. It even includes a built-in trackpad that takes advantage of cursor support in iPadOS 13.
4 and later.
The only real drawback of the Magic Keyboard is that the layout lacks a row of function keys. That means users have no dedicated key for adjusting some system settings, including keyboard backlight brightness.
Fortunately, Apple has included a setting in iPadOS that lets you do this manually. Granted, it’s not as convenient as tapping a key when you want to watch a video with the lights out, but at least it’s there. Here’s how to get to it.
- Launch the Settings app on your iPad Pro.
- Select General -> Keyboard.
- Select Hardware Keyboard.
- Drag the Keyboard Brightness slider to the right or left to make the keys brighter or dimmer.
For more tips on how to use your Magic Keyboard’s built-in trackpad click here.
Tag: Magic Keyboard
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Setting up the on-screen and external keyboard on iPhone
You can set up the on-screen keyboard on iPhone. After you connect an external keyboard to your iPhone, you can set up keyboard shortcuts and change some settings, such as how often a key is auto-repeat.
Display only uppercase letters on the on-screen keyboard
If the letters on the on-screen keyboard are hard to see, you can change all the letters on the on-screen keyboard to uppercase.
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Keyboards, then turn off the Lowercase option.
Larger on-screen keyboard input
Rotate iPhone horizontally to use the larger keyboard for typing in apps such as Mail, Safari, Messages, Notes, and Contacts.
To learn how to customize the on-screen keyboard, see One-handed typing and Customizing text input options.
Controlling iPhone with an External Keyboard
If you find it difficult to use the touch screen, you can control your iPhone using keyboard shortcuts supported by the Magic Keyboard (sold separately).
-
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Keyboards, tap Full Keyboard Access, then turn on Full Keyboard Access.
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iPhone can be controlled using keyboard commands.
Action
Shortcut
Move to next item
Tab key
Move to the previous item
Shift tab key
Activate the selected item
9000 2 Space key Go to Home screen
Command-H
Open application switcher
Tab-A
Open Control Center
Tab-C
Open Action Center
Tab-N
900 39
Opening Help
Tab-H
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Tap the Commands options to customize keyboard commands.
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Touch one of the items below to customize the appearance of the focus.
Changing the response of keys on an external keyboard
If you find it difficult to use an external keyboard, you can change the settings.
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Keyboards, then tap any of the following:
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Auto key repeat. You can set the auto repeat interval or delay.
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Sticky keys. You can use the Sticky Keys feature to hold down modifier keys such as Command and Option while pressing other keys.
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Slow keys. You can set the delay between pressing a key and its action using Slow Keys.
How to change the color of your iPhone keyboard
There are several different ways to customize your iPhone keyboard. But if you want to get colors other than dark gray and white, you need to use third party apps.
Expert Tip
You can have dark mode at your fingertips and make switching much faster.
Launch “Settings”, navigate down to Control Center and select “Customize Controls”.
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Dark mode is displayed in the “Additional controls” section – click the plus icon to add the setting to the Control Center.
You can now switch between the two modes with a single tap. However, this method has certain limitations if you just want to change your keyboard and therefore you may want to consider using third party apps.
Top three keyboard apps
1. FancyKey
With over 28,000 positive reviews, FancyKey is one of the most popular apps in its category. In addition to different keyboard colors, this app offers keyboard themes, effects, emojis and stickers. Other highlights are the built-in auto-correct option and the scrolling feature.
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FancyKey is a free app and you get a lot without paying a dime, including a fairly large library of fonts.
But if you want to splurge a bit on the keyboard, FancyKey Plus is available with a subscription. You should be aware that the price is a bit high and that you are only getting a 3-day free trial.
2. Color Keyboard Themes & Skins
As the name suggests, this app is designed to give your iPhone keyboard a splash of color. The changes also affect the background of the chat, and the Color Keyboard does a really good job of matching the font color to the background.
Like the competition, the app offers emoticons and some smart features to help you type faster. But what makes Color Keyboard stand out is the support for over forty languages. The app is free and there are in-app purchases to get even more features.
3. Cool fonts
This application is developed by an independent developer, but it is not in any way abusive. Apart from fonts, it has a ton for keyboards with different buttons and colors. And it also gives you a keyboard with symbols and emoji only.
Of course, Cool Fonts is free for in-app purchases and is best for people who post on social media all the time. Easy setup is another highlight. Even if you have never used this kind of application, you should have no problem getting it up and running.
Installing third-party keyboards
After downloading the keyboard you want to use, you need to install and enable it on your iPhone. Here’s what you need to do.
Step 1
Tap on the Settings app to access the menu, select “ Basic ” and then select “ Keyboard “.
Step 2
Click “ Keyboards” at the top of the screen and select “ Add New Keyboards”. You should see the name of the keyboard you want to use under Keyboards third-party manufacturers “. Click on it to make a selection and you’re good to go.
Note. After installing a third-party keyboard, you can easily switch between standard and standard versions when you need to type something.
Setting the default keyboard
Again, everything is done through the keyboard menu under “ General “. As a reminder, you need to choose the following path.
Application Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards
In the “ Keyboards ” window, click “ Edit “, move the keyboard you want to use to the top of the list, and click “ Done ” to confirm. Now the preferred keyboard appears, for example, every time you enter the messaging application. Of course, you can always return to the default.
Keyboard switch
Since there has been talk of switching keyboards, it’s worth taking a closer look at how to do it. The following explanation assumes that you have installed more than one built-in or third-party keyboard.
So access the keyboard from any application and hold the globe icon. When Apple moved away from force-clicking, lightly clicking on an icon should be enough.