It has it's charms, and even does somethings better than a physical keyboard.
For instance, try tapping and holding various keys. Many of them hide alternate letters and symbols. When they appear, just slide your finger to the one you want. I find it handy when going to the Duolingo site in the iPad. Makes it easy to enter the occasional umlaut or accented vowel without having to switch languages on the keyboard. For the most part the alternates make sense.
For example: tap/hold and slide 'a' to get ã, Ã¥, ā, à , á, â, ä, or æ. Handy if you ever want to spell Cæsar the old way.
Edited to add example, because I was on the computer, but that part was easier to do on the iPad.