A Bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone?
The Macworld Expo is like CES - so many products to see that you forget about most of the smaller ones. But sometimes, the smallest products are the coolest and most innovative out there. Macworld picked up on something quite special: The $100 BTKeyMini from MacAlly. It’s a small, portable, foldable Bluetooth keyboard - something that many of you will have seen before in the past. So what’s so special about the BTKeyMini? A writer at Macworld had a talk with one of the MacAlly representatives, and apparently when the BTKeyMini arrives in March, it will be compatible with iPhone. If this is true - it will be a first. You will be able to use it in any iPhone application where the normal touch-screen would be used as a keyboard input.
An external keyboard for the iPhone may not seem like much - but it is. This would transform the iPhone from a “smartphone” to a smarterphone. You would be able to type emails at least two times faster with this keyboard - and when you’re done, you just fold it up and put it in a bag. This could, in fact, eliminate the need of a laptop like a MacBook Air in a lot of situations. The iPhone can visit every website on the internet thanks to its Safari browser - and you can do that anywhere in the world thanks to its EDGE connection (although HSDPA would have been a lot better). I can’t wait to see this thing in action.
Via [Macworld]
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You know this could totally replace the Macbook Air considering the ability to use Google Documents online. Never need to bring anything else again when you travel in most cases.
on January 22, 2008 at 10:39 PM - LINKAre you kidding? This is huge! Something I’ve been wishing for and waiting for. Exactly right, eliminate the notebook on trips (not for all but for many). I can see it now, in the airplane when these things start popping up, it will be like when I first started traveling with an IBM Thinkpad. Head turns, stares, interest. DIfferent, unique. And the realization of just how much change the iPhone really is up to for us all.
This is the next level, no doubt about it. Little screens, folks typing away. With a SDK, the 3G with an Intel chip, the Mac computer is the limit as to what can be loaded onto the iPhone.
And put Bluetooth on the next iTouch, for sure!
on February 9, 2008 at 08:43 PM - LINKThis could really affect the mobile computing market.
Only good things for the consumers point of view though!
on February 23, 2008 at 09:50 PM - LINKThat representative was misinformed.
The iPhone will not work with any keyboard, bluetooth or not. It is lacking the required Bluetooth profiles (HID and/or SPP), as well as, of course, nearly every other bluetooth profile in existence.
(That’s why you can’t even transfer files to/from your iPhone, and tether your phone’s internet connection with a bluetooth-enabled laptop, the way you can with nearly every other phone in existence. Not that it would be terribly smooth with the slow EDGE speed and all, but better than nothing while on the road).
Hopefully, the new SDK and ability for 3rd party applications to run on the iPhone means that there will be some keyboard drivers released for it at some point.
on June 3, 2008 at 01:08 PM - LINKThere will be no MacAlly bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone, so let’s put this nonsense to rest now.
Hlorri is right, and I also contacted MacAlly’s tech staff to confirm. They have nothing for the iPhone, and there will be nothing until Apple adds the required Bluetooth profiles to the iPhone.
This is not to say that a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone isn’t absolutely necessary. I get 150 plus emails a day, and my business requires me to respond in fully formed, thoughtful, coherent prose. All cellphone keyboards, including the iPhone’s are useless for anything requiring a command of the English language. Are you listening, Apple?
And by the way, AValive (http://www.avalive.com) is taking pre-orders for this vapor-ware MacAlly iPhone keyboard, This guys should have their chains yanked for selling something that does not exist and will never be sold until Apple makes the necessary changes in the iPhone hardware.
on July 18, 2008 at 04:01 PM - LINKI don’t know what this ‘news’ item was based on.... a quick search at the vendor web site shows:
Your search - BTKeyMini - did not match any documents on Macally.com
Enough said.
Imran
on July 21, 2008 at 09:37 AM - LINKIMRAN.TV
I run a university department. I’d like an iphone. It seems to have excellent capabilities and the screen is a perfect size for meeting and lecture notes; but I won’t buy one until it will work with a keyboard. I tried the built-in keyboard in the store and, though pretty, it is worse than useless for writing.
on August 24, 2008 at 12:10 PM - LINKI use my trusty nokia, bluetooth linked to a keyboard, in every meeting I go to. The screen is tiny, but even so I have been able to leave my laptop at home for two years now. when something important comes up my colleagues are on it even before the meeting is through. Ah! freedom. Freedom of action.
Apple please wake up to this point.
Considering the iPhone has TV out (composite) you could conceivably output to a larger screen where available. Pair that with an external keyboard and you have a rock-solid iPhone blogging platform.
If it’s just a matter of Bluetooth profiles, then couldn’t that be updated in a future firmware? Am I understanding right that it’s not a ‘hardware’ limitation?
on August 31, 2008 at 01:47 AM - LINKYes, I am pretty sure that this _could_ be added in future firmware releases; perhaps also specific “keyboard drivers” for particular keyboards might be possible without this support. In either case, though, this requires Apple’s blessing; they have not seemed to keen on the idea ever since the iPhone’s initial launch.
By the way - spot on w.r.t. TV-out. I use my Nokia N95 this way - I have the N95 hooked up to my TV, and use a bluetooth keyboard from the sofa to check mail, do web surfing, even do remote SSH (via PuTTY for S60) via the WLAN in my home. The only thing that prevents the iPhone from being able to do the same is the lack of a real bluetooth stack.
on August 31, 2008 at 01:54 AM - LINKStacks lf us business users need to take notes with an iphone & a bluetooth or doc keyboard.
on September 19, 2008 at 07:51 PM - LINKYes I own a MacBook Pro too - but an iphone with keyboard will fill a rather large hole in the Apple range....