TouchFire: Finally a real keyboard for the iPad | Hacker News Reader

TouchFire: Finally a real keyboard for the iPad

kickstarter.com

134 pointskiriappeee50 comments

TouchFire creator here to clarify a few things. TouchFire does let you rest your fingers on the home row. That's one of its most important features. Also, you can quickly retract TouchFire out of the way, letting you use the entire screen (see the video for a demo).

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...

This is awesome. You guys seem to have nailed the product development.

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!

I for one would love to try it out if you end up arranging a demo in the bay.

I have an enormous amount of respect for a group of people who band together and see an idea into the marketplace. That deserves a huge congratulations.

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.

Agreed. If you really need to improve your typing speed while using the iPad then you should invest in a wireless keyboard. Having this hanging off the side of the device will in no uncertain terms come to irritate users greatly.

Never underestimate people's willingness to hideously degrade something beautiful to attain a small amount of practicality.

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.

As someone who has dropped their iPhone and smashed the back up (thankfully it was not the other side), I can understand people buying ugly cases.

The difference there is that you made your phone look shitty on accident. They did it on purpose.

If you're putting a shitty case on your phone to prevent it from looking shitty in the first place, you're doing it wrong.

If this means I can type on the iPad without looking at the keyboard, that's an awesome use case. It means I can type 100+ wpm while taking notes in a meeting or class, just like with a laptop. I can leave my external keyboard at home.

Actually, TouchFire does hide itself when you don't need it. It quickly retracts when you want to use the entire screen, and you can easily pop it back up when you want to type again.

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...

The comments here so far seem oddly negative. This looks really amazing. I mostly program in screen sessions on servers, and I've so wanted to use the iPad to do this. Unfortunately, you either have to carry a separate keyboard everywhere--defeating the point of the svelte iPad--or use the on screen keyboard, which drastically reduces my accurate typing speed. I wouldn't have believed it were possible, but this addresses all my annoyances.

I think it really depends. In most use cases, taking a seperate keyboard with you is not that annoying, and given the big constraints that this add-on imposes, it might be worth the costs? dont you think it would be nice if you could use the screen session with the whole screen estate?

Why link to blogspam?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/740785012/touchfire-the-...

Hmm... The video says over and over that you can rest your fingers on the keys like a normal keyboard, but none of the footage actually shows people using it this way.

Since I've been using Swype on Android, every "normal" keyboard on a touch device seems primitive. Even the iphone/ipod keyboard to type emails, text messages is to slow.

I'm on Android and I've been in the testing phase of Swype for a very very long time. Swype's major failing is the adding of unusual words. It's not built for real touch typing even though they added that feature in. Also I've given it a very good go since I use my android device for blogging as well and while swype performs remarkably well in portrait mode it feels different in landscape. the distance your single finger has to travel as opposed to being able to use all ten fingers to touch type like you would on a standard keyboard makes touch typing feel like the more efficient method here.

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.

Tip: You can make swype in landscape (on a tablet) take up 1/2rd of the screen and place it in the bottom left or right corner, so you can actually have the same feel as using it on a phone or in portrait mode.

Check out the screenshot: http://www.smartkeitai.com/swype-3-0-for-android-honeycomb-t...

Seems the next step would be to make a similarly slim, fits-inside-the-cover bluetooth keyboard. Same feel, same carrying load, no cost in lost screen-real-estate.

This is another Kickstarter iPad keyboard project that successfully funded this summer and is shipping soon: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1030552097/ikeyboard-0

I contributed to this and it's been worth the expense just to observe the design and production process. I had no idea that making a plastic widget was so complicated.

The keyboard I believe has changed slightly in different versions of iOS. Plus with portrait + split keyboard, this seems like it would be kind of a hassle.

I'm also guessing you won't be able to get the correct angle to type well either.

Steve here, one of the founders of TouchFire. The iOS keyboard layout for iPad has remained unchanged since the first release on iPad 1.

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.

What about other languages? ie. spanish, it has a different layout. And as far as I know, the layout has changed slightly (enough to annoy your users) since I got my iPad (the old one).

