keyboards
Latest
Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 type cover has 'laptop class' feel
Microsoft has completely remade its Surface 4 Pro Type Cover, adding better type feel, a fingerprint sensor, a larger trackpad and more. For starters, the company gave its Surface Pro 3 users some love by making the new keyboard compatible with the older model. It's also the thinnest and lightest yet, and since the Surface Pro 4 itself shrunk from 9.1 to 8.4mm, the whole package is much smaller. The keys are also quieter, have more space between them and a better feel, which may finally make it a viable option for folks who couldn't handle the Surface Pro 3's slightly mushy keyboard.
Hands-on with Samsung's clever Keyboard Cover for phones
One of the biggest surprises announced at today's blowout Samsung media event was also one of the smallest gadgets: An $80 accessory called the Keyboard Cover. As the name suggests, it's a cover that also lets you add physical keys to the Galaxy Note 5, S6 Edge+, and the smaller Galaxy S6 phones. It consists of two parts, a rear panel that offers some basic protection, and a keyboard panel that snaps onto the front of your phone. We fought through the crowds to get our hands on the Keyboard Cover, and came away mostly impressed.
Ryan Seacrest's iPad keyboard is surprisingly good, but expensive
It's hard to expect much from Typo, a company that was co-founded by Ryan Seacrest and whose legal tango with BlackBerry has forced it to stop selling phone keyboards. But with its new iPad keyboard, Typo has at least proven it's worth keeping an eye on. For $189, you get a Bluetooth keyboard that actually feels like a decent laptop keyboard, as well as a cover to protect your iPad. There's no shortage of iPad keyboards on the market, but Typo's offering might be compelling to anyone who wants a premium laptop-like experience with their iPad. The only problem? It's far too expensive for what you get.
KFC's Tray Typer keeps you clicking even with greasy fingers
Horror of horrors, you've just downed a plate of Colonel Sander's famous fried chicken only to have that text you've been waiting for suddenly ping your phone. What do you do? Clearly the answer isn't to reach for the napkins. No, instead you do what every red-blooded poultry eater should: pair the keyboard mat on your serving tray to your phone and you answer that all-important text, greasy fingers be damned.
Custom Keyboard for iOS gives your keyboard a totally new look
With all of the new iOS 8 keyboard apps, we're seeing new functions, languages and features. Custom Keyboard (US$0.99) gives the standard iOS keyboard a completely new look based on what you want. It's appearing in the App Store today. Custom Keyboard provides control of backgrounds, colors, fonts, shadows and even animations for key pop-ups. It's easy to use, and is quite effective. Like all keyboard utilities, you run the app, save the results, and then switch to the customized iOS keyboard from your current keyboard by tapping the "globe" icon. You can see some of the controls and variety of colors below in my screen captures. The app supports more than 40 languages, and also lets you customize key click sounds. You can also use a photo as a background to the keyboard. Originally, I thought the app was just a way to make some outlandishly colored keyboards that were fun but not very useful. With a little effort, I could actually design keyboards that were easier on the eyes than the stock Apple design, with more pleasing fonts. I also liked the option to have the numeric keys on the same keyboard as the character keys, making typing faster. The little touches like double tapping the space bar for a period are retained with these keyboards, or can be turned off in preferences. Of course, the keyboard you design appears in any app where a keyboard is used, and you can easily switch back to the stock keyboard or another keyboard you may have installed. Of course the keyboards look nice, but then I miss using Swype and some of the other functions I get with third-party keyboards. It would be nice to be able to combine features of multiple custom keyboards for a really tailored experience. I liked Custom Keyboard and will continue to use the design I worked out with the app. Custom Keyboard requires iOS 8, and it's universal. I've tested it on both an iPad Air and an iPhone 6 and saw no issues.
