iTwinge: the perfectly named iPhone keyboard
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Sep 16th 2009 4:37AM
posted Sep 16th 2009 4:37AM
twinge n. A brief experience of emotion, typically an unpleasant one.Funny, that's the reaction we had when first laying eyes on Mobile Mechatronics' iTwinge iPhone keyboard. At the moment, we're unclear if the iTwinge electronically docks to the base of the iPhone or if it's just a $30 (plus shipping) sleeve with Pogo-like coating for capacitive touchscreens. According to the FAQ, the ultra-low power iTwinge "uses the phones power" but doesn't require any software to work with Apple's iPhone 3G or 3GS handsets. Regardless, after 4 hours of usage an "average user" will increase typing speed by 30% to 40% with 70% to 80% fewer typing errors. Golly! If you pre-order now you can expect shipment in November. So go ahead, we dare ya. Another pic after the break.
[Via ChipChick]
*Points gun to ahead, imitates brains splatting all over wall*
FAI..Oh I can't even be bothered. : (
There a key for that too Sam.
But...if you point your gun ahead...Then you would miss your head...
..This is one awesome product. How come apple didn't think of it..All the money they spend on R&D and they missed this gem..Actually it just goes to prove you don't really need a touch screen..
If you squint your eyes..It looks like a blackberry...
zak....
shut up...
@ zak:
I type faster on the iPhone soft keyboard than anyone I know with a physical keyboard smartphone. This product "proves" nothing; it only attempts to fulfill a need for iPhone users who prefer a physical keyboard. I can't imagine that this is even remotely useful. What are you supposed to do? Take the iPhone in and out of this sleeve whenever you want to type because the sleeve covers half the screen when the keyboard isn't there? Sounds like more hassle than it's worth.
@Sam
Suicide, there's an app for that!
srs, this would definitely slow down my iPhone typing. Would make it more accurate when I can't look at the screen tho.
What a load of doggy poo....
QWERTY doesnt solve the fact that i still have sausage fingers.
So if you were, say, on the home screen, this would just block all of your icons?
The virtual keyboard is bad enough, they can't seriously expect people to be dumb enough to pull THIS out every time they want to type something..SMH
BLASPHEMY! it kills the iphone's look D:
1) Spend thousands of pounds on a touch screen phone
2) Revert to press buttons
3) Have surplus unused touch screen
4) ???
5) Profit
fail
there are only four steps
Swing and a miss.
lol.
Looks like someone just vomited on the iPhone
iCringe.
Well it could have some use. There are people who drag entire foldable keyboards with them. This sits between those people and the non keyboard users. Some people actually write a lot on a phone. I am not one of them, but I do like the low-tec design. If they made it so it could slide down, away from the screen. Would you guys like it then?
iCringe, surely? What is a pity is that this COULD have been just what the doctor ordered. Why didn't they invest a little extra in a larger keyboard that folded out from a wrap around or slip on case therefore killing two birds with one stone? This looks like it simply presses down on the touch screen virtual keys. So you have to slip it on each time you want to type -and then block half the screen? And while it is on, you cannot use the iPhone in landscape mode! What where they thinking?! (Or smoking, or drinking...!)
Their Blur tripod adapter seems like a much better idea! I have noticed that simply putting your camera phone on a rock solid surface makes a major difference to the sharpness of the images - camera phones don't normally include shake reduction. So the Blur will be ideal.
You all shun this thing, however you may well not be the target market. More and more apple are putting Voiceover on their iPods/iPhones, voiceover coupled with this and I would imagine the iPhone becomes quite usable for a visually impaired person.
So voiceover didn't exist for years and now all of a sudden it's the coming of Jesus. I never heard anybody complain about lack of voice software on the Ipod. Maybe voice dialing on the phone, but that was Apple's fault.
Uh, if I was visually disabled, I'd just get a phone with lots of keys on it, instead of one that is entirely dependend on visual interaction.
@Jordan
1. bdav never said that VoiceOver hasn't been around for years.
2. bdav never said that VoiceOver was the coming of Jesus.
bdav DID say:
1. Apple is using VO more (but they didn't say that Apple invented it or uses it better than others or is responsible for its success or that other VO systems are copying Apple)
2. It might be useful (for some people, not all people)
Next time, try responding to what people have actually said, instead of trotting out your usual anti-Apple crap. Try to understand that comments which are not critical of Apple, are not automatically troll posts by fanboys. You don't have to be slagging off Apple to have a worthwhile comment, you know.
win!
The title meant I was hoping this would be a combination of iPhone, Twitter, and Minge.
Site looks like a cheap Chinese site. Not good.
backwards engineering!
*Australian, sorry!
The complimenting top half would have a touchpad and offer touchpad functions.
Wait. The iPhone already has touch function?
