Live data from Hacker News

Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

clicks.tech

241–250 of 565 posts

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#241
post #82

I both love this and am horrified. It looks like it'd turn a Pro Max into a 9 inch tall phone. Since it's a case, you'd need a new one each phone upgrade. (I used to do this with the Apple battery cases, until I came to my senses and/or magsafe.) Although, I still occasionally long for the blind accuracy of the old Blackberry keyboard. I think I'd prefer an adjustable magsafe attached keyboard that can do either land…

I wonder if a magsafe secured, size agnostic version could be made. Less locked in but easier to split across pockets and possibly works for more than one model.

> magsafe secured

This certainly must have been an option they explored. Without a case secured to the body of the phone, pushing the keyboard buttons would probably pop off the magsafe connection. There's a lot of leverage on those clicks.

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MagSafe supports my 'entire phone' bouncing around in my truck, and hanging on my headboard at night - it's more than strong enough to hold a phone to a keyboard.

I enjoy that your unwritten implication is that your headboard is banging around at night with equal amplitude to your truck.

humblebragging at its finest me thinks

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#244
post #117

I solved this issue by getting a 13" macbook air as my second computer. It is small and lightweight enough to be comfortable to use as a personal browsing and communication device in the situations where you'd probably be using your phone and trying to type too much on it like long group chats with friends. it is the ultimate portable typing machine for me when I don't want to be bound to a desk.

You whip out your Air during social occasions for some quick texting?

I need to get him and my dad who whips out his iPad to take photos together

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#245
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think magsafe is strong enough to support the entire phone on a keyboard

Supporting the entire phone is the entire point of Magsafe, what else would you even use it for?

lightly holding the charger in place well enough to maintain contact yet easily removed if the cable is pulled without damaging cable or device. anything after that is bonus and outside the scope of magsafe's use. the magnets on my desktop multi-device charger do not meet that requirement as they are significantly stronger than Magsafe connections.

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one press per key, even if the letter you want is the third letter.

Well now I feel dumb. So it's like Minuum but way earlier. That's pretty cool, then, and I can definitely see how it would be faster.

I loved Minuum's one-dimensional keyboard! The app disappeared from the iOS App Store, but looks like it still exists for Android in the Google Play Store (last updated in 2017). Did the developer go out of business?

http://minuum.com/

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#248

This made me realise how much I'd love a physical keyboard on my phone. But not like this, this is too long and I don't think one will have a pleasant typing experience with this. I thought about this one for a few minutes, but I can't think of a good way to integrate a keyboard in a smartphone case, that will give you the experience of a blackberry or similar. The slide-out ones that you could use in horizontal orie…

> the coolest way would be, if the phone display is only as large as the current phones minus the keyboard, and then a physical keyboard beneath it. The phone would be physically as large as the phones today and you would have a superior typing experience. iOS Reachability, but pinned to top of display? https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-reachability-iph1...

Kind of, though in my testing Reachability seems to just hide the bottom anyway rather than having the app resize.

With things like this I just keep thinking about how much more potential we would have for innovation if handheld computers allowed the same kind of extensibility that all computers did 25 years ago. Today, only Apple, Google, or the OEM of an Android phone could enable such a behavior by explicitly providing an API for it (and explicitly blessing the software that uses it), so it just won't happen.

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#249
post #117

I solved this issue by getting a 13" macbook air as my second computer. It is small and lightweight enough to be comfortable to use as a personal browsing and communication device in the situations where you'd probably be using your phone and trying to type too much on it like long group chats with friends. it is the ultimate portable typing machine for me when I don't want to be bound to a desk.

You whip out your Air during social occasions for some quick texting?

Not for quick texting. Only for extended sections at home or when flying. On social occasions I keep my texting to the bare minimal required.

Re: Clicks – Physical keyboard for iPhone

#250

What I want is a physical smartphone keyboard with nine keys. The one with three letters per key. I've never been faster and more accurate at typing on my phone than when these were a thing. I have pretty small hands, but even for me those full-size mini-keyboards are too imprecise to make them much better than a touch keyboard.

It doesn't even need to be physical - You should definitely give Type Nine a try ( https://typenineapp.com ) - (disclaimer - I'm the author). There are some promo codes below so you can try it out: I've used this since 2014 when I made the first version, and I have yet to meet anyone typing faster with the stock iPhone qwerty keyboard. 7AMYNPKN63KY EMMHTLRA9399 Y4TPAXMJFHLL 4F3Y4JJ3RHME YREJF6L4TYE7 KWM9LRRXJEXW Y6JJ…

Type Nine looks awesome! I just bought it. I've become increasingly frustrated with the default iPhone keyboard and looking for something more reliable and deterministic.

Your onboarding tutorial was excellent. Much more thorough and polished than I expected. One issue: I advanced through all the tutorial screens until the end of the "manual" tutorial, but it wasn't obvious that was the end because there was no "next tutorial" or "quit tutorial" button after watching the "see how" animation.

Feature request: include emojis in the suggestions like the iOS keyboard does: when you type "heart", it offers a suggestion to replace the word "heart" with the heart emoji.

I see there's a T9 keyboard app (RetroBoard) for the Apple Watch. Have you looked into supporting Type Nine on Apple Watch?

Post reply on HN