Are there any knowledgeable Apple users here? iPad 7.

[Scott Winners]

I learned DOS in junior high and have been a Wintel man ever since. My employer just handed me an iPad (7th gen) to use at work this week. I am less than 10 years from retirement.

I need (old guy with bad joints) a regular size keyboard and mouse to use at my desk. I will try to use this fool thing just like the whipper snappers when I am out in the field, I have already built a stand to hold the iPad vertically at ergonomically correct height on my desk.

So far I have purchased two "iPad" keyboards. The first was wireless but I "can't" use a mouse with it. The second just came in from the big river today, a wireless kb and mouse pair, but there is no full size (USB-A?) port on the iPad.

I have the settings window (I know, I know, what is a window on an apple product, a tile?) my hardware is iPad 7th generation. os is iOs version 14.4, just came up out of the 13.xx ios with an update this morning. 128GB capacity, 113 available. The device has both bluetooth and wifi. It has one usable port accessible through the protective case, my oldest child assures me it is a lightning connector.

My first choice would be a wired mouse/kb similar to the MS ergo keyboard. I haven't seen one of those with a fruit symbol on it yet. Second choice is a full sized keyboard and mouse with a hardwire connection to the lightning port.

Bluetooth is really just not desirable. My colleagues and I are all running two smartphones with bluetooth headsets, when all six of us are in the office the bluetooth environment is pretty crowded.

Does it make sense to buy a dongle to get from lighting to original, legacy USB-full size, or is there a hardwire kb/mouse pair you know of that I can plug into the lightning connector and have those items at ergonomically correct height?

Thanks

[Scott Winners]

LS-DOS. I learned LS-DOS back when Bill Gates had to go to the office every day.

[David Bassett]

Can't help with Apple part, but suggest you try a stylus to help with the fat finger problems. I find one helps me with a lot of operations. I'm not sure my very old Android tablet considers a stylus in it's UI, as a I find some of the two-finger operations useful and they don't work with it. But simple tap, press, and swipe operations are so much easier with the stylus, up to and including hunt-and-peck typing.

Also, you might give the keyboard a try. I don't know the limit, but Bluetooth seems to work pretty well in crowded spaces and a keyboard shouldn't use much bandwidth. (A fast touch typist is really slow by computer standards. Adding a mouse might be a different story.)

Good luck!

[Charlie Velasquez]

Seems one of the advantages of an iPad is its field mobility. Use of a stand alone keypad would be problematic in that case.
If used in the field I highly recommend getting a case with a hand loop.

I started using an iPad in 2010 to document things when I walked through buildings doing energy audits. The hand loop made it simple. This one, for a Amazon Fire is similar.
F7B1CEA7-6C81-4232-B8B1-144EF38D77C1.jpg

[roger wiegand]

You can get a lightning to USB dongle (a "camera adapter"), then you can use any USB keyboard (it doesn't need to be apple specific, the only difference I know of is how the command key is labeled). You probably want one that includes a power input. I'd certainly try a bluetooth keyboard/mouse forst, the demands are trivial compared to using bluetooth headphones. Logitech have worked well for me.

Logitech also sells keyboards that come with lightning connectors, so you don't need a dongle.

It would not surprise me at all if someone had written a DOS emulator that you could run on it to make you feel comfortable. Probably no punch card option though ;-)

[glenn bradley]

Another dinosaur here who started when mainframes walked the earth. Welcome to the Evil Empire ;-) Apple's approach to computing is their own and they are successful at it. Pads in general do not expect, or well support, keyboards and mice. I tried many keyboard/mouse solutions when pads were handed out at work. The incredible crash in productivity had a laptop back in my hands pretty quickly. In the pad's defense, we were network geeks and used a very fluid range of tools in our work. A unix system was best, stripped down Windows was second and everything fell off rapidly from there.

There is a mindset and / or a generational shift that allows people to be comfortable with pads, Android OS and other "big phone" type devices. I have used unix, MS and Apple OS for 40 years but still find pads cumbersome and sluggish; more of a "user box" than a computer. If it is being used as a platform for a specific application (inventory, cash register, library index) just use it as designed. If they are giving it to you as a computer replacement . . . well that's just silly.

