I'm not disputing the need for a keyboard. I'm just wondering why it has to be Bluetooth, when the easiest way to be able to see the screen and type at the same time would be to build in a dock. Otherwise you'll need a stand for the iPhone and will knock it over on a regular basis.
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Bluetooth keyboard with iPhone?
- Thread starter noriyori
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I'm not disputing the need for a keyboard. I'm just wondering why it has to be Bluetooth, when the easiest way to be able to see the screen and type at the same time would be to build in a dock. Otherwise you'll need a stand for the iPhone and will knock it over on a regular basis.
Agreed: Keyboard (not bluetooth) is the point
I agree -- personally I don't care whether Apple offers an external keyboard that runs via Bluetooth or docking -- just that they offer one!
There is an iPhone dock available (http://urltea.com/39pk) for syncing and charging -- but I don't know if the hardware and firmware behind the iPhone's docking port would support a keyboard. If so, great. If not, then a Bluetooth keyboard approach would probably be more efficient to implement.
I don't care how they do it. I just hope they do it. I'm a journalist. I write articles and blog posts in the field. I need a real keyboard, and as much as I love my Macbook pro, I hate lugging a laptop. And no, the Macbook Air doesn't suit my needs either.
Apple, I hope you decide to offer this option.
- Amy Gahran
I agree -- personally I don't care whether Apple offers an external keyboard that runs via Bluetooth or docking -- just that they offer one!
There is an iPhone dock available (http://urltea.com/39pk) for syncing and charging -- but I don't know if the hardware and firmware behind the iPhone's docking port would support a keyboard. If so, great. If not, then a Bluetooth keyboard approach would probably be more efficient to implement.
I don't care how they do it. I just hope they do it. I'm a journalist. I write articles and blog posts in the field. I need a real keyboard, and as much as I love my Macbook pro, I hate lugging a laptop. And no, the Macbook Air doesn't suit my needs either.
Apple, I hope you decide to offer this option.
- Amy Gahran
Could someone other than Apple make one, now that they can install their software drivers on the iPhone? Hope so...
i need a keyboard
I'm going to be out for weeks on a Himalayan trek and want to keep a diary. A keyboard would be REALLY helpful...
I'm going to be out for weeks on a Himalayan trek and want to keep a diary. A keyboard would be REALLY helpful...
Bluetooth keyboard
A small folding Bluetooth keyboard would be ideal to carry in a shirt pocket together with an iPhone when travelling abroad instead of a bulky MacBook.
The MacBook is not bulky when sitting on a table, but becomes a large extra lump when you have a suitcase and possibly a rollerbag when lining up at the check-in desk!
And no, I am not going to add the unnecessary tag line: 24" Aluminum iMac (2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD); 1TB Time Capsule; 8GB iPhone; 40GB iPod; VoIP phone; Wireless Router; MacBook; Carrying case; Sandwiches and Cafe Latte as a tag line, as some people think others want to know about!
A small folding Bluetooth keyboard would be ideal to carry in a shirt pocket together with an iPhone when travelling abroad instead of a bulky MacBook.
The MacBook is not bulky when sitting on a table, but becomes a large extra lump when you have a suitcase and possibly a rollerbag when lining up at the check-in desk!
And no, I am not going to add the unnecessary tag line: 24" Aluminum iMac (2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD); 1TB Time Capsule; 8GB iPhone; 40GB iPod; VoIP phone; Wireless Router; MacBook; Carrying case; Sandwiches and Cafe Latte as a tag line, as some people think others want to know about!
All I hear is: I want a small keyboard, I want a folding keyboars, something I can plug the phone into and use a keyboards.
That's all a step back guys. Seriously. The future and totally iPhone worthy, perhaps apple could even make their own version for a 175% markup!!!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/
Bluetooth Laser Projection Keyboard. It'd fit in your other pocket and you could put it on any desk or table.
(I can't believe no one mentioned this yet)
That's all a step back guys. Seriously. The future and totally iPhone worthy, perhaps apple could even make their own version for a 175% markup!!!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/
Bluetooth Laser Projection Keyboard. It'd fit in your other pocket and you could put it on any desk or table.
(I can't believe no one mentioned this yet)
The MacAlly BTKeyMini was announced way back in January and still isn't out. Could be stuck in the approval mill, as the drivers would need to be provided by Apple in an OS update, or could be vaporware.
.
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Keyboard not a step back
Having a keyboard is not a step back. Having a great touch screen or voice recognition/translation are both great steps forward, but one does not negate the usefulness of the other.
