These existed shortly after the iPhone came out under the presumption people would miss the physical keys from blackberries. They didn’t sell well back then I don’t think they will now.
Personally I wouldn’t mind having a phone with modern cababilities and Nokia Communicator / E7 type keyboard.
I want a trackpad /s
Anyway, I’d rather have such keyboard in landscape. Although it would be better if it was a slide-out keyboard, I wouldn’t mind a thick phone. Maybe you could then even add USB-A, HDMI, and a headphone jack to it.
Fun device but I feel like we’ve most past the longing for physical keyboards.
I’d love to get a physical keyboard again. I’d happily give up some screen size for it too. Phones have gotten much too big.
A smaller screen would limit the phone, though. Would probably become a phone calls and texting only device since most apps wouldn’t know what to do with the small screen and weird aspect ratio.
Ooh, would be an interesting concept to have a folding phone with a physical keyboard+smaller screen for the outer display, as opposed to making the outer screen a normally-sized phone screen
Sure, that wouldn’t be a bad thing to try. Probably a lot of interesting ways to go about it. Good luck getting a company to try something cool, though.
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A new company called Clicks Technology has announced an iPhone case with a built-in keyboard on the bottom.
The company is also taking reservations for a $159 iPhone 15 Pro Max model, which is coming in “early spring,” according to the website.
Clicks says a companion app coming soon to the Apple App Store will “continue to bring new functionality to the keyboard over time.” The case will be available in two colors at first — bumblebee (yellow) and London sky (a grayish-blue) — and Fisher said in his video that the first buyers will get “Founders Editions” of the case, which gets them “VIP support” and early access to new colors.
“Clicks brings the tactility and precision of a physical keyboard to iPhone,” Fisher said, “so people don’t have to wait until they get back to their desks to create or communicate with the satisfying feedback only real buttons can provide.”
There’s immersion, and then there’s the annoyance of jabbing at the imaginary keys of a phone that desperately wants to correct your words, even when you hit your mark on every letter.
If you’ve pined for the return of a stubby input chin on the bottom of your smartphone, it seems the physical keyboard has finally come back home (presumably using CMD + H).
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