back to article iPhone 4 gets slide-out keyboard

Saddened that your iPhone 4 lacks a slide-out Qwerty keyboard? Soon you'll be able to add one. BoxWave Keyboard Buddy That's thanks to US accessories company BoxWave, which is now taking orders for Keyboard Buddy, an iPhone 4 case with a drop-down landscape-orientation Qwerty deck. The keyboard connects to smartphone using …

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  1. Wize

    As much as touch screen smart phones are cool...

    ...I still like my buttons.

    Probably one of the few good ideas Nokia had with its N97.

  2. Clive Galway

    Hell, it might even start tempting me...

    ... if someone doesn't get their arse in gear and make a decent android phone with a dedicated number row.

    WTF is it with all these android phones with 4 rows but cant seem to find enough space for a dedicated number strip? And a 5 row qwerty on android? Forget it.

    WLTB replacement for my HTC Touch Pro :(

    1. There's a bee in my bot net

      Phew!

      "WTF is it with all these android phones with 4 rows but cant seem to find enough space for a dedicated number strip? And a 5 row qwerty on android? Forget it."

      I'm glad it isn't just me. I'm still hanging on to my G1 until someone makes an Android device with a comparable keyboard...

  3. KmT
    FAIL

    Piffle!!

    TWADDLE!!

    So, you need to keep the iPhone bluetooth switched on all the time which will essentially run away with your battery - or, switch it on before you use the keyboard...I think not!!

  4. DrXym

    I wonder why Apple even bother

    Apple touts how wonderfully slim and beautiful their phones are and the first thing everyone does is shove it in a horrible rubber / plastic sheath. This keyboard *needs* you to do it. FFS, if you need a keyboard that much there are phones which have one built in.

  5. Dave 52

    How does it transmit key strikes to the iPhone?

    I don't see any connections from the keyboard to the phone itself.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ooh me me me meeeee

      Can I be first to say 'Read the fkin article'

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Ssshhh, you've exposed the real purpose of the LHC, Brian Cox is angry.

      It was sold to the public as a way to investigate subatomic particles and hunt the Higgs Boson but in actual fact in a top secret facility on the Swiss/French border it creates highly trained quantum monkeys to hide under the keys of wireless keyboards and write your keystrokes on little pieces of paper that they then make into tiny paper aeroplanes * to fly across to their counterpart monkeys in the host device who unfold the 'plane and hold the paper up to the inside of the screen for you to see through the magnifying lenses people call 'pixels'. Incidentally, a stuck pixel is a monkey on strike at having to work for peanuts.

      * (A technology Apple used to create the iPhone 4 but failed to take into account the scalability of quantum monkey aerofoils and is thus the real reason the iPhone 4 drops calls as most of the paper planes don't fly far enough unless there's a following wind)

      Alternatively, the keyboard might use Bluetooth and you're just a monkey who didn't read the article.

  6. jonathan keith
    FAIL

    Or, you know...

    You could get a Nokia N900. And it comes with flash.

    1. Greg J Preece

      Seconded!

      In fact, my first thought when seeing this was "my, doesn't that make it look like a Nokia..."

      The product itself, though, is copper-bottomed genius.

  7. There's a bee in my bot net

    Can I have one

    Seeing as how we aren't getting the Samsung Galaxy S Pro (EPIC) in the UK. One of these for the Galaxy S would be great.

    But whats with 4 line keyboards! Some of us really need things like the Alt key!

  8. Ian Ferguson
    Jobs Horns

    Nifty

    I wish the iPhone game makers would add keyboard support to their games. Prince of Persia Classic, for example, is a superb game, looks great, but is unbelievably badly suited to touch screen controls. Add a keyboard or keypad; perfect.

    An even better idea would be for Apple to decree standard controls that game publishers and keyboard/gamepad makers could stick to, so we could choose from a variety of gamepad add-ons compatible with all iOS games.

    But no... Apple will continue to insist that the iPhone does not need buttons. :(

  9. Rattus Rattus
    Troll

    If only

    the iPhone had a removable battery, something like this could just slide in to the battery compartment, replacing the battery and back cover. You could then have enough extra power to cover the drain of bluetooth being on all the time plus some extra, and you'd only need the one charger rather than two. In fact, the charger could even have a standard connector rather than the expesive proprietary one.

    But nooo, "why would anyone need a removable battery?"

    1. DrXym

      If you listen to the apologists

      Apologists would claim they have to seal the battery in to make the phone slim. A blatant lie as many other smart phones can demonstrate. e.g. my HTC Desire lets me get at the phone using a finger nail to unpop the cover.

      The reason, the only reason for sealing in the battery is to ensure as many people as possible throw away their iPhones when the battery goes and buy a new one.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Wrong keyboard layout!

    And it is of course a US keyboard layout so the additional characters are in the wrong place. But then of course the whole universe revolves around Cupertin..........

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