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Switched On: Stowaway from the PDA era
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Their screens lacked color and their apps lacked Internet access, but one thing the PDAs of yore had in common with the smartphones of today was text input that couldn't compare to a full-sized keyboard. The challenge, of course, is that full-sized keyboards generally aren't very good traveling companions for pocket-sized devices. In 2000, a startup called ThinkOutside addressed the issue with the first Stowaway keyboard, an ingeniously designed folding keyboard that used the dock connector of Palm PDAs to create a touch-typing experience that fit in your pocket. (Stowaway designer Phil Baker is the author of the book From Concept to Consumer, which explains how ideas become products that get built overseas and ultimately sold back here). ThinkOutside went on to create versions for PocketPCs, infrared (to accommodate incompatible dock connector standards) connections, and then finally Bluetooth. The company was eventually purchased by accessory maker Mobility Electronics, which renamed itself iGo after its flagship power adapter product, and eventually cancelled the Stowaway. At the time, PDA sales were sinking and relatively few handsets supported Bluetooth; most of those that did supported only the profiles needed for headsets and speakerphones, not keyboard input.
Mobility Electronics' Stowaway Sierra Bluetooth keyboard
Mobility Electronics has launched the latest in its line of Stowaway portable keyboards under its Think Outside brand, the Bluetooth-based Stowaway Sierra. Ok, so it's not quite as catchily-named as the Stowaway Shasta, but it does look to be a fair bit more versatile, compatible with Windows Mobile 5, Pocket PC, Palm and Symbian-based devices (with Bluetooth, of course), as well as Windows XP and Mac OS X, for anyone that finds their full-size desktop keyboard a little too comfortable. Unlike some portable keyboards, the Stowaway Sierra packs decently-sized 19mm keys, including dedicated numeric keys and shortcut keys for your smartphone, PDA, or Windows XP -- yet it still manages to fold up into pocketable (depending on the pocket) 5.0 x 3.5 x 0.9-inch package. You can snag this one now for $129.99.