[Curt Harms]

I have a folding keyboard that I use with a company issued iPhone . It folds into a 6" X 3 1/2" X 7/8" package. I create pretty long texts for work and that keyboard certainly ain't an IBM model M keyboard but is SO much better than the on-screen keyboard for me. Can't help with the pointing device though. I either poke at the screen or use the arrow keys on the keyboard.

[roger wiegand]

99% of users never needed nor wanted a "computer". They put up with them as a way to get work done. If they can get information, communicate, enter data in a few fields, and get entertained they were, and are, good to go. As a working scientist I had occasion to actually need a computer, but those occasions were pretty few and far between compared to writing, making slides, and doing email. I don't have a pad myself, but my technophobic wife is welded to hers; it does virtually everything she needs to get done in her life, and she's extremely happy to not have to have even a glimmer of what operating system it runs. I expect she is far from alone.

Oh-- and this "typing" thing? Most folks are talking to their pads, not encumbering themselves with mechanical devices. Yes, I know there are many applications where a keyboard is better, but again, a significant plurality of users don't use that kind of application and really prefer not having a keyboard.

[Scott Winners]

Thanks for the input, I don't feel quite so alone anymore :-)

In my instance we are updating our primary business software from a DOS based app with a windows front end taped on, to a relatively new sleeker package that requires changing platforms for the field users.

Between you guys I now have the clarity that I don't have to run the entire iPad with kb/ and mouse, I just need to get around in the company's new software. Yay!!

I think, for routine follow up field visits, I have a fighting chance to run the bare iPad and keep up with the youngsters. Establishing a new client is still a minimum 4 hour ordeal, about half of that is screen time. Thanks to 2020 I have a recognized home office now, so if I end up with a bluetooth solution for input I can do it in my home office.

I have noticed before with my smart phone, and saw exacerbated very quickly in tablet power user training last week, swiping around a touch screen and tapping soft keys while supporting the device puts a lot of stress on the same joints in my hands and wrists that I used to use cleaning out stock barns with pitchfork and shovel. Putting that iPad down yesterday took me straight back to 1985, the draught horse barn at the Kentucky Horse Park, all those sights and smells, leather tack, fresh hay, soft nickering, the sound of my boots on the barn floor, it was an intense moment.

I will fetch a camera adapter for lightning today.

[Jim Becker]

The iPad is not a traditional computer and it doesn't have any physical ports other than the Lightning connector that's used for power/charge and some other connectivity things. Things like keyboards are normally paired via Bluetooth. Most folks use the touch screen for things that one would grab the rodent for on a "regular" computer. Having a tactile keyboard isn't required, but when working at a desk, it's a lot more comfortable to type with one than using the on screen version which takes up space. Give yourself a little time to acclimate and you'll most like get pretty comfortable with things. You can't beat the portability of the iPad compared to a laptop for sure and for applications that are most often "cloud" or otherwise browser based, you don't really need Windows or MacOs or anything complicated to use them...just connectivity.

[John K Jordan]

Does your iPad have the smart connector on the bottom edge? (You should see some contacts near the center.) If so, it will work with a keyboard that snaps onto the edge and held in place by magnets. Definitely not a "full sized" keyboard but surprisingly useful. I gave my first keyboard away when one with a touch pad became available - SO much better. With the touchpad I can get by without the mouse. Since the keyboard doesn't use Bluetooth I suspect you could still use a Bluetooth mouse. I never bought one so I can't test that.

The touchpad is well implemented in the Apple OS, cursor, scrolling, multi touch, gestures, taps.
Edit: the keyboard with the touch pad is the Logitech Combo Touch. It’s actually a keyboard, case, and stand.

I also have the new Apple pencil and can highly recommend it.

The iPad is wonderful for it's intended purpose and I use it daily, but it makes a poor laptop. It would slow me down at any job I can imagine other than perhaps illustration - the screen with a "paper-like" screen protector plus the pencil is a dynamic combination.

Just playing around:
jkj-sig-600.jpg

JKJ

[Myk Rian]

I still have 3 slide rules that I used. 1 was my dad's K&E. 1st computer was a Timex Sinclair, with the paper roll printer.

The best thing I can suggest is to get the kids to teach you how to use those i whatever things.