SwiftKey gets into the holiday spirit with a free new theme
By now you should have completely abandoned the iOS default keyboard in favor of one of the many fantastic third-party options available -- if you haven't, what is wrong with you? -- and if SwiftKey is your weapon of choice you'll find that an app update today has added a good bit of holiday cheer. Getting into the spirit of the season, a new Christmas-y style keyboard has been added for free, complete with a dusting of snow and candy cane key accents. SwiftKey snatched headlines back in September when it scored over one million downloads in less than a day following the iOS update that added third party keyboard compatibility. But despite early popularity, the app holds just a 2.5/5 rating on the App Store thanks largely to reviews that demand additional languages beyond the 24 it already supports.
Fleksy breaks Guinness World Record again
The Fleksy Keyboard for iOS 8, which we reviewed here, has broken a Guinness World Record for texting speed on a touchscreen device. The previous record holder? Fleksy Keyboard. Marcel Fernandes Filho, 17, was able to use Flesky on his iPhone 6 to type the following in just 17.00 seconds: "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." Previously, the record was held by...Marcel Fernandes Filho, who typed the preceding sentence in 18.19 seconds using Fleksy Keyboard. Are you using third-party keyboards? I've tried several but keep going back to Apple's. Old dog/new tricks I guess. Maybe if I was as fast as Marcel...
Swype keyboard for iOS is free for a limited time
One of the big additions of iOS 8 was the introduction of third party keyboards for typing. There are lots of options out there at different price points, but right now you can get one of the best keyboards on the market for free. It's called Swype and it's wonderful. The Swype keyboard allows you to write by quickly sliding your finger from letter to letter. It's one of the fastest keyboards available, and it learns from the way you type so its suggestions get smarter over time. Here's a complete list of features for the iOS version of the keyboard. 21 languages supported including 16 new downloadable languages Intelligent Emoji support in 6 languages (English (US), English (UK), French, Italian, German and Spanish) Improved iPad layout Customizable keyboard layout (QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY) Sound on Keypress option added (*Requires "Full Access") Incredibly intuitive language models that accurately predict what you type or Swype Five beautiful themes - FREE on iPhone. Quickly enter symbols, punctuation and capital letters with Swype gestures Swype learns how you type. You can tell it to add or remove words from your personal dictionary You can Swype on your iPad as well as your iPhone Check out the video below highlighting Swype's features, and be sure to pick up your free copy while it lasts.
The real reason iOS keyboards don't let you swear
If you swear from time to time -- or, if you're like me and curse like you just stubbed your toe in your everyday conversations -- you've probably noticed by now that every popular third party keyboard available for iOS (and the same is true for Android) don't come with profanity built-in. Don't you just ducking hate that? It can feel as though the keyboard is scolding you for even considering adding a bad word or two to your personal communications, and it's easy to roll your eyes at the idea that whoever programmed its behavior doesn't think swear words are important enough to include. Is it to protect the App Store age rating, or perhaps a moral push to get us to be a bit more pleasant to each other? We asked Aaron Sheedy, VP of Mobile Products for Nuance Communications -- the company behind the best-selling third party keyboard on the App Store, Swype, and the popular dictation software Dragon NaturallySpeaking -- just why we're not allowed to curse our hearts out. It turns out the answer falls somewhere between business necessity and protecting the users from themselves. "The risk of having profanity in the dictionary is too high for most users," Sheedy explains. "If someone wants to send a professional email, or send a text to their mom, they will be extremely displeased if the word they are trying to write 'duck, whit, etc' gets replaced by a swear word." Adding "From a usability perspective, it's better for a user to add their own words to the dictionary so that they can anticipate the possibility of those words coming up, instead of surprising their friends or family with them." Fair enough. There are already entire websites dedicated to text message snafus, and if requiring users to add their own profanity acts as a failsafe, that's probably a good thing in the end. But it's not just about keeping you from inadvertently swearing at your mom, friend, or boss -- it's also to make doing business with other companies and organizations around the globe a bit easier. "Our OEM and Carrier partners ship their devices to a wide range of countries all of which have varying tolerance on the presence of 'offensive vocabulary' in the default language model," Sheedy says. "Due to this variation, we need to provide a language model that suits a