Here are the best iPad Pro keyboard cases to pick up with your new tablet

Updated: Added five great keyboard cases for the iPad Pro 10.5-inch, including the Apple Smart Keyboard and Logitech Slim Combo.

The iPad Pro has been out for a while, giving accessory manufacturers plenty of time to design keyboards compatible with Apple’s biggest tablet. And while there are keyboards for the iPad Pro that don’t double as a protective case, we like the ones that add a little protection to your investment. That way, you’re protecting your tablet and always have a keyboard handy when you need it.

A touchscreen keyboard just isn’t the same as a traditional one. Luckily, many of the cases on our list will make you feel like you’re using a touchscreen MacBook, especially given their laptop-esque designs. They also come at varying price points, meaning you don’t need to spend a lot to net a physical keyboard. Below you’ll find our picks for the best iPad Pro keyboard cases, regardless of which model you opted for. Also, if you’re looking for content for your new tablet, be sure to check out our picks for the best iPad Pro games and our favorite drawing apps for the iPad Pro.

Keyboards for the iPad Pro 10.5

Apple Smart Keyboard ($160)

The first keyboard on our radar is, of course, Apple’s Smart Keyboard. This one is similar to the 9.7-inch smart keyboard, with the same shallow key travel and overall build quality. This iPad Pro keyboard case is a one-sided affair. It doesn’t cover your entire iPad like other keyboard cases, but it does make use of the Smart Connector, meaning you don’t need to pair it via Bluetooth. Like many Apple-branded products, however, this keyboard is pricey, but if you want ultimate compatibility and something that was built by Apple, then this should be your first choice.

Buy one now from:

Apple

Logitech Slim Combo ($130)

The new Logitech Slim Combo is, in some ways, what we wanted from Apple’s Smart Keyboard. This keyboard connects via the Smart Connector, just like Apple’s Smart Keyboard, so it requires no pairing. Physically, however, Logitech’s offering provides full-body protection. It also has a built-in holder for your Apple Pencil, and is spill-resistant and easy to clean. The case is a good choice if you want to ensure your iPad is protected, even if you need to detach the keyboard.

Buy one now from:

Apple Logitech

KuGi Keyboard Case ($32)

The aptly titled KuGi Keyboard Case is a good choice for those who don’t want to spend a lot of money on a keyboard that works with their tablet’s Smart Connector. This keyboard has a 250mAh battery, which should allow for about 90 hours of continuous use. When you run out of juice, the keyboard is rechargeable via the Micro USB connector. It’s thin, at only 1.5-millimeters thick, and weighs just over 14 ounces. The case also has a magnetic buckle that secures it when closed, and a place to store your Apple Pencil. There are precise cut-outs for your tablet’s camera and ports, too, so they’re more easily accessible. It currently comes in a variety of colors, including gold and rose gold, to match your iPad.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

IVSO Keyboard Case ($28)

Here’s an affordable keyboard case made from PU leather, with a microfiber interior that protects your iPad. What makes this option stand out is that the keyboard is held in place via magnets. You can slide the keyboard out and detach it from the case, allowing for a more comfortable typing position without requiring you to remove the case. You can also charge the keyboard using a Micro USB cable, which takes around 3 hours. Once charged, you can use the keyboard for an estimated 60 hours. It comes in an array of colors as well, including black, white, blue, gold, rose gold, and purple.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

MoKo Keyboard Case ($28)

This keyboard focuses on giving you a great tactile typing experience with scissor switches for the keys. Like the aforementioned IVSO keyboard, the MoKo Keyboard Case is also removable, so there’s no need to take off the case if you need to adjust the keyboard position. The leather is, of course, synthetic, but you can expect that at this price point. The inside lining is soft, but the rear exterior is tough, helping you to you to protect your tablet from unexpected drops. If you’re going to do a lot of typing on your iPad, then a quality tactile keyboard is a must, one that will allow for a fast and accurate typing experience.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

If you’re looking for alternative, non-keyboard cases, check out our picks for the best iPad Pro 10.5 cases.

Can’t decide which photos to toss? EyeEm’s AI helps you find the keepers

Why it matters to you

Can’t decide which selfie looks best? Finding the best shots to upload just got a little bit faster with some help from EyeEm’s AI system.

