But there's a reason Apple doesn't make these. It's ugly. It doesn't work in portrait mode. It doesn't hide itself when I don't need it. It isn't fluid.
Overall, I think it deteriorates the entire experience of using an awesome tablet device. Sure, it's good for a single use case -- but that's not why the iPad is awesome. It's awesome because of how much it can do across use cases.
This doesn't fit that bill.
I'm always fascinated by people who buy iPhones because of the design and then slap the most horrifically ugly cases onto them. They would never have bought a phone in that state but are more than willing to transform it into that state having bought it.
> It's awesome because of how much it can do across use cases.
I'm not sure I'd agree with that. The iPad is exactly good because it does a number of specific use cases extremely well but it is not really good at generalizing from those. In many ways Apple has gone out of their way to stop that.
Eg: if you really do a lot of typing and have to have a tablet, I'd think something like an ASUS Transformer is a better device, not just because it has a keyboard but because the whole ecosystem is better for that (eg: the device has a file system shared between apps, you get a mouse cursor, happily accepts external media, etc.). It was meant to be used in a huge number of different ways not anticipated by its makers. But it does not do the things that the iPad is meant for as well as the iPad does.
All use cases are equal, but some are more equal than others. Being able to touch-type fast without looking at the iPad's screen is a pretty big deal...
For instance when I'm typing a lot of text on my iPad I still often alternate between reading and writing. If I leave the overlay on when switching to read a blog post the very bottom of the page would always be obscured. It looks like trying to read through the plastic keys would be annoying at best and impossible at worst. On the other hand taking the overlay on and off would be a nuisance since you would need to get it into the exact right spot every time you wanted to start using it.
Instead if people want to type quickly on their iPad: Practice! Here is the typing test leaderboard for an app I made called TapTyping:
http://www.flairify.com/leaderboard/
The fastest typists have reached over 110 wpm with 98% accuracy (which is frickin' insane, BTW) but even speeds half of that are quite functional. I type at around 65 wpm on my iPad (85 on a keyboard) and I'm not shy at all about tapping out long passages of text when the inspiration hits me.
All of that said: these guys are helping to move the ball forward in touch screen input. I did indeed pledge $45.. Good luck!
Sent from my iPad
By the way, I love TapTyping. There might be some new speed records coming your way soon from TouchFire-enabled iPads...
Hmm, yah it will be interesting to see the WPM difference using TouchFire. Maybe we need a third leaderboard to account for it ;).
TouchFire is a really new idea, that in many ways flies in the face of conventional wisdom. I've actually spent most of career doing software. When I first came up with the idea, I thought it was pretty crazy too, for many of the reasons people are trashing it here.
What's so non-intuitive is that TouchFire works. And it works really well. It lets you touch-type on an iPad, while at the same time effectively disappearing into the iPad's cover when you don't need it.
We have found that actually using it is a very different experience than watching a video of it. Would people be interested in having a meet-up to try it out in person? We could do one in Seattle and one in the Bay area if there is interest...
It is when I see things like this, that makes me question the mantra 'Release quickly, release often'. I know that is usually applied to software...but the lesson can be seen here.
These guys took the time to think through the product and really refined the solution, before releasing.
Even did User Testing and a solid promo video before releasing.
This is awesome. Congrats!
Thus I think swype for phones is fanstastic.. Swype for tablets is great if for some reason you can just use one hand.. But both hands hand touch typing works the best on a tablet imo. And this particular invention enhances that effect a lot.
Check out the screenshot: http://www.smartkeitai.com/swype-3-0-for-android-honeycomb-t...
I'm also guessing you won't be able to get the correct angle to type well either.
TouchFire lives in the iPad's cover when you don't use it so if you want to use portrait or split keyboard, TouchFire doesn't get in the way.
Because nothing like it was available and I wanted a tactile keyboard to write & code with when travelling, I ended up buying an Apple wireless keyboard. 2nd hand on eBay set me back $50, and it uses bluetooth so battery life is sacrificed, but I've found it to be a fantastic option. You can type at full speed, it's got character keys so coding isn't impossible, and best of all you have your full screen available for your word processor / terminal session / whatever.
There are two big downsides, though: 1) Can't use it on an airplane, since it uses Bluetooth 2) It doubles the travel size of the iPad.
If you can live with these I think it is a great alternative to a laptop for many tasks (but not everything, obviously)
It is ABSOLUTELY possible to type fast on the iPad/iPhone virtual keyboards. It is possible to touch type on these keyboards as well. No you can't do it the same way as a mechanical keyboard, but it isn't that difficult. You just use different physical cues, not your finger tips.
Also, if you are going to type something that is going to take a little time. Why not just take a $69 wireless keyboard out of your bag?
(Obligatory disclosure: I use one of these with my iPad and like it: http://www.zagg.com/accessories/logitech-ipad-2-keyboard-cas... -- yes, it's more expensive and requires bluetooth, but it's the best I've found so far.)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/740785012/touchfire-the-...
There were a number of solutions -- like chorded keyboards -- but none has really approached the popularity of traditional QWERTY; I believe that with software instead of a physical keyboard many more solutions might happen in the future, some even becoming our new favorite text-entry solutions.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=223&s...
My wife's reaction was:
What is that?
Why?
It doesn't make any sense...
They have succeed but have also taken away the possibility of another entrepreneur getting funded(possible a college kid) who has a great product but most definitely does not have $10,000 to spend for something like this.