To me, the future is flexible, not just a sequence where existing is terminated and new is the only way. I want a fully modular solution where the radio, data, and processors are linked, and maybe hidden in my clothing. The IO stuff should be up to me. The apps, more processing, more storage, etc can be out in the network and optionally brought into the picture. This way, I can walk into a store and find what I want fast. I can embed stuff in my daily life so I don't have to wear or tote around an arsenal of junk. This is a wide open and converging info world we are entering. Today, TV is a service; tomorrow TV will just be a device and content will be the service, regardless of the device.
IPhone is just a milestone along the way. [I still want the option of using a keyboard! ]
Having a keyboard is not a step back. Having a great touch screen or voice recognition/translation are both great steps forward, but one does not negate the usefulness of the other.
To me, the future is flexible, not just a sequence where existing is terminated and new is the only way. I want a fully modular solution where the radio, data, and processors are linked, and maybe hidden in my clothing. The IO stuff should be up to me. The apps, more processing, more storage, etc can be out in the network and optionally brought into the picture. This way, I can walk into a store and find what I want fast. I can embed stuff in my daily life so I don't have to wear or tote around an arsenal of junk. This is a wide open and converging info world we are entering. Today, TV is a service; tomorrow TV will just be a device and content will be the service, regardless of the device.
IPhone is just a milestone along the way. [I still want the option of using a keyboard!
]Docking Station
I wouldn't want to take away from the portability but it would be real nice to have the equivalent of a docking station. A docking station that has a keyboard that would also charge the phone. You don't think that would be sweet?
I wouldn't want to take away from the portability but it would be real nice to have the equivalent of a docking station. A docking station that has a keyboard that would also charge the phone. You don't think that would be sweet?
So I am sitting here typing on my Apple BT keyboard connected to my iMac. I wonder why people wouldn't want me to have the ability to pair it to my phone. The capability should be there. I have ordered an HTC Touch HD in part because of the iPhone's limited BT.
Is BT on the phone possibly limited because Apple is working on a way to allow more BT capabilities while developing a way for ATT to anal rape you if attempt to tether?
Can they open the stack for some things but limit others? I heard the possibility that tethering when it comes will be through iTunes. I am guessing that this will be how they allow BT to open while still milking out $30 a month in tethering fees (not that Apple gets revenue sharing anymore but they must have some contractual obligations here). You open iTunes and it asks if you wish to tether and reports to ATT. You later get the $30 dollar added tethering plan billed to you automatically.
I could be way off on my guess here but if Apple would open the BT they could snatch many WM customers. This is no small complaint. It is funny on this forum you get some users that wish they had certain functions so they could ditch WM. On WM forums you get people wanting other features so they could switch to an iPhone.
Evidently I don't according to some deserve to own an iPhone because if I could I would pair my keyboard to it right now. Why? Because I can. It can be done and there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be done.
Please let me have my cake and eat it too.
Is BT on the phone possibly limited because Apple is working on a way to allow more BT capabilities while developing a way for ATT to anal rape you if attempt to tether?
Can they open the stack for some things but limit others? I heard the possibility that tethering when it comes will be through iTunes. I am guessing that this will be how they allow BT to open while still milking out $30 a month in tethering fees (not that Apple gets revenue sharing anymore but they must have some contractual obligations here). You open iTunes and it asks if you wish to tether and reports to ATT. You later get the $30 dollar added tethering plan billed to you automatically.
I could be way off on my guess here but if Apple would open the BT they could snatch many WM customers. This is no small complaint. It is funny on this forum you get some users that wish they had certain functions so they could ditch WM. On WM forums you get people wanting other features so they could switch to an iPhone.
Evidently I don't according to some deserve to own an iPhone because if I could I would pair my keyboard to it right now. Why? Because I can. It can be done and there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be done.
Please let me have my cake and eat it too.
Yep. Indeed, it's a trivially easy thing to do under the Bluetooth spec which defines such services specially just to make them easier to allow/disallow (indeed, it's what Apple already do to block everything but bt voice headsets).
That's not the problem.
Phazer
Okay if it is easy to enable that shoots down my earlier theory. So the next question would be..... if it is that easy what is the reason they don't do it?
The best explanation I've seen is that Apple is deathly paranoid of theft. From what I've read elsewhere, the bluetooth stack in the phone, by default, pairs with almost anything. Thanks to Apple's needless paranoia, it now pairs with almost nothing. So instead of being able to take the iPhone and a nice stereo headset with me to the gym, I either take my Tilt or those piece of s**t Apple earbuds that don't fit and get tangled around everything all the time. Can't pair with a keyboard, a computer, a headset, a GPS...not a single bluetooth device I own pairs with the iPhone while they ALL pair perfectly with every Windows Mobile phone I own. What a waste. What Apple should have done was display an image of the middle finger when you turn on bluetooth or the GPS.