wide range of customers. Wherever possible we build our language models to be connected so that they can adapt regionally (utilizing local dialect and slang) or pull down the users own language model." "Given all of that, we feel it's better to err on the conservative side as a baseline and let the user make their own choice." So it looks like you shouldn't expect Swype -- or any other third party keyboard -- to embrace your pottymouth anytime soon, but there is good news for anyone who requently adds curse words to their own personal digital dictionaries: Swype is planning on bringing its cross-device sync and backup features to iOS soon, so your personal profanity will follow you from your phone to your tablet, and back again. Sharp tongues rejoice! [Photo via Maks Karochkin (Flickr)]
Ginger Page, keyboard offer a wealth of text, keyboard options
I collect text editors the way other people collect stamps. Do people still collect stamps? Let's assume they do, and in great abundance. When a new editor comes out I've got to see what it does. This week I played with Ginger Page for iOS (free, universal). This handy little app offers several features to make writing easier and more fun, including a built-in alternate keyboard for iOS 8. Here's my look at Ginger Page and keyboard. Ginger Page, the text editor, does several things. It corrects mistakes. It translates text. It can read your text aloud and share what you've written in several ways. There's a lot more, which I'll get to, but for now I want to emphasize how efficiently all of this functionality is packaged into the app. When first launched, Ginger Page presents a keyboard, writing area, toolbar and a button for reaching the advanced tools. The six options across the main toolbar are rather useful. You get: 1. Rephrase a sentence 2. Speak 3. "Star," or mark as a favorite 4. Copy to the clipboard 5. Clear 6. Send as a text. I'll go over these in a moment, but first a complaint. While helpful, these tools are not customizable. As you'll see, there are additional functions that do not appear in the toolbar, like translate and define. It would be nice to be able to customize which six functions appear in the toolbar, but that's not an option. For example, if I intend to use Ginger Page for a lot of translation, it's a hassle to leave the writing area and open the hidden tool preferences repeatedly. Now, let's look at the default tools. The rephrase option is interesting. Once you've typed a sentence or a series of sentences, you can use Ginger Page to suggest alternate wordings. In my experience, this was hit or miss. When I wrote intentionally convoluted sentences, Ginger Page did a good job of suggesting more efficient alternatives. However, when I wrote brief sentences, it offered questionable variations, some of which changed the meaning of the original. For example, I wrote: "I'm going to the market with Martha to buy ingredients for dinner. We'll be back around 4:00. See you then." Suggestions for the first sentence included "I'm traveling to the market with Martha to buy ingredients for dinner," which is fine. It also suggested "I'm conking to the market..." and "I'm blending to the market...", which don't make sense, unless it's using colloquialisms I'm unfamiliar with. If your writing tends to be verbose, Ginger Page can help. Otherwise, it just gets weird. The other default tools work as you'd expect. Starred items are stored in a list and can be reused. This is handy if you want a database of boilerplate text messages, for example. The speak function does what it says on the tin, as does copy and clear, which deletes everything you've typed in the current session. Finally, the text option opens a text window with your words all ready to go. Ginger Page also offers real-time, contextual spelling and grammar checking. Spell checking works great and has at least one benefit over Apple's solution, in that it lets you correct an error that occurred several words ago. For example, if I write, "I'm giong to the market with Martha," it'll recognize "giong" as wrong and keep the suggestion "going" available as I type the rest of the sentence. A single tap fixes it. The grammatical suggestions work well for the most part. I made several errors and it caught the vast majority, offering acceptable fixes. A few errors did slip past, but I was satisfied with the performance overall. Now for the additional tools. I was impressed with the translate function. To test it I busted out my best high school French and Ginger Page translated every lengthy, marginally useful phrase without a problem. The app's dictionaries are quite useful, especially the customizable personal dictionary, which you can fill with your commonly used, non-standard words. You can also search for synonyms of a given word and theme the keyboard to match your aesthetic leanings... which brings me to the keyboard. The Ginger keyboard features a tiny "G" key in the lower right. Tapping it brings up all of the tools I mentioned before in a non-obtrusive display. I like this a whole lot and plan to keep it installed for quite some time. Despite a few complaints, I'm happy with Ginger Page and keyboard. They truly do add to the experience of writing on the iPhone.