Think a computer can pick out your best photos? Artificial intelligence photo app EyeEm thinks it can. On June 22, EyeEm launched an update that now suggests photos from the camera roll to upload.

The feature, EyeEm Selects, is launching first to Android users. It will come to iOS in a future update, but a similar tool already exists in a separate EyeEm iOS app, called The Roll. The update builds on EyeEm’s existing AI photo network, EyeEm Vision, and introduces a way for the computer to automatically select the best shots.

EyeEm

EyeEm

To train the computer, a team of human photo curators collected “good” photos as the computer watched what was selected and what wasn’t. As the photo editors sorted through millions of photos, the computer learned a number of different qualities that makes a photo more likely to be selected.

Unlike other attempts to teach computers to recognize good photography, the system isn’t based on technical aspects, like whether the shot is sharp or if it uses the Rule of Thirds. “In an artistic medium like photography, photographers constantly explore and innovate,” said Appu Shaji, EyeEm’s head of research and development. “Images that deviate from the established rules are often the ones that evoke strong aesthetics. For this reason, we purposely dissuaded the photo curators from deconstructing the technical aspects and encouraged them to use their innate visual sense and judgement. We have thus developed our own aesthetic criteria with which to train our dataset.”

With the app update, users will see “EyeEm Selects” located above the camera roll. Tapping that option allows the system to search for the best photos. The entire process isn’t cloud-based, so the photos never leave the device and no one sees any of the files until they are uploaded, EyeEm says.

The feature is designed to help users find the hidden gems that already exist in the camera roll, but that simply weren’t shared right away. Machine learning and artificial intelligence is now a major part of photo apps. Besides EyeEm, companies – big and small – like Google, Apple, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Adobe, and others, are building AI into their software to handle everything from auto-tagging, face detection, and even best moments.

EyeEm, a Berlin-based company founded in 2011, is a mix of a social sharing and stock photos. The app offers tools like auto keywording (powered by the same EyeEm Vision AI system) and a sales agreement with Adobe Stock.

These are the official OnePlus cases for the OnePlus 5

You have stylish OnePlus 5 case options right from Day 1.

Even though its newer phones don’t offer removable backs like the OnePlus One and 2 did, OnePlus has put a notable amount of time into guaranteeing that you have a set of sleek, simple cases available to protect and personalize its phones. The legacy continues with the OnePlus 5, where OnePlus is launching a set of familiar wooden shells and a thicker bumper case at the same time as the phone.

Here’s what you can expect.

The first three cases (simply called a “Protective Case”) will be familiar to anyone who has seen the offerings for the OnePlus X or OnePlus 3 and 3T in the past. These super thin shells come in two different wood varieties, a “karbon” faux carbon fiber look, and the trademark “sandstone” finish, giving your OnePlus 5 a little bit of protection and style without adding much bulk.

There are big cutouts on the top, bottom, and sides to give you a “barely there” kind of feel. The cases feel great and look super unique. The sandstone one in particular offers a ton of extra grip in your hand, while the wood varieties are very rigid and thin with a lighter texture.

Then you have the new “Karbon Bumper Case,” which took the finish previously offered as an option on the thin shell case and applied it to a more complete bumper option. The Karbon Bumper Case wraps around the entirety of the phone and is a bit thicker, with rubber along the sides and a harder plastic on the back in a cool carbon fiber-like pattern. Overall, it offers further drop protection than the thin shells and provides a lip along the front of the phone so you could put it face-down on a table without scratching the glass.

The sandstone shell case retails for $19.95, while the wood and karbon protective shell cases are $24.95 each, and the karbon bumper case is $29.95. They’re available from the OnePlus store.

OnePlus 5

• Complete OnePlus 5 review
• Reviewing our first OnePlus 5 photos
• OnePlus 5 specs
• Which model should you buy?
• OnePlus 5 vs. Galaxy S8
• The latest OnePlus 5 news
• Join the discussion in the forums

OnePlus

A look at the Android smartphones still to come in 2017

Like sands through the hourglass, so does the smartphone release cycle seem churn in perpetuity.

