Product innovation is the driving force behind new technologies and the latest gadgets and Mat Brady from Planetmat thought what would it be like to have an Apple iPhone Pro with a physical mini keyboard? Of course, Apple doesn’t offer this cool feature, so what you’re looking at below is his concept design of a mock up iPhone with a physical mini keyboard.
Many consumers appreciate the simplicity and compactness of the virtual keyboard that Apple currently offers, but I’m sure there are some that would appreciate options.
Will Apple ever offer this as an option? You never know, large companies are always interested in constructive feedback and are trying to design products that the marketplace wants so as to capture a larger share of the market.
If Apple were not to offer this physical mini keyboard, it may be something a third party vendor may look at creating as an iPhone addon. For now however, it remains a cool concept gadget.
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Quite frankly, the lack of a qwerty keyboard is why I’m not interested in an Iphone.
For my main usages, that is texting, browsing and some quick posting on Twitter or my blog, a qwerty keyboard is just essential for me.
I think that if Apple want to innovate again with their Iphone, this would be a very welcomed change for a lot of people!
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I have an idea that would be much simpler to make – all plastic, no electronics. It would cost something like 10 cents to produce.
It’s a plastic keyboard that clips onto the sides to the back of lower part of the iPhone. Once cliped, it stays clipped. Make it the same color as the iPhone, so it’s no too noticeable.
Once clicked, you leave it on – it’s on the backside, you can see the full iPhone screen. But when you want to type a longer text, the middle part of the add-on, that contains de plastic keayboard, can be turned around its attachement at the bottom of the screen, to come to the front of the iPhone, to the exact place where the virtual keyboard shows on the screen.
In other words, a plastic keyboard that you pull out only when you want to write longer texts. It’s letters position exactly above the touchscreen letters, so when you push the plastic, it hits the screen and types the letter. And when you don’t need it, it folds away to the back. You can’t loose it, don’t need to store it, it just rotates around the bottom of the screen.
For any engineer out there. Please produce this asap. No royalties needed
Just drop me an e-mail when it’s done!
Ughhh… does a good job of demonstrating how such a thing would have reduced the iPhone to just another niche gadget for nerds.
Would make a great 3rd party add-on though – hey, nerds are human too ;D
I would buy this product right now if it existed! This is the biggest limiting factor for the iPhone to be used as a “business” phone. If they ever want to compete with Blackberry, this is a must. The virtual keyboard is too slow and inaccurate to be useful. I find it incredibly frustrating to use for any length of time. Twice the iPhone was almost smashed out of the sheer frustration of typing a lengthy email……