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For some reason, a small and backward-looking pool of people in the tech industry still believe that people hate typing on touch screens. Hence this plastic monstrosity, that seemingly aims to convert your sleek iPhone into a lumpen BlackBerry. Err, thanks?
A Kickstarter campaign that — against all odds — succeeded, Spike’s TypeSmart keyboard swivels out from a case to lie on top of the iPhone’s screen. It doesn’t need separate charging, docking, or an app; rather, it’s a physical keyboard which uses capacitive conductivity to link your touch to the iPhone screen though the keyboard’s buttons.
All of which might be interesting, if we hadn’t all gotten used to typing on touchscreens. By now, nobody really grumbles about tapping out the short passages of text that phones and tablets are used to create — so this keyboard only solves a problem that people thought was an issue a couple of years back.
If, however, you like the idea of turning your iPhone into some kind of mutant BlackBerry, the Spike TypeSmart will be available for iPhone 4 and 4s from February for about £32. The mixed-blessing — and inherent time lag — of Kickstarter being what it is, an iPhone 5 version will follow later. [Spike via CNET]
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This small Kickstarter project could be the nail in Blackberry’s coffin
They said in the shop i could do anything with my smartphone.. so i made it into a blackberry..
think this may be the most pointless add on ever
Pass the sick bucket!
Some people dont like change!
Seriously? There’s still loads of people who can’t get to grips with smartphone keyboards. It may be difficult for the rest of us to understand how that could possibly be, but I only have to watch one of my parents attempt to type on a touchscreen keyboard to see how hard it is for them.
That said, this is hardly an ideal solution. Constantly flipping that keyboard back and forth could be a real bind.
This looks great! I’ll be sure to buy one, right after I’ve bought some stabilisers for my push bike.
Even with my Galaxy Note II and its huge screen, I still get absolutely nowhere near the accuracy and speed I got with my old qwerty Nokia E63. Touchscreen keyboards suck, and I’m definitely not the only one who feels that way. We need more top-end qwerty smartphones. I agree that this thing is stupid though, probably feels exactly the same as using a touchscreen.
I’m getting SERIOUSLY passed off with modern technology ignoring the older generation. Not all of us have nibble fingers of a teenager (or the eye sight). This device is therefore a GOOD idea.
See, I can’t even write a simple reply on these tiny touchscreen graphics and inaccurate predictive text!
Have you actually tried typing on a iphone? I was sceptical before I made the switch!
I have, and the mere thought of trying to reply on an iphone/touchscreen makes me cringe and I will always wait until I’m on my laptop before replying.
Sometimes I will use the gesture keyboard on my Sony phone but only for very short comments.
The fact is touch screen keyboards are not better than physical keyboards/keypads, they’re not even equal. Swype and gesture based keyboards do have the benefit of predicting text but we’ve had T9 predictive text with our old school phones.
Just because we’ve stopped grumbling about it doesn’t mean it’s fine.
I like the last sentence! “Just because we’ve stopped grumbling about it doesn’t mean it’s fine.”
Yes, and I have an iPod and two Android phones. But my old Nokia is a joy to txt on; not having to look at the screen and being able to rest your fingers on actually buttons.
That is one of the advantages of a physical keyboard!
Awful
Let’s see now: Jamie says that this is pointless because people are happy to type short messages using the onscreen keyboard. What point it could possibly? I mean, with short messages taken care of, what else is there? I have never seen a chuck of text longer than 144 characters long in my life. Oh wait…
What’s the big deal?
For a start it was funded by Kickstarter so somebody must be interested in it.
This might even get people who would never use a smartphone interested. They may make the transition to screen keyboards a bit slower or perhaps even never, who gives a shit?
Touch screen keyboards suck. It isn’t a matter of getting used to it, they are just flat out terrible.