Samsung, LG, and HTC may have been first to bat with their flagship smartphones, but there are still plenty more device launches to look forward to. The year is only halfway through, and with the launch of the fourth-generation OnePlus 5, we’re officially headed into the summer smartphone release season.

What’s left to see? There’s plenty, actually. We’ve put together a list of some of the marquee Android-powered smartphone releases we’re still waiting on to hit the scene later this year.

• ASUS ZenFone AR
• Motorola Moto X 2017
• Essential Phone
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8
• LG V30
• Google Pixel 2
• Huawei Mate 10

ASUS ZenFone AR

At the beginning of 2017, ASUS announced the ZenFone AR. It’s been more than 6 months, and the only time we’ve had with it was on the ground at Google I/O 2017, where it was teased in various demonstrations. The ZenFone AR has yet to materialize into something you can actually buy.

In August, however, it’ll launch exclusively at Verizon, though it’ll also be sold unlocked. This is the first phone bundled with both the appropriate camera hardware and an optimized Snapdragon 821 chip that can handle both Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. That’s also why it went missing for so long — the ZenFone AR underwent rigorous testing to ensure that both technologies could operate seamlessly on a mobile device.

For now, we’re waiting for the smartphone to hit Verizon before we take a dive into its abilities and test what it can really do with all that VR technology baked in.

Motorola Moto X 2017

As we learned from a revealing leak, the Moto X 2017 is part of the lengthy lineup of Motorola smartphones hitting the scene this summer. Following the launch of the Moto Z2, we should be seeing the Moto X 2017 debut fairly soon.

Motorola 2017 [via tip] pic.twitter.com/qahD9PIxrD

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) May 14, 2017

Thus far, leaks have pointed to the Moto X 2017 being powered by a Snapdragon 625 processor and 3GB of RAM, and that it’ll carry 32GB of onboard storage. It may also tout a dual camera setup— perhaps the “unlimited perfection” tagline that’s being used internally is a reference to a trick the main camera can do.

Essential Phone

The Essential Phone.

Andy Rubin’s pet project is finally gaining some momentum now that we know a bit more about it, including the fact that it’s launching later this year. The Essential Phone comes with a 5.7-inch QHD edge-to-edge display. It’s also powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 and offers 4GB of RAM, along with 128GB storage.

Other confirmed hardware specifications include USB-C, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, LTE support for all major U.S. carriers, fingerprint sensor at the back, an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter, and a 3,040mAh battery with fast charging abilities.

We don’t know of the official ship date for the phones just yet, but for now, you can check it out (or pre-order it) here.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

I like to refer to Samsung’s Galaxy Note as the summer’s repeat blockbuster hit. The company’s phablet-sized smartphone (can we really call it that anymore?) is usually announced rather loudly and with much fanfare in the Android scene during the month of August. The device also typically showcases some of Samsung’s future-facing mobile features; for example, the Note II was used to introduce the storable S Pen, while the ability to use iris scanning to unlock the phone was introduced with the Note 7.

Hot take: the Note 8 will probably look like the Galaxy S8 a bit, but with an S Pen in tow.

This year, the launch of the Galaxy Note 8 will no doubt be accommodated by a different air, considering last year’s fiery battery fiasco. That led way to a bit of unfavorable press about the Galaxy Note 7 and Samsung will have to act diligently to change the message behind this particular line of devices.

Fortunately for the company, the latest rumor sounds good so far. Our very own Alex Dobie offered some insight on the hearsay and what it can tell us about the Galaxy Note 8:

The Galaxy Note line has historically packed the latest and greatest specs, and that trend should continue in the Note 8. It’s likely we’ll see at least Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 9 series chips running the show, just like the GS8.

As Samsung looks to differentiate the Note line in ways other than sheer screen size, a jump to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage as standard is probable, too.

And that dual camera system we’ve been seeing in leaked Galaxy S8+ prototype photos is a good bet for the Note 8. Samsung showcased the Exynos 8895’s dual ISP (image signal processor) support in its announcement imagery, and chances are the company wouldn’t do that without having a specific product in mind.