Careful squint at the second photo shows a dock connector in the bottom, so it's probably electronically docked rather than just a capacitive overlay. If the keys are any good it *might* actually be faster than the touchscreen. If they'd crammed a battery in there so that it serves as a battery booster as well, this might have appealed to the Blackberry switchers. But agreed that it's fugly as hell...
make it white and shiny and you'll have people paying $100 for it.
Im pretty sure that just turns it into a blackberry...
I thought it turned it into a Palm Pixi.
If this works ... it's not the dumbest idea ever. I've seen worse.
There are many people who text ... a lot.
Many love the iPhone, but hate the virtual keyboard.
Some women (and perhaps some men) with longer nails can't use it.
Again ... if this thing works, then okay.
They can easily slip it on at their desk and take it off when they're done. (That's what she...)
It's not for me, however. I don't even own an iPhone.
And $30 is a tad much too.
man they dont even know what to make anymore...
and i mean for accessories and apps
http://www.explosm.net/comics/1797/
haha I just read that before I saw this :D
lol, my favorite part is that when I read the comic, there was an ad for the Palm Pre on the bottom of the page.
I twinged...
is that an aussie phishing site?
iFail
iKnow what you did last summer. (masturbating)
i, i.... i don't really know what to say, but it's not good
Just buy a blackberry if you're going to defeat the purpose of an iphone!
but..but...apps!
Yes, but does it send a UIKeyboardWillShowNotification when you slide it on?
How many iPhone users do you think can type without looking at the screen? I've never seen one, but my friend sure has managed to type with his Blackberry blindly while driving. While I'm sure it doesn't make it any safer, for those who are still foolish enough to text-and-drive, this might be the perfect (false) security blanket.
It's iNormous!
Add a trackball and you got yourself a blackberry!
What is the big deal with people and these hard keyboards. Took me a little while but now I can type on my iPhone one handed with my thumb (and I have big fingers), my daughter thought OMG how will I ever get adjust to this iPhone keyboard, now it's like a hard keyboard never existed. It really doesn't take that long to adapt, why are people so afraid? I don't get it.
It increases typing by 30-40%, too bad if I turn it sideways I increase my typing by 70-80%.
Hi... I'm with Mobile Mech and wanted to give you an overview of what we tried to do with the iTwinge.
We set out to originally develop a product to help new iPhone users transition to the touch screen keyboard.
Thru the development we saw significant improvement in typing speed and accuracy, in addition some find it more comfortable to type with both thumbs resting on the iTwinge ready to type.
This product is not for everybody, as there are many people that can type very fast and accurate on the iPhone Virtual keyboard, however we do believe we can help a few iPhone users out.
We'll be launching some video demonstrations (one tomorrow) and several others over the next few weeks.
We'll reach out to Thomas and see if he would like the actual product to review the first week of October.
Thanks for making it interesting... Mike
How many idiotic "i" words can teenager engadget readers make up? @.@ *head is spinning*
commercial .... What do you get when you combine the funcntionality of a IPHONE and the east of used of a palm/Black berry .....
the new TRIPHONE ...now you dont have to try to type on it
I'd rather have a flip over jacket kind of enclosure with keyboard + gamepad for iphone
The only reason it is designed this way is because Apple won't allow them to use the dockconnector in anything but a 3rd party app...
It looks like it has a market in the die-hard keyboard / Mophie Pack combo..
they went all wrong with this design... they should have made a dock like device that reveals a landscape keyboard. the dock should connect to the port on the iphone, and have a port on the other side so you can still charge and do other things. being connected would allow you to power the keyboard and let the phone know that when the keyboard is out, that it should not display the soft keys (also needed to be plugged in to know). The design of this thing is not very well done.
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/bluetooth-iphone-keyboard_1.jpg
increases typing by up to 200%
;)
What happens when you use CAPS? Or numerical keypad? Or the other keypad? Or landscape? Or when you're not typing? Or calculator?
Useless.
What. . .all I want is a foldable keyboard not a physical keyboard that mimics a blackberry's. Make it foldable and something I can really type on, and I would pay $100 for that :-)
Upon reviewing this further, wouldn't it make more sense to use whatever material they have on the keys as fingertips on a glove (since the screen does not support stylus input) so that it the iPhone would be usable during winter perhaps?
I've been waiting for something like this!
. . . but not this . . .
What would be really neat is an iPhone/Touch version of the Stowaway keyboards of yore (http://danbricklin.com/log/stowaway.htm), of which I have three (for Palm III, Handspring, Tungsten). Baring that, I hope someone with superior skills to mine posts a design to Hackaday.
My question to the inventor of iTwinge & everyone at Mobile Mech:
Did you guys ever use an iPhone for more than a few days?
Why not transparent?
For all of you set for Halloween "tricks", here is a treat... One of my clients is finalizing an add-on physical keyboard that looks like it was designed by Apple. Only 3 mm thick; leaves power/docking connection free; and has all the keys like the virtual keyboard (nobody has pointed out that there are a different number of keys on the middle row in non-alpha mode!) Can't say anything more yet but look for it at Macworld ;)