Oh...you deserve an iPhone when you can afford an iPhone. End of story. Who cares what anyone else thinks? We'd still be using 5 pound phones with 10 minute battery life and LED displays if it was left to some people.
Oh...you deserve an iPhone when you can afford an iPhone. End of story. Who cares what anyone else thinks? We'd still be using 5 pound phones with 10 minute battery life and LED displays if it was left to some people.
That is the dumbest reason |I have ever heard. I am not directing that comment at you but Apple if that is the reality. I just can't imagine that some thing so stupid would be what is stopping the show on this one.
Same reason they don't put in MMS or copy and paste or video recording or a million other things.
Because they've gone crazy and think that moving the browser bar around in Safari is more important.
In all seriousness even if the stack was opened up, it would still technically require a driver to be written for keyboards, and presumably Apple doesn't want to do that because it doesn't have a phone handy bluetooth keyboard to sell you at the moment. They won't let the SDK touch the Bluetooth stack because of their fears that people could transfer music (which every other phone can do, and iTunes tracks with DRM wouldn't be transferable anyway or they could just block access to the music directory), and because they want to force people to use the dock connector (and for a third party accessory manufacturer to use the dock they have to ask Apple and pay a licencing fee).
I really think Apple needs to learn that if it's going to keep the phone as locked down as it is, that means they are now responsible for making the OS a LOT better than it is, and they should be throwing considerably more resources at iPhone software development, and hence they're going to have to fix things that don't make them much money straight off. But hey.
Phazer
Missing the point...
[Oop. Just noticed what you said at the end about seeing the appeal, but this kind of applies to other postings as well as yours so I'm still posting it with this small edit. By the way. I don't think anyone is knocking touchscreen. A new technology need not completely usurp a traditional one though. There are people working on producing tactile feedback for touch technology (giving the feel of touching a button even though one isn't there - think it's something to do with vibration or electromagnetic fields but memory is fuzzy on the exact technique) so maybe touchtype keyboards won't dissapear as such but just go virtual - but obviously only on devices larger than the iphone.]
You are making the massive mistake of equating new with better.
Until a new technology can do BETTER than an old technology it will not usurp it.
So let's look at the pros and cons of different text entry types:
TOUCHSCREEN:
Pros:
Great on the go, and therefore good for text messages
Cons:
but occasionally you can mistype and the suggestions for spelling corrections are nowhere NEAR good enough yet. Obviously that can be improved with upgrades but I'd say the typing speed would be 25 words per minute max.
VOICE RECOGNITION:
Pros:
Types what you speak
Cons:
In a quiet office or washroom, maybe. On an iphone with traffic noises in the background and your friends "Hey what's that you're doing" "shut up I'm trying to use voice recognition" interrupting what you're doing? Not likely. Oh and forget it if you have a weird accent. I think apple said it all when they printed the t-shirts for their voice recognition group years back. They bore the slogan "I helped Apple to wreck a nice beach". Give it a couple more decades of intelligent word-recognition algorithms, voice type and accent algorithms and advanced noise filters and even then I bet it will still 'hiccup' every now and then..
BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD:
Pros:
If you know touch typing and want to write e-mails, documents and long notes then there's no other option. There is no way I could get up to 50 words per minute on an iphone touchscreen and my tt speed ALWAYS exceeds that even at my slowest - even with this faulty keyboard (sticky 'c' button and spacebar). For people who use the iphone as just a phone and something to write texts on and maybe pour their ibeer from iphone to iphone (sorry, just a totally pointless app I saw the other day - no way I'd pay for THAT even at 59 cents) then, no, you don't need a bluetooth keyboard. Until they invent something better that can be used quickly and accurately in a noisy environment.
Cons:
Potential for mechanical failure. Can be bulky. Not so fast if you don't touchtype. These are the only cons I can think of and the first two aren't often the case with quality keyboards. Something like the think outside stowaway universal bluetooth keyboard (catchy little title!) would pretty much eliminate the first two (folds away to roughly the same size as an iphone, maybe a little bigger, but folds out to full size keys making touchtyping possible. Exceedingly good build quality making key failure unlikely for a very long time) and a few lessons in touchtyping eliminates the third.
SLIDE OUT KEYBOARD
I'm not going to even bother with pros. This is too small to touchtype so why would you need it? The accuracy rating would be roughly equivalent to that of the iphone touchscreen keyboard. Would bulk up a slimline device. If I'm going to bulk up my iphone I'd go for larger battery capacity, built in proper GPS, a larger hard drive, video out socket and SD card reader before I went for a slide out keyboard. Heck, I'd NEVER go for that keyboard...
