Video: Apple's iPhone and Bluetooth keyboard get together, have a good ole time
By Darren Murph 
posted February 22nd 2009 7:50PM
posted February 22nd 2009 7:50PM
[Thanks, Ralf]
posted February 22nd 2009 7:50PM
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Awesome?
If carrying a Bluetooth keyboard around with you is awesome, then yes.
Funny thing is...
I don't want to carry a keyboard around.
:D
No, but the potential is awesome.
The more hackery we get done with bluetooth, the closer we get to car compatibility, A2DP, Bluetooth speakers, etc etc etc.
Sure, this isn't practical, but it marks a step in giving the iPhone functionality it should have had from day one! Keep hacking!
A mate of mine used to carry a foldable bluetooth keyboard. It was a bit bigger than a pda but a lot of nicer for typing.
It would be daft to carry a regular keyboard but there are several quite small keyboards.
Heres a video of Nokia one
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=SU-8W&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&ei=gfyhSbG5JoLJ-AaJ_IG4Dg&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=7&ct=title#
iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard is another candidate for carrying around
For text messaging a phones keyboard is enough but for long emails a keyboard is a must if you care about your thumbs
actually, QUITE AWESOME!!!
call me crazy but I do carry my bluetooth keyboard with me in my backpack. I can use it with my windows mobile phone and it's pretty dang nice. My teachers will let me take notes with it, makes my life easier, and saves paper. :D Plus I can get more work done without the weight of a laptop.
I'd love an iPhone if I can get this and word (or better note syncing) on there!
@Darren
If there's any full-sized keyboard you're going to carry around with you, the aluminum Apple wireless is the one. It'll fit in your back pocket.
@phoomp
so will a sony p series!
Small keyboard and a smartphone is great for school..
Yeah wow, bunch of attention crazy kids with sony ericssons and nokias pulling their iphone wielding mommy's t-shirt, screaming on top of their lungs what their mommy couldn't do.
Seriously, why would you want to "unportable" the portable with a huge keyboard?
You want to do some work? USE A LAPTOP.
You want to do some work on the go, but does not have a laptop? GO TO A CYBER CAFE.
the iphone is not designed for work, you knew it, i knew it? STOP HARPING OUT THE THINGS ITS NOT MEND TO DO.
geez, how low have people got to.
Who cares about having to drag it around. Can you imagine how nice it would be to take notes in class with it. It would be awesome if there was a little foldable bluetooth keyboard with a dock and a iPhone friendly MSWord!
I think that's pretty cool.
Which, of course, begs the question: how come Apple fans can do what Apple's engineers can't?
Hmm?
"Which, of course, begs the question: how come Apple fans can do what Apple's engineers can't?"
My guess is this is crippled intentionally because of the AT&T deal. Apple stopped the program that made iPhone a connection point for computer for the AT&T deal. If they allowed BT keyboard connection somebody could make a driver for PC that typed webpage addresses to iPhone, saved them to phone and read them through BT connection. Easy cheap hack to use unlimited dataconnection plan.
Now ill wait for apple fanboys to flame me claiming its a good thing that it's crippled. :)
This is cool because I've got REALLY FUCKING BIG POCKETS
/ugh
@ LEO
Are you a raver?
Rockin Jincos?
You mean it doesn't do this out of the box? The iPhone really does fail, even my Sony Ericsson can do that.
That's the only thing your old Sony Ericsson can do.
wtf?
My microwave can microwave stuff, you phone can't do that? fails.
If apple made a microwave, it would suck so hard it wouldn't even have a MIDI in port as in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYth8AVP1tw
but yeah, so someone made a bluetooth keyboard driver thing for the iphone, so what?
its a new breakthrough in smartphone tech an inovation that will change the way you and use smartapples for ever
fail
The only time Apple doesn't make something that doesn't suck is when they make a vacuum cleaner.
wouldn't the vacuum cleaner actually, you know, suck?
@Eric
Read the sentence again, carefully. Translation:
Made by Apple = suck
unless it's a vacuum cleaner
=> Apple vacuun cleaner doesn't suck
=> Apple sucks anyway.
An Apple Vacuum Cleaner would Blow surely?
This is just so sad. My discontinued Nokia E61 does this with a free driver download from Nokia's site. But hey, at least the iPhone is shiny!
That's exactly why they discontinued the N61. Because it was such a wonderful handset in the world of ancient handsets in 2006. They must have sold at least 10,000 of those clunkers before relegating them to the Nokia landfill site.
The lighting is so bad that you can't tell if he's really typing with the keyboard on the iPhone.
Exactly what I was thinking. For all we know, he has a laptop next to him connected via VNC to the iPhone and is typing on that. Or he simply doctored the video. Both as easily accomplished.