We don’t yet have reliable evidence of what the Note 8 will look like, but it’s safe to say that it’ll resemble its sibling, the Galaxy S8. You can expect metal, glass, slim bezels, no buttons, rounded corners, and that extra-tall infinity display. Historically, Note devices have been a bit boxier than Galaxy smartphones, too, so slightly narrower corners and flatter sides are a possibility.

As for specs, we don’t know much about what will be inside the Galaxy Note 8, though we can infer that, like last year’s Note 7, it’ll operate on much of the same hardware as its predecessor. That means it’ll run on a Snapdragon 835 and 4GB of RAM, and shoot with the same 12-megapixel rear camera. Expect the battery size to be bigger, too — actually, expect a ton of emphasis on the battery.

LG V30

We actually don’t know if the V30 will be the moniker behind LG’s next smartphone, but we do know that whatever is next from LG will arrive ready to use with Daydream. At Google I/O, Google’s Clay Bavor had teased that the manufacturer’s next flagship would be compatible with the virtual reality spec.

Vice President of Virtual and Augmented Reality, Clay Bavor, teases the next LG phone in a slide at Google I/O 2017.

Since Daydream requires an AMOLED display, we can expect the V30 to have an OLED panel instead of LG’s usual choice of an IPS LCD display. (It seems the obvious choice if you consider LG has invested billions in OLED production.)

As for what else the LG V30 will be capable of? Well, that’s hard to say, since there isn’t much else out there on the forthcoming device. We can guess that it will likely employ a larger screen size, in addition to a G6-like 18:9 aspect ratio. It’s also likely to come equipped with a Snapdragon 835 and plenty of RAM, considering its virtual reality capabilities.

Based on the release pattern of its predecessors over the last two years, expect to hear more about the LG V30 later this summer.

Google Pixel 2

If you’ve been paying attention to the blogosphere, then you now that we’re mere months away from the debut of Google’s next Pixel device. Until recently, we figured we’d see two more additions to the stock Android lineup—essentially a big phone and a bigger phone. But then the rumor mill began churning, and now there are reports alleging that Google will scale it back a bit this year.

New Pixels are coming from Google. But how many will there actually be?

Here’s the low-down from our full Google Pixel 2 rumor roundup:

In March, it came out that a third potential Pixel device was being produced, codenamed “taimen”, likely bigger than both “walleye” and “muskie”.

At the time, we didn’t know much about the device, but in recent weeks it’s come out that “taimen” would be built by LG, not HTC, and would be larger than the “XL” version of HTC’s Pixel sequel, “muskie.” It was then revealed that Google in fact canceled the “muskie,” the larger of HTC’s Pixels, for “taimen,” leaving one HTC- and one LG-built Pixel phone for 2017.

We still know very little about what this LG-built Pixel looks like or its specs, but we can speculate as to why Google added LG to the equation this year.

Beyond that, we know very little about the Pixel 2, save for the fact that it will feature Android O. We don’t know what it will look like, nor do we know if the actual device will be water-resistant. We also don’t know what’s fueling it on the inside, though we figure it’ll at least come equipped with a Snapdragon 835.

Check back after the heat waves subside and the leaves begin changing colors. We’re expecting to hear more about the Pixel 2 in late September or early October.

Huawei Mate 10

There isn’t much to speculate about the Huawei Mate 10 at present, considering it’s been only 6 months since the Mate 9 has actually been on sale. But with the device’s top-notch build quality and the later addition of virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa helping infuse a bit of an edge, we can expect that the Mate 10 will be a major contender in the Android sphere, particularly overseas.

What are we missing?

The world of Android smartphones is big and vast, and there are likely more rumors headed this way. Are we missing anything you’re looking forward to? Let us know!

Best HTC Vive Experiences For Kids

What games can kids play on HTC Vive?

The HTC Vive is a wonderful VR system that has an incredible library of games and other experiences thanks to support through Steam. A lot of VR is based around shooting or scaring the pants off of you — blame it on the gun-like Vive controllers and the immersion level — but there are plenty of great experiences that are also suitable for children.

Remember, it’s never a bad idea to follow the recommended age guidelines set by the manufacturer. In HTC’s case, they recommend 13 and up, but that isn’t set in stone as long as you remain precautionary.