Adaptxt Keyboard is a capable and free iOS 8 add-on
One of the great things about iOS 8 is the addition of third party keyboards allowing swipe typing, a variety of symbols and foreign language support. I've already looked at Swype from Nuance (US$0.99) and found it generally superior to the Apple standard keyboard. Adaptxt is offering a free keyboard with the same swipe features, a boatload of languages (I count about a hundred) and specialized keyboards for everything from baseball symbols to keyboards designed for finance and scientific disciplines. Like all third party keyboards, you load it via an an app. Within the app are some special features that can be turned on and off to customize your experience. Select the keyboard in your system settings to enable it and then it is available at any time by tapping the "globe" key on the Apple keyboard or any other installed keyboard. I was mainly interested in how the keyboard worked with swipe typing. I found it just as responsive as the Nuance Swype keyboard. Unlike a typical keyboard, you drag your fingers to different keys without lifting your finger from the keyboard. The software generally figures out" what you are typing and inserts the correct word. You don't even need to press the space bar, instead just pausing and going on to the next word. It's pretty magical. Like any keyboard under iOS 8, you get suggestions for words as you type. Sometimes this works well, sometimes not. The Adaptxt keyboard learns from your typing and suggestions get smarter over time. The keyboard supports custom gestures, text shortcuts, and a variety of keyboard layouts like QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and more. I liked using the keyboard and found it very capable. The non-English keyboards are happily not stored in the app, but are a download away keeping things compact. I have to say I was pretty down on the whole idea of swipe typing, but now that I am used to it, I prefer it as a way to enter text. The Adaptxt Keyboard is a winner and I love the free price. The app requires iOS 8 or later and is universal. The only weak part of the third party keyboard experience is Apple. iOS 8 had some troubles with third party keyboards and 8.0.2 was supposed to fix those issues. I still have issues like having the default keyboard vanish or be inconsistent across applications. I've seen the same problem in the beta of iOS 8.1. I'm sure those things will get ironed out, and I urge people to try some of these keyboards and see if they enhance the iOS user experience.
Native Instruments reveals new keyboards for 'Komplete' freaks
First came synths, samplers and drum machines. Then computers caught up, and could do much of the same stuff, for much less money (and in much less space). But, humans like to "play" things, so we then we got MIDI controllers. Now, the circle is closing -- the current trend is software-specific controllers. Example? The new Komplete Kontrol S series of keyboards from industry giant Native Instruments. Komplete is the company's, erm, comprehensive music production software package (drums, sample, sounds, synths... everything). It contains some of the most used virtual instruments on the market (Massive, for example, is behind a good chunk of Dubstep sounds).
Feedback Loop: Favorite keyboards, dash cam options and podcasts
Happy Saturday! Here's a fresh edition of Feedback Loop, so grab your coffee and dive in! This week we're talking about our favorite keyboards, which dash cams are the best, the podcasts we're currently listening to and USB cables.
Microsoft's new keyboard is meant to be used with Smart TVs
This fall marks 20 years that Microsoft has been making keyboards (make that "computer hardware," as it was quaintly called back in 1994). Ironically, though, as the company approaches this milestone, it's now making accessories not just for PCs, but... Smart TVs? Yes indeed. The company just announced the All-in-Media Keyboard, and while you could use it with a computer, it was designed to help you navigate your TV or media streamer from your couch. Chiefly, it features a built-in touchpad -- something we've seen on other devices -- meaning you won't need to balance a standalone mouse on your La-Z-Boy.
Photo: Wall-mounted Apple keyboards
It's like a nerdy Bat Cave. Flickr user Peter Bocken shares this image of several Apple keyboards, carefully mounted on a wall. Can you name them all? We'd like to see a Bluetooth keyboard added to the display. You can see Bocken's mouse collection in all of its glory here. You can contribute to our Flickr pool here. We'd love to see your photos.
