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Miss Physical Keyboards? New 'Clicks' Accessory Adds Keys to Your iPhone

And so begins a long week of posts from CES including many crappy gadgets that nobody will remember a year from now—much less two or three!
 
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I will pick one up for £15 when they have a closing down fire sale. At the requested price it is daft.
 
I love me some tactile feedback as much as the next guy but can anybody explain to me what the point of having a physical keyboard is when the keys are this small?
 
RipenedCoconut said:
I can’t seem to wrap my head around the negativity here. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to buy it.

I work for a large company named after a certain red fruit. Therefore, I am loyal to the iPhone and I understand its value. However, I really miss my blackberries and the ability to type without looking at the screen. I have focus issues and need to be on the move while working, and a physical keyboard really is the best option.

Just because you enjoy the current form factor doesn’t mean it’s the best for everyone else. Accessories like this are a godsend to those who want them. Additionally, the iPhone is flexible and integrates best in market accessibility features that will work well with the keyboard for those with disabilities.

I just purchased mine and it wasn’t due to nostalgia. It's the fact that physical keyboards work better for me. Thankfully something finally came to market that meets my needs.

Be kind to each other, please :)
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That's why I think smartphones like the iPhone do miss touch buttons for quick operations. What is the problem of having more 3 or 4 buttons in the sides of the iPhone, right below the volume buttons?
 
If it also included a MagSafe battery then I could actually see it being useful for retail/POS/couriers, but for the mainstream market it's rather redundant.
 
I like the idea but I don’t like the fact that it’s tied to a particular phone. When you upgrade your phone, this device will be useless.
 
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japanime said:
The sheer ridiculousness of this device notwithstanding, imagine how difficult it will be to attach to a phone. Unless the case is made of two pieces that slide together, how would you get this abomination to plug into the lightning port? I can only imagine that it's made out of the thinnest, cheapest silicon available. It will probably snap like a rubber band after being installed and removed more than a few times.

I sometimes wonder whether MacRumors is trolling us for the lolz when they post these word-for-word press releases for the most laughable products imaginable.
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The design looks very much like the iPhone 6s smart battery pack in design. That battery pack had a silicon top that could easily bend.

9to5mac.com

Apple releases $99 iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case, Apple's first official battery pack iPhone case - 9to5Mac

Out of the blue, Apple has today launched their first battery case, the Apple iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case for...
9to5mac.com 9to5mac.com
 
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Imagine carrying this monstrosity in your pocket. As if iPhones aren't already big enough.
 
Playfoot said:
The Droid was never considered even a mediocre keyboard...
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Mate, I had the OG droid. I literally stood in line (12 year old me) and I think i was the first one with my dad to order a Droid from that location.

The keyboard was deinitely considered mediocre that it was praised for major improvements in the Droid 2 and future. The keyboard (and Moto's camera) were bad to the point I mainly used the touchscreen keyboard on the droid before I returned the Droid for the HTC droid eris(thus beginning my obsession with htc Phones).

Playfoot said:
Let me count the ways....Joking aside, no tactile sensation, reliance on auto-correct that in turn makes a tremendous number of mistakes, can't touch type, can't type for pages without looking at the keyboard, no quick effective short cuts such as slightly longer press etc. And this rolls over to other applications. For example in a browser, a simple press of the "space bar" move the page down one screen, etc.
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A lot of this sounds like a YOU thing and not a bad keyboard thing.

tactile feedback: it's a touchscreen......it's not going to have tactile feedback. That's what the haptic vibrations are for.

Reliance on auto correct? I am confused at this one. I type mostly accurately 99 percent of the time and if i mess up it usually corrects it right.

I dont ever need to look at the keyboard when typing because i have used it so much.

Shortcuts= again a you thing as I dont see a need for shortcuts.

Playfoot said:
Or if like me, I sometimes have trouble "activating" the key on a screen. Escpecially when in a humid environment: not an issue with a PKB
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I live in a very humid area and never had any issues with my phones touch screen.

Physical keybaords definitely do have their plusses but it also depends on how they are made. At least with Virtual Keyboards if i dont like one i can easily replace it with another;. You cant do that with a physical. You take it or leave it.
 
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xxFoxtail said:
I was excited about this at first. I may have jumped the gun and ordered one, though sent in a cancelation request. I could see it benefiting me for both at work and at home as I've switched to just using my iPhone for pretty much everything.

I've had plans of upgrading to the 16 Pro later this year which would make this keyboard case basically ewaste to me. I already know I'll probably be selling it for fractions of what I paid because no one will want it. Though, I probably would have kept the 14 Pro another year if I did continue with this.

I'm not sure what they could have done differently, but a universal keyboard accessory that works with any future iPhone as well would have been ideal to me. Maybe a custom case that the keyboard part can slide, clip into or attach with MagSafe - all they'd have to do in the future is update the case itself. Would have looked a lot less seamless, but would certainly last me a lot longer.
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Hahaha everything you wrote was on the fence 😂
 
msackey said:
The design looks very much like the iPhone 6s smart battery pack in design. That battery pack had a silicon top that could easily bend.
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Interesting. Thanks for pointing it out. I still think the keyboard case is ridiculous, but I guess the design can be made to work.
 
I'm tickled by the number of posts pointing out that this is e-waste when the next iPhone model comes out while completely ignoring the fact that upgrading your iPhone every year is a primary driver of e-waste.
I still EDC and iPhone 11. Sure, I don't have lidar or 5x optical zoom. but my lifestyle doesn't change just because Apple includes a feature on the new models.
 
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This is one of those things you get someone as a weird gift or something. It won’t last and too expensive.
 
Even if this somehow had a market audience, at that price it would be destined to fail.

What's worse, even if you buy the iPhone 15 Pro version you won't be able to use it on iPhone 16 due to the size changes lol.
 
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If it slid out on the side (larger rectangle => full keyboard) then i think it would be more attractive. You'd get used to pulling out your phone in landscape mode pretty quickly I think. But of course, iOS does not support landscape mode in all scenarios (homescreen) for some reason...
 
In everyday life, I use 3 languages with different scripts. And I’m sure they won’t be available in my languages.

Touch screen keyboard is so useful because inputs can be adapt around its content.

I did remember Apple patented a physical keyboard with individual display on the keys, no?
 
Lol. I've heard from our mobile device support folks here that when the iPhone first came out, the BlackBerry rep told them the iPhone would never make it, because "people want a physical keyboard". We see how that worked out.
 
cnnyy20p said:
I did remember Apple patented a physical keyboard with individual display on the keys, no?
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you’re probably thinking about this…
www.macrumors.com

Questionable Claims of Apple's Interest in Sonder's Dynamic E-Ink Keyboard Technology Emerge

Yesterday, a Redditor with the username Foxconninsider posted about a new Smart Keyboard claimed to be a working prototype potentially coming to both...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com

Pretty sure the company involved debunked the story shortly after and nothing ever came of it, but still an interesting idea.
 
Yikes, $139 for the iPhone 14 Pro edition and 15 Pro edition, and $159 for the 15 Pro Max.

Turning up on eBay in 5...4...3...2...1...
 
I'm one of the sickos that used to dual carry my BlackBerry and iPhone just so I could have a keyboard. But this is terrible.

I want to love it, I neeeeeeed a physical keyboard back in my life...but not one of the abominations has ever looked or played the part.

Looks like my fingers will continue slapping glass for the foreseeable future.
 
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