Steelseries 6G on iPad!

I was cleaning the keyboards when I suddenly got the idea of using my spare keyboard with the iPad. I already have the BlueTooth keyboard from Apple and it’s working alright, but I never liked typing a lot on it. Mainly because the shallow key depths, and the feel of the keys.

I’ve had the Steelseries 6G for a couple of weeks. But I replaced it with a Razer BlackWidow after a very brief use. No major issues, but I do not like the placement of the \ key on the 6G: it’s placed besides the / key and the right Shift key got shortened. I use \(\LaTeX\) a lot and any \(\LaTeX\) user would know the importance of the \ key, I can’t type a document effectively if I can’t hit the \ key with my eyes closed.

But I do not like to waste this fine mechanical keyboard. It types too good to sit idly collecting dust. So I fished out the iPad camera connection kit, and hooked it on. Even though the iPad complained the device is not supported the keyboard worked fine without any hacks. This entire post is typed on it, and it feels much better than typing on the Apple BlueTooth keyboard.

A few things I’ve noticed:

1. When typing fast, sometimes it takes a second or so for the iPad to display the words I just typed. Most noticeably, when holding down the backspace key the cursor does not move until the key is released, and then some words get deleted. So I have no idea on how many words I’m deleting until I release the backspace key.

2. NumLock and ScrollLock does not work on iPad. The number pad always works as numbers, even though the NumLock light is not lit up. I don’t use the ScrollLock key so I didn’t test it.

3. The Home key does not work on my keyboard. One YouTube video mentioned that function keys like Volume Up/Down and Play/Pause also work with USB keyboard, and the Home key acts like the iPad Home button. Not so on my keyboard. The Home key does nothing. Sad. But Vol Up/Down etc. does work on the 6G.

4. Sometimes a key press gets registered twice. I’m not sure it’s iPad related, maybe it’s just my typing skill sucks.

5. A USB keyboard is a major power consuming attachment. During the 15 minutes of typing my iPad battery went down from 100% to 95%. Coupled with the fact that the dock connector is occupied by the keyboard, being unable to charge the iPad while typing is not a good thing. So maybe there is a reason for Apple to not advertising the USB features.

6. I have to copy the text to Windows Live Writer because the formatting really, really sucks. Even line breaks are not right. Being a \(\LaTeX\) user means any formatting issue is not tolerable.

That’s it. One more note: WordPress app on iPad needs major works done to it. Formatting sucks, and the app is sluggish when switching between Write/Comments/Media/etc.. I also have to do formatting on the PC to get this post look right.