Snapkeys keyless keyboard hands-on

Okay, we admit, we were taken in by the video on Snapkey's site showing the keyboard in action before its inner workings were revealed at CTIA 2011. The system is actually quite simple: there are four boxes to tap for letters -- plus backspace and space -- and each represents a type of letter. Top left includes letters with one point that touches down like "i," bottom left includes closed letters such as "d," top right includes letters with two points on the bottom, and bottom right curved and letters with a flat base. Sounds simple? It is, or kinda. Of course there's a learning curve, in essence you have to rethink the way you type; as we immediately found we had to pay more attention to the letters in words, or at least the shape of them. The system we were shown was running on an iPad, but we were told it could be moved to just about any platform. Is it as revolutionary as the buzz suggests? We're not entirely sure but hope to find out soon with a trial in our labs. Follow on for a video of our 5th grade school assistant Jonathan giving us a tour.

Update: The Snapkeys 2i system we were shown was actually embedded on the iPad under the Apple Development Program, and not on a Jailbroken iPad as originally stated. Also, our young tourguide was a 5th grade student, invited by Snapkeys to show just how quickly anybody can learn to use the keyboard.