Read more at VR Heads!

Best Selfie Sticks for Galaxy S8

But first… Let me tell you that they’re not as bad as everyone says.

I’m as against selfie culture as anyone, but when you and the missus (or mister) are out on vacation and don’t feel like bothering anyone to take a photo of you, a selfie stick and really come in handy. And I’d honestly rather use a selfie stick than hand my Galaxy S8 to a stranger.

Here are the best selfie sticks to use with your Galaxy S8.

• Mpow iSnap extendable monopod
• Fugutek FT-568
• Anker wired monopod
• Perfectday foldable selfie stick
• TaoTronics extendable monopod

Mpow iSnap extendable monopod

Mpow is Amazon’s best-selling selfie stick and 84% of reviews are 4- or 5-star. This Bluetooth selfie stick pairs with your Galaxy S8, and the shutter button the stick then operates the shutter button your phone’s screen.

The Mpow stick features a spring-loaded mount, an extendable handle, and a 270-degree adjustable head to help you take photos at just about any angle your arm is capable of. If you don’t want to spend a lot but still want a quality selfie stick, Mpow should fall right in your price range, at about $10.

See at Amazon

Fugutek FT-568

Fugutek’s FT-568 isn’t just a selfie stick — it’s a full selfie taking kit. It features a spring-loaded phone mount for your GS8, but it also comes with a screw-on mount for your DSLR (there’s even a mirror for selfies!), in case you’re serious about your selfies.

This one comes with a Bluetooth remote, rather than having it built-in, and there is even limited zoom function for certain Android devices (not confirmed if it works on GS8). The fact that each extension level has a lock like a real tripod is an excellent feature.

You can get this one for around $20.

See at Amazon

Anker wired monopod

If you hate fiddling around with Bluetooth and just want a secure connection that’s sure to snap a photo every time, then check out Anker’s wired selfie stick, which just hooks into the headphone jack on your Galaxy S8. It then sips power from your phone the way headphones do.

With a 32-inch reach, Anker’s stick is perfect for group shots. It’s also compact and weighs just over a quarter of a pound, making it super portable. You get an 18-month warranty, like you do with all Anker products, and this one’s only around $11, so it’s perfect if you just want to try things out.

See at Amazon

Perfectday foldable selfie stick

Perfectday’s selfie stick features a head that rotates 270 degrees and a built-in Bluetooth shutter button for wirelessly snapping photos with your Galaxy S8. All you have to do is turn it on and pair it and you’re ready to go.

When folded down, this selfie stick is only a couple inches taller than your S8 and not quite as wide, so it’s nearly pocketable. It comes with a lifetime guarantee and starts at $8.

See at Amazon

TaoTronics extendable monopod

TaoTronics’ monopod (selfie stick — let’s be real) is a bit more of a luxury option in that it’s probably the best-looking selfie stick on this list. With one charge, you can take 30 hours’ worth of photos, so you’d definitely have to charge your Galaxy S8 long before needed to charge this device.

Made of aluminum, this stick is nice and light and it features smaller joints than the average selfie stick, so it has more points of stability, meaning steadier photos when fully extended. The included wristband should also help if you’re a bit of a butter fingers.

You can grab this one on Amazon for around $20.

See at Amazon

Stick it

Do you have a favorite selfie stick? Would you prefer to pummel selfie stick users with the very implement they so flagrantly use and abuse? Sound off in the comments below.

McDonald’s delivery is here, thanks to a partnership with UberEats

Yes, you read that headline correctly, after 43 years of sticking its ground and not offering a takeaway service, fast food mega-chain McDonald’s has teamed up with UberEats to offer takeaway Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets and McFlurrys.

• Don’t fancy cooking? Here are five takeaway apps to get food just by picking up your smartphone

The takeaway service has launched initially on a trial basis, with 22 restaurants in London, seven in Nottingham and three in Leeds taking part. Food-craving customers that live within a mile and a half of the participating restaurants will be able to order their food through the UberEats app, pay a £2.50 delivery charge regardless of order, and patiently wait for a courier on a moped or bicycle to turn up at their front door, food in hand.

