And then there’s the glass trackpad, which is one of the Magic Keyboard’s biggest selling points. I was a little concerned at first because it’s much wider than it is tall, which seems less than ideal for vertical scrolling. The reality wasn’t nearly as grim: It’s totally fine for scrolling, and because it’s plenty wide, multitouch gestures (for swiping through open apps) worked beautifully. More importantly, the trackpad offers precision control for tasks that would’ve felt pretty fiddly on a touchscreen, like plopping the cursor into the middle of a sentence and selecting text to copy. I can’t overstate how much this thing helps the iPad feel like a machine I can get work done on. I wouldn’t have minded a bigger trackpad, but hey — this is still far better than most of the trackpads I’ve used on Windows laptops.

Really, the few problems I’ve run into while using the Magic Keyboard aren’t really Apple’s fault. Certain apps — like Google’s suite of productivity software — haven’t been updated for the new version of iPadOS, so you can’t easily select text in Docs or Gmail. And some apps, like Adobe’s Lightroom, still expect an actual finger-on-screen touch instead of trackpad tap on certain menu items, so you’ll occasionally have to reach up and touch the screen anyway. This should all get sorted out eventually, but expect a few hiccups for the time being.

It’s expensive

The 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard I’ve been testing costs $350, which seems a little outlandish for a glorified keyboard dock. (That’s basically iPhone SE money!) Think about this: You could buy a Magic Trackpad and one of Apple’s Bluetooth keyboards for $230, leaving you with $120 to spend on some kind of fancy case to prop up your iPad.

If you’d prefer not to carry so much gear around, you could nab that same trackpad and one of Logitech’s Bluetooth keyboard cases for the iPad Pro, and still have plenty of cash left for takeout. Yes, the Magic Keyboard is much more elegant. But you could put together a similar setup for less money.

Don’t get me wrong, the Magic Keyboard is fantastic, far better than any other keyboard solution Apple has ever built for its tablets. But it’s also quirky enough that you really, really have to be sold on Apple’s approach to choose this over any number of alternatives.