[Oop. Just noticed what you said at the end about seeing the appeal, but this kind of applies to other postings as well as yours so I'm still posting it with this small edit. By the way. I don't think anyone is knocking touchscreen. A new technology need not completely usurp a traditional one though. There are people working on producing tactile feedback for touch technology (giving the feel of touching a button even though one isn't there - think it's something to do with vibration or electromagnetic fields but memory is fuzzy on the exact technique) so maybe touchtype keyboards won't dissapear as such but just go virtual - but obviously only on devices larger than the iphone.]
You are making the massive mistake of equating new with better.
Until a new technology can do BETTER than an old technology it will not usurp it.
So let's look at the pros and cons of different text entry types:
TOUCHSCREEN:
Pros:
Great on the go, and therefore good for text messages
Cons:
but occasionally you can mistype and the suggestions for spelling corrections are nowhere NEAR good enough yet. Obviously that can be improved with upgrades but I'd say the typing speed would be 25 words per minute max.
VOICE RECOGNITION:
Pros:
Types what you speak
Cons:
In a quiet office or washroom, maybe. On an iphone with traffic noises in the background and your friends "Hey what's that you're doing" "shut up I'm trying to use voice recognition" interrupting what you're doing? Not likely. Oh and forget it if you have a weird accent. I think apple said it all when they printed the t-shirts for their voice recognition group years back. They bore the slogan "I helped Apple to wreck a nice beach". Give it a couple more decades of intelligent word-recognition algorithms, voice type and accent algorithms and advanced noise filters and even then I bet it will still 'hiccup' every now and then..
BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD:
Pros:
If you know touch typing and want to write e-mails, documents and long notes then there's no other option. There is no way I could get up to 50 words per minute on an iphone touchscreen and my tt speed ALWAYS exceeds that even at my slowest - even with this faulty keyboard (sticky 'c' button and spacebar). For people who use the iphone as just a phone and something to write texts on and maybe pour their ibeer from iphone to iphone (sorry, just a totally pointless app I saw the other day - no way I'd pay for THAT even at 59 cents) then, no, you don't need a bluetooth keyboard. Until they invent something better that can be used quickly and accurately in a noisy environment.
Cons:
Potential for mechanical failure. Can be bulky. Not so fast if you don't touchtype. These are the only cons I can think of and the first two aren't often the case with quality keyboards. Something like the think outside stowaway universal bluetooth keyboard (catchy little title!) would pretty much eliminate the first two (folds away to roughly the same size as an iphone, maybe a little bigger, but folds out to full size keys making touchtyping possible. Exceedingly good build quality making key failure unlikely for a very long time) and a few lessons in touchtyping eliminates the third.
SLIDE OUT KEYBOARD
I'm not going to even bother with pros. This is too small to touchtype so why would you need it? The accuracy rating would be roughly equivalent to that of the iphone touchscreen keyboard. Would bulk up a slimline device. If I'm going to bulk up my iphone I'd go for larger battery capacity, built in proper GPS, a larger hard drive, video out socket and SD card reader before I went for a slide out keyboard. Heck, I'd NEVER go for that keyboard...
Thats the funniest thing I've heard in a long time... if you don't use an iPhone the way he does, you don't deserve it. Hahah...
I love the iPhone for its design, simplicity, functionality, etc. But I hate the virtual keyboard. I can type past 80 wpm on a keyboard without looking at it, and slow to a crawl with 2 fingers poking at a virtual keyboard that I have to watch for each keyclick.
If you just want a toy, I'd agree with you that it would be a shame to clutter the design. But if you need a business tool, and also appreciate a clean design, then an iPhone with a BT mini keyboard can't be beat. When hiding in the hotel room and sending out a few long e-mails, blog entries, or extended text, I could use the keyboard behind closed doors. No one would be the wiser, and I'd get to relaxing much faster.
Me, I run my own business, need to keep in touch with my employees, and rely on my phone to serve me in may ways. So I need a robust business tool. But I'd like it to be attractive and cutting edge like anyone else, as long as it doesn't hinder its intended purpose. When it does that is ceases to be a useful tool, and becomes a piece of art we carry around just to boost our egos and boast about how cool our phone is.
Apple has been very good at addressing both needs, and the iPhone is close but still has many things that could be vastly improved on without compromising its 'cool factor'. I love having it, but also miss the ease and speed at which the Blackberry addressed my needs (e-mail, blog updates, profiles, etc).
Stephen