How Two Guys Raised $100K To Make A Magical Keyboard | Hacker News Reader

How Two Guys Raised $100K To Make A Magical Keyboard

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67 pointsvdondeti16 comments

There are two issues with extended text entry on an iPad: the lack of tactile feedback, and the tradeoff of typing and viewing ergonomics. They've added tactile feedback, but you still need to keep the iPad near horizontal in order to type on the screen.

I've got a bluetooth keyboard/case/stand made by Zagg (branded by Logitech), and although I haven't tried the TouchFire, I would prefer my current setup. A side bonus is easy accessibility to all characters—I don't do any programming on this, but I write LaTeX and Markdown regularly, so making curly brackets or asterisks easier is a nice plus. I thought I would benefit from the increased screen real estate (when using a bluetooth keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is hidden), but in practice I don't think it actually helps.

Here's a non-affiliate link to the product I've got: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0054JE706

And here's an affiliate link, if you're into that sort of thing: http://tinyurl.com/dy4skxe

edit: You can't really see how the product is also a case on the Amazon page. Here's the product page, in another non-affiliate link: http://www.zagg.com/accessories/logitech-ipad-2-keyboard-cas...

iPad 2 weight: 21.2 ounces

Zagg keyboard weight: 13.6 ounces (64% of an iPad 2)

TouchFire weight: < 1 ounce (4% of an iPad 2)

Zagg keyboard: $92

TouchFire: $45

It's about $10 cheaper than that from Amazon or in stores, but sure. It adds weight. Neither are a large enough weight to impact your carrying of an iPad (the smart cover is nearly 5 oz! :), and if you lift the iPad up to look at something, you aren't also lifting the case.

I'd say a better dimensional concern to have is that when you're using it as a case, it more than doubles the device thickness.

One of these products is a case, stand, and keyboard, the other is a keyboard accessory. I tried to explain why one is better than the other... this makes my iPad feel like an awesome laptop when I bring it along. Apples and oranges.

I still fail to see how this improves over a thin Bluetooth keyboard, that wirelessly communicates with the iPad..

It seems like it takes up just as much space as phyiscal, but requires covering the screen, like the software KB does.

TouchFire actually takes up much less space than a Bluetooth keyboard. The wall thickness of the silicone keys is half the thickness of a credit card, and it is flexible so it can fold with the iPad's cover.

And you can quickly retract it off the screen when you want to do non-typing tasks. There are magnets in all four corners which snap it into the retracted position. Take a look at the iPad 1 video on the Kickstarter site. That shows retraction in use...

I think for programmers a keyboard which projects a screen should be a better idea than a screen which projects a keyboard.

Looks interesting - I didn't realize the first tablets were developed 20 years ago.

Apple likes to take a revisionist history approach to their new products. They explicitly label them as innovative devices (which they may be) but implicitly attempt to create the perception that they've invented the device. See: iPod, iPhone, iPad. There's a huge number of people who didn't know MP3 players, smartphones, and tablets existed before the day Apple showcased them.

Is there any tangible proof for this? Is it just that they don't label it a tablet, smart phone or MP3 player? It might just as well be people who are angry that their products don't receive the same media attention. I'm not saying the media are fair, but I don't buy that Apple's marketing is actively revisionist.

Take a look at the announcement of the iPad [1]. "You can browse the web on it. It's the best browsing experience you've ever had. To see a full web page you can manipulate with your fingers." "You can turn the iPad any way you want, it automatically adjusts." "You can see your photos and flip through them."

Note that I said they explicitly state that it's a tablet, a smartphone, an MP3 player, but they implicitly imply that every feature they have or device they've created has just been invented. The above quotes go a long way toward showing that. Touchscreens, even larger than the iPad, had been around for a long time. Gyroscopic screens had been around for a long time. I had one on my Lenovo tablet before the iPad was even announced. Job didn't announce it as a new tablet, he announced it as _the_ tablet, and described the features as if they were new. Looking back on the featureset he took pride in, no one would ever present something as mundane as a touchscreen picture slideshow unless they were, with a least some part of their conscious mind, trying to imply that it was a new thing.

And it was easy to believe, at every launch. Tablets, consumer smartphones, and MP3 players were not hugely popular, there was a huge consumer market that had not heard of them. Did Apple enlarge the market? Sure. But Jobs implied, with a straight face, that everything they were doing was new and original. It simply wasn't. It's akin to driving a truck into the jungle and showing the natives your four-wheel-drive invention.

Remember the classic Slashdot post about the announcement of the iPod in 2001. Even then, gadget-minded folks knew that the iPod was a flashy but ultimately unoriginal product.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PpeSbDoeAE

The innovation is making them actually worth buying.

There's a huge number of people who didn't know MP3 players, smartphones, and tablets existed before the day Apple showcased them.

No there's not.

The book about GO is a pretty good read: http://www.amazon.com/Startup-Silicon-Adventure-Jerry-Kaplan...

Yeah, a lot of people aren't aware of the history.

Hey, they're even old like me, so cool

off-topic : was kinda cool that in the video there was a guy with a Punta del Este T-shirt, that's where I'm from.

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