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.
I bought a virtual keybord from Think Geek: it's as big as a cigarette lighter, and it projects a (virtual) perfectly working qwerty k-bord on any surface (tabletops,plane folding tables, books,pillows, sheets, girls, floors, anything), in the proximity of any BT equipped device. Just out of the box it connected without problems wirelessly via BT to my HTC touch HD and my Samsung Omnia , I did'nt need any drivers or software installation. One of my collegues bought BT textile k-board in Hong Kong that can be rolled up or folded into its its box which is smaller than a pack of cigarettes or you can just use an empty pack of cigs if you prefer. However because the fabric around the batteries quickly wore out he went back to buy one more, but it had been replaced by a flexible rubber one that takes up much more space so he resolved to saw a patch on his textile k-board where the material (apparently some blend of cotton and syntetic silk) wore out and apparently it still works; my virtual k-board however , if a bit more expensive , is way , way cooler.
Obviously none of this would have been possible with an Apple phone, and that's just another one of the many reasons why Apple will never manage to sell anything to me or to anyone who pretends practicality, functionality and flexibility from his/her devices.
Longer emails will require this. Although I personally hate on screen keyboards, so I want a Nokia N97 instead. But the keyboard is still way more portable than a laptop. As I said, it's good for light computing, which is all I need for during the day (also I need Word and Excel editing capabilities.)
Re: Various iterations of "if you have a keyboard with you, obviously you have access to a computer so..." and/or "...this defeats the purpose of having an iPhone..."
The Apple Bluetooth Keyboard (I'm typing on one now) is considerably smaller and lighter than a laptop. It would save considerable space and weight in terms of what I haul around every day.
It does not defeat the purpose of having an iPhone - it extends that purpose to another level. With an application like this being available, the iPhone becomes something I can sit down in a coffee shop with and write out entire documents instead of just short emails. I could, in fact, leave my laptop at home most days. As someone who works out of the office 4-5 days a week this would be a major bonus.
I tried to do this very thing with a couple of different generations of Palm PDA's and foldable keyboards, except that the word processing products for Palm (e.g. Dataviz) always ended up having formatting issues. Given what we already see happening through the App store I doubt that will be an issue here. Oh - and what's more, back then I still had to carry around an iPod and a cell phone in addition to the PDA and, typically, a laptop because the PDA wasn't enough.
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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.
I bought a virtual keybord from Think Geek: it's as big as a cigarette lighter, and it projects a (virtual) perfectly working qwerty k-bord on any surface (tabletops,plane folding tables, books,pillows, sheets, girls, floors, anything), in the proximity of any BT equipped device. Just out of the box it connected without problems wirelessly via BT to my HTC touch HD and my Samsung Omnia , I did'nt need any drivers or software installation.
One of my collegues bought BT textile k-board in Hong Kong that can be rolled up or folded into its its box which is smaller than a pack of cigarettes or you can just use an empty pack of cigs if you prefer. However because the fabric around the batteries quickly wore out he went back to buy one more, but it had been replaced by a flexible rubber one that takes up much more space so he resolved to saw a patch on his textile k-board where the material (apparently some blend of cotton and syntetic silk) wore out and apparently it still works; my virtual k-board however , if a bit more expensive , is way , way cooler.
Obviously none of this would have been possible with an Apple phone, and that's just another one of the many reasons why Apple will never manage to sell anything to me or to anyone who pretends practicality, functionality and flexibility from his/her devices.
Longer emails will require this. Although I personally hate on screen keyboards, so I want a Nokia N97 instead. But the keyboard is still way more portable than a laptop. As I said, it's good for light computing, which is all I need for during the day (also I need Word and Excel editing capabilities.)
Re: Various iterations of "if you have a keyboard with you, obviously you have access to a computer so..." and/or "...this defeats the purpose of having an iPhone..."
The Apple Bluetooth Keyboard (I'm typing on one now) is considerably smaller and lighter than a laptop. It would save considerable space and weight in terms of what I haul around every day.
It does not defeat the purpose of having an iPhone - it extends that purpose to another level. With an application like this being available, the iPhone becomes something I can sit down in a coffee shop with and write out entire documents instead of just short emails. I could, in fact, leave my laptop at home most days. As someone who works out of the office 4-5 days a week this would be a major bonus.
I tried to do this very thing with a couple of different generations of Palm PDA's and foldable keyboards, except that the word processing products for Palm (e.g. Dataviz) always ended up having formatting issues. Given what we already see happening through the App store I doubt that will be an issue here. Oh - and what's more, back then I still had to carry around an iPod and a cell phone in addition to the PDA and, typically, a laptop because the PDA wasn't enough.