Switched On: BlackBerry's depressing keyboard trends
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. In a March interview, Google chairman Eric Schmidt, whose company's smartphone ambitions led to his vacating a board seat at Apple, claimed that he didn't use either an Android phone or iPhone. Rather, he uses a Blackberry, citing his affinity for its keyboard despite a number of Android models released over the years integrating physical thumb keyboards. RIM devices had keyboards even before they had email; the feature was part of the BlackBerry's predecessor, the RIM Inter@ctive Pager. Indeed, tactile feedback was so valued by the company that it tried to integrate it into the touchscreen with the BlackBerry Storm. In reviewing that phone for The New York Times, David Pogue noted, "A BlackBerry without a keyboard is like an iPod without a scroll wheel." Imagine such a thing.
Logitech G series now available: Gaming keyboards and mice for Mac
We heard way back in January that Logitech was possibly planning to bring its gaming peripherals to the Mac, and that's exactly what's happened. Logitech has announced that its G series of keyboards and mice, designed to entice gamers with features like lots of extra customizable buttons, backlighting and even a separate LCD screen on the keyboard, will have support included for OS X on the Mac. Officially, the Mac support is coming with six new models, which are set to be available in stores later on this month. But you can download Mac versions of Logitech's Gaming Software from its website right now, so if you have one of these gaming accessories already, chances are you can get some extra functionality out of it right away. My guess is that these keyboards and mice already worked with the Mac (Apple's done a great job making compatibility easy), but you'll now be able to take advantage of all of the extra functions that these "G" devices offer. Logitech's gaming line also includes items like gamepads, joysticks and headsets, but the company is only supporting these keyboards and mice for now. Maybe in the future we'll see company-wide support for the Mac operating system.
What are your gaming peripherals?
Recently Frostheim AKA Brian Wood recommended peripherals for use with playing WoW over on Warcraft Hunters Union. He detailed which mouse, keyboard and headset he uses and why. He eschews anything wireless as a fraction of a delay can mean life or death in certain in-game situations. Personally, I agree with him. Though I dislike the inconvenience of being wired to my computer, I also have a non-wireless mouse, keyboard, and headset -- all of mine Logitech. I'd like to upgrade to trying out Steelseries or Razer, but my pocketbook hasn't allowed for that. I can say that my peripherals have taken a beating over the years and are still working fine, if a bit disheveled. I also concur with Frostheim's opinion that gaming keyboards should be lit, for ease in seeing the keys in low light. If you tend to use keyboards until they fall apart like I do, illuminated keyboards have the added benefit of not having the letters rub off. My daughter's hand-me-down keyboard is missing several letters, and she isn't a touch typist (yet). I guess it's time we upgraded her. How about you? What are your gaming peripherals? Can you recommend them or are you just slumming it until you can afford something better?
The Daily Grind: Do you like game-branded peripherals?
One of the unusual perks of being a game journalist is that you acquire a set of branded and unique USB flash drives. Aside from the pictured Final Fantasy XIV drive (which is far and away the strangest flash drive I've ever seen), I also have a World of Tanks die-cast USB drive that I'm quite fond of. Of course, it no longer contains any data even remotely related to World of Tanks, which makes all of that branding on the outside a lie. For this reason I'm always a bit iffy on using peripherals that have prominent branding for specific games. I'd feel pretty ridiculous if I were using a World of Warcraft-branded mouse at the moment when I'm not playing the game, for instance. But what about you? Do you like game-branded peripherals, or do you prefer that your computer accessories are neutral and perhaps even austere? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Beta test reveals Logitech planning to support OS X
OnlineBeta.com lists callouts for beta testers. A recent listing has revealed that accessory maker Logitech is planning to expand its support for OS X. In the listing, Logitech asks for help testing out its various gaming keyboards and mice on OS X, offering up public software for more configurability and precision with its various tools. This is great news for us Mac gamers. Logitech has been making great mice, keyboards and joysticks for years now, but the company has primarily focused on Windows computers (mostly because PCs are traditionally more targeted at gaming). In the past few years, however, gaming on the Mac has definitely grown in popularity, and it looks like Logitech is ready to start working on compatibility for its products.
