keyboards - page 6

Although I’ve always been delighted with my Apple USB Keyboard, but some people live and die by the clickety-clack. For some QWERTY warriors, in fact, things never got better than the vintage old IBM Model M, a platonic ideal of a mechanical keyboard.

DAS has been trying to appeal to the vintage old IBM Model M crowd for a couple years now with their fantastic series of DAS Keyboards, but those beautiful accessories — while admittedly both beautiful and satisfying to type on — weren’t strictly Mac compatible.

Now that’s all changed. Meet the DAS Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac, and it not only will help old Model M-ers make the switch… it should even please vintage Mac users who have been missing their old Apple Extended Keyboard II.

Do you just like using the well-designed Apple keyboard with your work PC? If so, you know that there are inevitably some drawbacks to using Apple’s own QWERTYUIOP bar with Windows, mainly in the fact that many keys — such a print screen, volume control, eject and more — don’t work outside of OS X.

As is often the case, if you want to use your Apple keyboard as Steve intended within the Windows environment, there’s an app for that. It’s called Apple Keyboard Helper, and it’s a free download. Here’s what it does.

Do you love typing on your iPad, the feel of your digits drumming atop virtualized letters glowing out of slippery glass? No, we thought not: for serious typing, few do, which is why the iPad keyboard case market is doing so well. So I have some haptic problems with this Kickstarter project to bring a wireless multi-touch glass keyboard and mouse to market. Aesthetically, though? Gorgeous.

I use multiple keyboards on my iOS devices English (US), Emoji, and Deutsch (German). It used to be a drag to have to click the globe icon on the keyboard multiple times to get to the keyboard you needed, but not any more. You can reach all your keyboards with just one finger!

Syncing your iPhone or iPod Touch all too often takes the device entirely out of commission, but it doesn’t have to be that way: Omnio’s WOWKeys transforms your iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch or iPhone 4 into an extension of your keyboard for both the Mac and PC.

Cervantes Mobile’s latest iPhone accessory, the Jorno, is basically technology that’s been floating around for nearly a decade: a folding keyboard for serious writing on a handheld device. I had something just like this for my old Dell Axim PDA back in 2002, and while the Jorno docks with the iPhone through Bluetooth instead of a physical connection, otherwise it’s pretty much identical.

I can’t make any bones about the Jorno’s price: at $79, I’d say it’s too expensive by half for such old tech. That said, I will say that the Transformers-like process of folding one of these keyboards was such a clickety-clacketing delight that I still count my old fold-up Axim keyboard as one of the best gadgets I ever owned, and this is pretty much the same thing. If you want to have an easily pocketable yet full-sized physical keyboard to do serious writing on your iPhone or iPad, then, you could do worse than giving this cute like keyboard a shot.

Look, we’re four generations in. If you still crave a physical hardware keyboard on your iPhone, you’re basically barking up the wrong tree: hey, look over there, there’s RIM, a succulent hydrant for you to whiz upon. Apple’s just never going to be there for you.

That said, there’s scarcely an itch the constabulary of third-party accessory makers won’t scratch for you, given enough dosh. So here, have this Mini Key case for the iPhone 4, complete with sliding, backlit QWERTY. It adds significant bulk, no batter life, and will cost you $60 when it’s released at the end of the year. You’re welcome.