CruxSkunk iPad Keyboard
The
CruxSkunk is a Kickstarter project
that's finally coming to fruition. Priced at $229, it's an iPad keyboard that
aims to mirror the Apple design
aesthetic.
Microsoft's
Surface tablet
has yet to prove itself, but it won a lot of goodwill with its novel keyboard
cover, betraying a weakness in the iPad camp:
Although there are many keyboard accessories for Apple's tablet, none has really emerged as
the one that rises above the pack.
That's
exactly what the CruxSkunk wants
to be. A Kickstarter project,
the keyboard aims to be none other than the perfect complement for your iPad.
It's just 0.74 of an inch thin, made of solid aluminum and has a design that's
tailored to match the Apple aesthetic.
It also mirrors Apple pricing -- at $229, it's damn expensive as keyboard
accessories go.
That said,
Kickstarter's founders recently posted a note reminding its users that the site
-- filled with beautiful, ambitious projects -- is not a
store. It was a necessary reality check, and I can
see what they were getting at with the CruxSkunk now that I've been using one
for the past few days. While it has a lot going for it, if you buy it thinking
you'll turn your iPad into a MacBook
Air, you'll be disappointed.
Skunking the
iPad
The
CruxSkunk got a lot of positive press, including from Mashable,
when the Kickstarter campaign began, and why not? It's a gorgeous design idea,
taking the aesthetic of Apple's MacBook laptops,
mainly the aluminum material and chiclet-style keys, and fusing them into an
iPad keyboard. It even has Mac-centric buttons, labeled Command and Option. No
backlight, though, and no extra battery power for your iPad, since it connects
via Bluetooth.
The iPad
fits into an open frame attached to the keyboard. Don't forget to slip the
plastic holders over the iPad in the lower corners -- like I was doing for the
first day after I got the CruxSkunk -- or your iPad will fall out. With the
holders in place, your iPad is secure, and you can even rotate the keyboard
almost 360 degrees to use it as a simple stand -- handy in a plane seat.
After
putting my iPad in place, I started the pairing process. It's a little annoying
that the CruxSkunk uses a code for Bluetooth pairing, but I can forgive that. I
can even overlook that it took about a half-dozen attempts before I was able to
pair the Skunk with my iPad successfully.
What I can't
abide is the poor quality of the keys. For starters, a few keys on my review
unit occasionally got stuck in the frame when I depressed them, continuously
entering data until they were unjammed. On top of that, at least one of the
keys on my sample ("2/@") didn't work properly -- a flaw that would
necessitate a return.
Mystery Keys
There are
function keys along the top, but my unit didn't come with any instructions, so
I had to discern for myself what they did. The home button is easy enough, but
I still don't know what some of the other keys do -- mainly because when I
pressed them, they didn't do anything.
Some did
work, including home, photo frame, screen off and screen on. But that button
with the globe icon that looks like it should launch Safari or network
settings? No idea. Search? Forget it. At least the music volume controls did
what they were supposed to.
Overall,
though, the whole thing just feels unfinished, like someone grabbed the
CruxSkunk when it was about 75% through the production process before it got
some polishing and quality assurance. With a MacBook keyboard you get
smoothed-out edges and key displacement that's clearly tuned to tenths of a
millimeter, but the CruxSkunk has uncomfortably sharp cuts in the metal and
keys that just feel ... cheap.
The Mirage
of Kickstarter
This betrays
the weakness of Kickstarter, which I also encountered to a certain extent with
theHiddenRadio:
There's a world of difference between a great idea and the successful execution
of that idea. And the idea of the CruxSkunk is certainly great. Of
course it
would be fantastic to build a MacBook-style keyboard for an iPad.
But think
about how much design and engineering went into MacBook keyboards. They're made
by a company that's been building computers for well over 30 years and has
billions of dollars in the bank. The brand is iconic, has millions of customers
and employs some of the best industrial designers and engineers in the world.
Am I being
too hard on the CruxSkunk, made by a few guys on Kickstarter? I don't think so
-- especially since it promises right on the campaign page that it's made
"in the exact same process that Apple machines its MacBooks and iPads. The
aluminum parts are then sandblasted and anodized to give them the same finish
as your iPad."
Not quite.
And this is where the warning from Kickstarter's founders hits home: Although
the CruxSkunk sells the idea of pairing a MacBook-like keyboard with your iPad,
in reality it's not even that close. Yes, Kickstarter is most definitely not a
store -- it's an idea for a product that might, if you're lucky, end up
creating an object that's somewhere in the ballpark of what was originally
promised.
So if you
can approach the CruxSkunk with those realistic expectations, you might like
it, and the idea still has merit. But judging from the perch where that idea
resides, it falls short.
Will you be
buying or skipping the CruxSkunk? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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