Believe me, I would love some bluetooth hacks for my iPhone, but I'm pretty convinced this is fake.
how is this useful when the keyboard cant be carried around?
Possible: Yes
Useful: No
I wouldn't put a laptop in my checked bag. But I'd put a keyboard in there. This is a step toward leaving the laptop at home.
Agreed. I used to carry one of those Palm Keyboards with the dock to hold a PalmV when I was in college. SOOOOO much nicer than carrying around a late 90's laptop, and I could get thru a 10 hour day without charging.
I can see the same potential with the iPhone. Leave the Macbook at home, and carry a little bluetooth keyboard (apple or otherwise...) with a Google Doc in the browser. Would make a day of meetings go much lighter, IMO.
Of course, once I get Leopard on a Dell Mini9, I'll use that instead of waiting for Apple to allow software freedom, control of third party release dates, opening its Bluetooth and WiFi doors to others (WiFi sync on your home network, anyone?) Of course, WinMo is open to all those standards and has a hoorible track record, so maybe Apple is doing the right thing...
Murphy,
Just what is the point of this and why on God's green earth would you leave your laptop at home.
For this? THIS?!
Really?
Talk about being sensational....or obtuse.
You still can't copy/paste using this.
You still can't edit documents using this.
You still can't VNC using this.
So what's the point?
This thing still does not compensate for the iPhone's lack of a physical keyboard.
I mean, what's next...lugging around an LCD monitor with you to compensate for the iPhone low-res, sub-VGA, 3.2" screen?
lol this is apples secret way to make the iphone a supreme gaming machine, you just use an apple keyboard and mouse!! brilliant!! hackers just beat them to it
that's a good point... It would make sense for this to be a built in feature.
How is this anything special? He is just using the keyboard over a vnc connection, because of vnc icon in the corner and no bt icon.
Good catch. Then again, a while back, "bluesn0w" used the VNC server (and, of course, libvncclient) to send keyboard events, so that they didn't have to re-implement it.
As the Bluetooth icon is just a status bar image, UIApplication's removeStatusBarImage takes care of that.
am I the only one who has seen the VNC icon there?
Obviously this keyboard is paired with a computer (out of picture), and that one VNCs (can I use that as a verb?) back to the iPhone and handles the input. End of story, nothing to see here, move along...
VNC isn't a word so technically no. But you could use it as computes or computing in which case, make virtual and adverb and it would be fine.
Ondra, yes, you can use VNC as a verb. Names of protocols _are_ words, even if they're also acronyms.
Too bad Jailbraking an iPhone is "illegal"
Stick it to the man!!
FAIL! The on-screen keyboard is still visible. Hide it before we think about this being legit!
I'm not sure why that makes it fake. iPhoneOS triggers the display of the keyboard when you're in text editing mode. There isn't really too much that you can do about that without breaking it for normal non-bluetooth-keyboard typing as well.
I didn't say it was or wasn't real, I said it wasn't legit, as in not really worth it. Given that a BT thumbpad has already been done, I know this is REAL, I just feel that with the on-screen keyboard still present, it needs work. You don't need said on-screen action when you have the physical one of course ;)
I hate to rag on apple products in fear of being labeled a "hater" or other such names but honeslty, fake or not... who thought this would be a good idea?
you could use any other BT keyboard. I've heard Logitech has some kind of chatpad. Or there's plenty of folding keyboards...
And why ? Just to make those people, who rant "iPhone doesn't do that, that, that and that", shut up and take one thing off their iPhone-hating list.
When people say your phone can't do that and that and that, they mean out of the box. A Nokia or a HTC could do that out of the box. If there is that small desire in me to get an iphone, its because of the hacker community doing what they are so damn well. I would never get an iphone for its out of the box features. They should put more security on the media and free the H/W. Crippling the bluetooth stack in 2009 ? seriously ?
I see two things wrong with this. If you actually had a keyboard available, one would think you wouldn't be traveling, and thus would be using a real computer. And if it actually had a physical keypad, you wouldn't even need to worry about connecting one.
People who say "why do you need this?" don't know how great this is for a laptop replacement. If you already carry around your phone, then having to carry an ultra slim bluetooth keyboard is going to be the most portable computing solution, if you only need to type emails or Word documents. I think the iPhone is not too ideal for this sort of thing though.
If all you need is to type emails, light web browsing, or write Word docs, then this is the best solution. It's better than a netbook or a full fledged laptop when minimalism is all that's needed.
Disagreed. There's no way the iPhone is any sort of a laptop replacement. Yes, there are a lot of things it can do with the App Store, but it still isn't a laptop replacement. When are you ever in a situation where you want to type out a full page or more of text on the go? And why would you want to do it on an iPhone in the first place? Would you really leave your laptop at home if you have MS Word and a BT keyboard for your iPhone? I certainly wouldn't use it to write papers or anything.