Thumpity thump-thump - that's the sound your fingers make on an iPad screen when they try to type. It's not an efficient process. You sort of have to keep looking down at the glass to see where your fingers are. In short, typing is not, ahem, the iPad's shining moment.
One solution is to buy yourself a real keyboard - a Bluetooth one, for example. But that's an expensive and bulky proposition. It's another whole gadget to carry around.
On this, the 11th Day of Pogue's 12 Days of Gadgets (Under $100), may I suggest the Touchfire iPad keyboard?
It's a transparent, flexible, squishable, silicone membrane, weighing less than an ounce. (It got its start on Kickstarter.)
The Touchfire's surface is molded into the shape of keys. You unroll this thing and attach it to your iPad with magnets along the edge. The molded keys align with the on-screen keyboard, and the whole affair makes typing easier and faster. There's no actual key travel, no actual clicking, mind you. But at least your fingers can feel where they're supposed to be.
It flips and folds out of the way when you need access to the screen without the keyboard; you can actually tap and swipe through it, when necessary. It also folds up nicely with Apple's magnetically attached iPad covers.
If your lucky recipient is not a fan of typing on glass, the Touchfire makes a confident step toward keyboarding without adding any bulk.