I too am obsessed with finding a way to make typing on the iPad live up to its full potential but I don't think this is the way. A physical overlay requiring precise positioning will destroy the fluid experience of the iPad which makes it so great.

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

A key feature of TouchFire is that it can be easily retracted when the user wants to use the full screen. And it automatically aligns itself with magnets; it snaps into place on an iPad 2 (it also automatically aligns on an iPad 1 with the Apple cover).

By the way, I love TapTyping. There might be some new speed records coming your way soon from TouchFire-enabled iPads...

Ah it's great to hear that the TouchFire will be very fast to take on and off. There's still a bit of fidley-ness to it but it sounds like you've done everything you can to address that design concern.

Hmm, yah it will be interesting to see the WPM difference using TouchFire. Maybe we need a third leaderboard to account for it ;).

What annoys me about typing on the iPad is that I can't take my eyes off the keyboard, because there are no physical cues to keep my hand positioned correctly. The iPad is the first keyboard I've had to look at since I was 8 years old. It totally changes the way my brain works while I'm typing, in a negative way.

This overlay looks like a fantastic product, with a few small issues (eg no landscape, still only using half the screen for content, etc).

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)

Is Bluetooth actually forbidden on aircraft? Several airlines offer wifi in-cabin these days, and that operates on the same frequencies and at much higher power.

In my opinion, what the world of tablets need is a good tool for quick and reliable one-hand writing, which would be a) easy to learn, but b) quicker than handwriting. It would most likely not be a physical product, but a replacement for a standard keyboard.

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.

Normally, I enjoy these kickstarter ideas, but this is a ZX Spectrum flavored abomination.

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...

Obviously not everyone reacts negatively, but maybe less might if the first picture (from the video) on the site was anything even close to the standard of the excellent photography further down.

No matter how nicely this is integrated. It is backwards thinking.

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?

The point of an iPad is you don't have to carry around a bag, at that point you might as well just carry a laptop. I'm constantly replying to emails throughout the day so I'm all for anything that can makes that more convenient.

This isn't going to do portrait as well as landscape. Strikes me as being a bit of a kludge.

(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.)

Personally, I never type in portrait mode anyway if I don't absolutely have to. Pulling it out of the way temporarily to satisfy some app that refuses to let me type in landscape mode would be a small inconvenience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100

While I do like the flexibility of the fluid iPad transitions between landscape and portrait mode, there are times when I really miss having a physical keyboard. It is exceedingly frustrating how many typos I make when I'm trying to write an e-mail or chat with friends. This is perfect for those situations.

This is going to be an incredible use to a lot of different places that could use the ipad in place of a pc. I love it, you can have the ease of travel and use, and still get all the functionality you would get from a pc. I love the fact you can pledge to be a part of it too.

I completely agree - I watched the video and it really could take this entire market by storm. Who knows where it could end up - I am looking forward to testing it - I pledged today!!

I look forward to testing this product. Typing on glass has always left me wanting more, and this sound like it solves my problems smartly.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3003873

thought this was a horrible idea for all the same reasons stated, until i saw the video. If it really works like advertised(being able to rest my fingers on home screen, quick removal/magnetic alignment) this'll be the first accessory i get when i get my ipad.

The discomfort in typing I think is partially a generational gap.

for the 10 people who might like the clickely keyboard sounds - i say don't buy an ipad.

If only it didn't obscure the screen. Maybe it could be attached with a hinge or something?

Actually, it is attached with the equivalent of a hinge. The user can quickly retract TouchFire while it is attached to the iPad, giving full access the entire screen. And they can quickly pop it back over the screen when they want to type again.

I would never get this for my iPad. It's not worth the physical encumbrance. If I wanted to type quickly, I would buy an external keyboard or go on my laptop.

How is an external keyboard less of a physical encumbrance than a thin plastic overlay?

This looks more like an elaborate, very early prepared aprils fools joke.

Personally i find this sort of thing the wrong use for Kickstarter. Kickstarter is about letting people who wouldn't otherwise be able to complete project get funded by the community because it cool, quirky or useful. It should be used to circumvent the normal sales cycle for thoes who can afford it. The two gentlemen with almost certainty had $10,00 themselves to launch this product they just needed customers and publicity.

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.

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