The quest for the ultimate keyboard for iPad is over: Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover

I would have loved something like the apple wireless keyboard to appear on the market attached to the iPad like a smart cover.

My wishes have almost come True.

Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover to the rescue:

http://www.logitech.com/de-ch/tablet-accessories/keyboards/devices/ultrathin-keyboard-cover?WT.ac=ps|9859|hp

If the keyboard is a bit better than the old zagg/logitech product it's a 100% BUY!

It's probably not as comfortable as the wireless keyboard from Apple but it might fit.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/18/2958455/logitech-ultrathin-keyboard-cover-ipad-impressions
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/logitech-ultrathin-keyboard-cover-for-the-ipad-smart-cover-meets-keyboard/7511

Accessory: Stump stand comes with a nice rubber band (;))

If you buy a stump stand it comes with an additional accessory at no cost; the rubber band.

From the beginning I liked the stand and think it is currently king, but also the rubber band has its benefits, e.g. as an additional layer of security on your wallet.

By the way this photo was taken the now old iPad 2. I hope these grainy kind of pictures will  not have cult following as some other do. Did I mention that the photo is really ugly?

Will I buy the new iPad?

Draft version 0.1:

In my original post about a possible iPad 3 I listed several things that I would need to be more happy with the iPad in office and private use:

Touch and pen.
No more notebooks to write into at meetings etc. Must also be as good as Windows 7 Tablet PC recognition of the handwriting, i.e. display the scribble but in the background store as text (makes search much easier). Did I say multilingual? English, German, French, Italian and whatever else it must just be prepared for sentences that are completely mixed.
Currently I tried Pogo stylus and an notebook app but not practical during daily usage. Nowadays I use my finger to scribble something down.
Other features.
Better screen (resolution, brightness, dailight/glare protection, magic OLED), smart cover with keyboard, wireless sync, pdf and epub central storage with all apps access and pdf annotations, Visio for iPad, new Os that does not rely on the apps selection; today I have 7 pages full of apps and groups with apps, it just takes to long to find the right app and switching between apps is also not good. Get rid of the button for accessing the running apps. Gestures a must.

What has been solved in the mean time:

• Wireless sync: 
• Yes it is here and it works, I don't have to connect my kids iPod touch to the main computer to get a new song or album on their iPod, Hooray!! 
• Now it's that easy that iMom can assign it. (some troubleshooting is still necessary, as some of the devices seem to disappear from the connected list: restart wireless on iPod, restart iTunes on Mac; that usually does the it.)
• Gestures for switching between apps: 
• Solution is working great; I even appreciate it more since my iPad home button does not want to work all the time (have been to an apple store and wanted to show them how bad it is and during that time it worked flawlessly, also the slight appearance of yellow (about 1 - 1.5 mm of the screen from the bottom) did not really show up.

What the new iPad solves:

• Better resolution and color gamut, most probably not the glare, daylight resilience

What the newer iOS/apps versions solved:

• iBooks:
• just with the announcement of the new iPad there came an updated version of iBooks which introduced a nice highlighting feature for epub. Just swipe over some text and it automatically gets highlighted. I do that very often in PDFs but not in epubs. And no, they still haven't introduced anything to annotate PDFs. (I use Goodreader, but the UI is not comfortable and efficient to use and I want all my books in iBooks and not spread over many applications, where I sometimes end up with multiple copies. 
• Please make it possible for 3rd party applications to access and edit the files in the iBooks part of storage!!

Why Samsung was right to publish the stylus and multitasking comparison:

• The pen:
• yes definitely needed, since I want to get rid of paper notebooks and paper drawings as soon as possible. I was happy with what motion computing provided me with many years ago; I mean what my previous company was able to afford me to test. The device cost around $3500 at that time.
• Today I make do with an Alupen, which is a great product, compared to many styluses that I tested, but it does not really fit my hand and no matter what pen I used I was never able to actually do what I could do on a piece of paper, especially not letter/a4 size. Most of the time I'm able to in landscape mode about 40 characters most, otherwise it is unreadable.
• outstanding task is to test the bamboo stylus for iPad, but I don't expect it to overcome most of the issues that I have today, which I did not have with Windows and Motion Computing
• Also don't forget, that all pen input is useless unless it is run through an OCR. The whole reason of going digital is to be able to search your notes and not only store more notebooks to skim through. Windows did here many years ago a good job, because some application allowed to keep the handwriting but do an OCR in the background.   
• Applications side by side:
• another must. I have found out that I'm doing many tasks a day that require me to write some note or do some drawing while I need the PC as input. I.e. only working on the iPad I have to switch many times between the apps, which is possible and quite easy due to the introduced gestures, but a side by side view or even some kind of transparent overlay mode would make me more productive.

sources:
http://stadt-bremerhaven.de/samsung-galaxy-note-10-1-ist-besser-als-das-neue-ipad/
http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/03/07/samsung.struggles.to.make.note.101.vs.ipad.look/

Pricewatch: Logitech Keyboard Case for iPad2 only $69/CHF69

There should be a smart cover with built in keyboard, but there isn't so I'm still looking to buy the right solution.

• original iPad keyboard: too big, clumsy and no landscape
• Apple wireless keyboard: too big, no real stand for portrait, as smart cover only is landscape and at a low angle.
• Logitech/Zagg: very promising, have not been able to really test anywhere, but I see it now more often and now it's only $69/CHF69 which is a good price. Still I would need a keyboard to go with iPad, iPad 2 and new iPad in portrait and landscape.

Most promising: Zagg Folio, hope I can check it out at one point. I don't like the packages just the raw keyboard.

Update: Was able to test Logitech/Zagg it for 30 minutes at a local store and came to the conclusion that the keys are not big enough and that mistype quite a lot. It has some advantages compared to all the folios out there that make everything bigger and heavier. Also I saw people working on their laps with it, but I would be worried about a possible drop. For protection today I use Belkin snap case, which is ok, but they break to easily if you attach detach them (had already 2 broken because of this).

Most beloved iPad stand (stump stand 25$)

Using the smart cover on iPad 2 is a potential risk to your iPad health; not only does it get scratched but also in tough circumstances you'll might accidentially destroy you iPad because catching the smart cover on an iPad on it's way to the floor is not advantageous, at least not for your iPad.

And using it daily you'll notice another shortcomming. You might want to put your iPad in portrait  elevated mode but that's not possible and in my case I need the landscape elevated mode but the dock connector is always in the way. As a workaround I sometimes would just put the iPad on top of the folded  smart cover in portrait or 180 landscape mode but the angle is not flexible enough.

If you have ever been to an apple shop you know how nice their iPad presentation stands are, still they are missing the high view position but at least they are very flexible.

But ever since I saw this Stump Stand in the apple online store, I fell in love with it and it has proven itself very well. I wish I could afford about 5 or 6 of them and just leave them on each cupboard, table etc.

If you are like me and need a very flexible small stand for business or private make sure you check out this product. There are 2 thing they need to solve to make me more happy than I am already:

• fix the colors, I need white. Somehow they change colors (it has at one point existed in white) and do not really make others available again. I would go for blue or white, but chose red. The black did not look great with my white iPad.
• improve the lean mode, as it is somewhat dangerous. They point this out on the webpage and in the card that comes with the product, but maybe they find a way to improve this (challenge).

http://www.stumpstore.com/

Screenshot from their webpage:

In my opinion the best!

And available in some Apple online store, but not US!

Available colors in CH:

Did I already mention that I need the white? Please make it available again.