Orders can be placed between 7am – 2am, so if you wake up and need a McMuffin, or get in from a night out and need some chicken nuggets, you’ll be able to get your food. No longer will you need to ask your taxi driver to pull into a drive-through.

The partnership with UberEats is almost definitely a reaction to the success of rival food delivery services such as Just Eat and Deliveroo. Analytics company NPD Group said food orders through these sort of apps hit 599 million in 2016 and worth £3.6 billion.

The move will also be due to the fact Burger King and KFC, both rival fast food chains, both have their own delivery services, launching in 2015 and 2017 respectively. KFC has a partnership with Just Eat.

• What is Uber and how does it work?

If all goes well, and we have no reason to believe it won’t, McDonald’s says it will look at expanding both the number of restaurants and number of cities that can sign up to the service. For a full list of participating restaurants in London, Nottingham and Leeds, head to the McDonald’s website.

Estonia will back up its government in a ‘digital embassy’

The rules on what governments can, and can’t, do with your personal data is based entirely on where the information is stored. Since tech companies shunt your stuff to servers across the globe, there’s a risk that an oppressive regime can use its rights to start peeking at your stuff. That’s why it’s interesting that Estonia has signed a deal to open what it’s calling the world’s first “data embassy” in Luxembourg.

Rather than trust a foreign country with its data, Estonia has essentially signed a deal to declare a server room in Luxembourg as Estonian soil. As a consequence, the same rights and protections afforded in the country proper should extend to the information stored in the “digital embassy.”

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Estonia was left as a dirt-poor nation with zero technological infrastructure. It decided to skip decades of legacy technology — including turning down an offer from Finland for its soon-to-be-discarded analog telephone network — and start fresh. Within 20 years, Estonia had become a digital paradise, with most of the government managed online.

That’s caused a huge technology boom in the country, which counts Skype, TransferWise, Kazaa, Fitsme and Playtech, amongst others, as local heroes. But it also means the country is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks from its neighbors in Russia. Which happened in 2007, when a Russian-led cyberattack crippled Estonia’s government and infrastructure in response to the moving of a contentious war memorial.

By signing a deal to essentially back up Estonia’s government in a foreign country, it should help bolster the land’s digital resilience. Not to mention that it could represent a different way of storing people’s data that respects domestic rights of its citizens.

Source: Estonia

NASA’s Curiosity rover is just a speck in this orbiter photo

At this distance, Curiosity looks like a tiny beetle crawling over volcanic rock. Electric blue, its protective shell stands out against the rough, jagged mountainside. In reality, this is an image shot by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, an observational craft floating 200 miles above the planet’s surface. We have, of course, seen Curiosity countless times before — it has a thing for selfies — but rarely from afar. In this photograph, you get a real sense of the planet’s natural beauty and how empty, or quiet it must seem compared to Earth. Not that Curiosity minds, of course.

The photograph was taken with the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on June 5th. These “observations” are recorded in a red band, blue-green band and an infrared band, which NASA then converts into traditional shades of red, green and blue. It makes the images easier to parse, however they’re not particularly accurate from a color perspective. That’s why Curiosity looks so blue — in reality, it’s a mixture of white, grey and black (no doubt with some orange, baked-on dirt too). Still, it’s nice to see the car-sized robot in a different light.

Via: Popular Science

Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Amazon is prepping Echo Show for launch with visual Alexa cards

If you’re a fan of Alexa, then this announcement might be good news for you. Amazon announced that they are adding a Display Cards feature to the voice assistant that will allow Alexa to respond visually to certain queries.

Alexa will be able to produce visual responses to questions about the weather, to do and shopping lists, your calendar and show you Now Playing information for music. It’s currently only available to developers, who can use the AVS Developer Console to enable Display Cards, but it gives us a better idea of what apps will look like across screens in Alexa’s new GUI.

This announcement goes hand in hand with the announcement of the Amazon Echo Show, an Echo device with a 7-inch touchscreen that’s been criticized for its boxy appearance. It also comes packed with eight microphones, a front-facing camera and a Dolby speaker. You can pre-order the Echo Show now for $230 in the US; it’s scheduled to ship starting June 28.

Source: Amazon