How to pair a Bluetooth Keyboard with an iPad
I figured out something that was a bit unintuitive. I have an Apple Wireless Bluetooth keyboard paired with a Mac. I wanted to see if it works on my iPad. I went to Bluetooth->Disconnect on the Mac and the keyboard showed up in the iPad Bluetooth discovery screen but it wouldn’t pair.
I just happened to find a method to get this working:
- Select disconnect on the Mac.
- Turn off bluetooth completely on the Mac.
- Hold down the power button on the keyboard to turn it off.
- Press the power button once on the keyboard to turn it on.
- The keyboard will show up in the iPad bluetooth list as before but now when you click it, the keyboard light will start flashing as it pairs.
- The iPad will tell you to type a code and enter.
- Good to go!
It works for text areas in the browser and email windows. The on-screen keyboard doesn’t appear. It’s way faster to enter a blog post like this (hehe). It doesn’t seem to work for navigating menus (with the arrow keys or anything). Think of it as a replacement for the on screen keyboard.
Also, be aware that you do have to unpair with the computer. Pairing means 1-to-1. Not 1-to-many. This is how bluetooth (even on PC) works unfortunately. If you want to broadcast keyboard strokes out to many computers you’ll have to use something like VNC. Unfortunately there isn’t a VNC server that I know of for the iPad yet (if ever). The iPhone versions of VNC require you to jailbreak your phone which can be a pain if you like “quick and easy”. I rarely use my bluetooth keyboard on my media center so I didn’t buy a second one. Your mileage may vary.
Hope this helps someone! Post a comment if it did.
Thank you I was having the same issue getting my Apple wireless keyboard to “unpair” with my MacBook so that the iPad would discover it.
Awesome.
Do you have to unpair it from your iMac to have it work on the iPad?
I was hoping I could share it between the 2
Thanks for the help
Yes. This is true with all bluetooth devices. They can’t be shared.
Thanks Dillon… I was thinking till you told me that this was Apple specific. If it’s the way with all bluetooth then I can deal with it much better.
iPad is way too cool to own, i wanna buy one next month.
I am using iSSH to do VNC. It’s not free, and using it can be frustrating at times, because I’m not ever sure whether it will register a touch as a click or a screen-drag, but it’s nice to know my home workstation is available to me.
Thank you, that was so straightforward!!
I gave my girlfriend an ipad and then I spammed your blog. Akismet caught me but the admin edited my comment to make me look like an idiot. I’m slow and smelly.
Thanks very much for the step-by-step. I’d looked for quite awhile to find this relatively simple switching solution.
My iPad has some display problems and I cannot fix the damn thing.
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Thanks for the advice on pairing the Bluetooth Keyboard. Being new to Apple, it is taking me a lot of time to learn the in’s and out’s. I spent hours trying to pair my keyboard to the iPad. Finally I found this blog, followed the directions step by step, and BINGO, it works like a charm ! Thanks!!
Thanks for the tip. I had hours in pairing when i read your article and in two minutes…bang…i am up and running !
Thankfully I found this article before wasting too much time trying to pair my iPad/Keyboard. I wasted minutes instead of hours. Why doesn’t Apple clarify this in the instruction booklet?
BTW, after restarting my Mac, I did not have to repeat the earlier pairing procedure.
Thanks for the tip.