Yesterday, I hunkered down and purchased the Apple Wireless Keyboard. This keyboard uses bluetooth technology to communicate with your Mac, iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone. This technology was implemented in iOS 4.0. Although this did not get as much publicity as other features that were included in 4.0 I am at least beginning to believe it should have. So now I will dedicate a little space in my first blog post to it.
The keyboard is beautiful and elegant. It does get the a lot of flack for not having number keys on the side but this does not bother me. I like the size of it. By adding these keys on the side it would have made the keyboard too cumbersome. As it sits now I would have no problem just throwing it into my book bag and heading off, iPhone 4 in pocket of course. For me, this eliminates the need for a laptop.
I have not had too much time working with the keyboard yet it seems ergonomically correct. Although time will tell. I also read a review that the keyboard causes your hands to hurt because of the way the keys are designed. I have seen no evidence of this whatsoever. That review was on apple.com.
Connectivity is handled with ease. Just turn your iPhone bluetooth on, turn the keyboard on and it will appear. When you try to connect the first time it will ask you to type 4 numbers on the keyboard and hit enter to authenticate.
The negatives on this keyboard are somewhat few. Unlike, the iPad dock keyboard there is no spotlight or home key button. I have found myself wanting this throughout the day, especially the home button key. I would also like to be able to access the apps that are running in the background. I do not know how that would be implemented but a way to switch between apps would be nice. Maybe a button to see the apps running in the background then using arrow keys to switch between them. The keyboard does have brightness and iPod controls. The eject button will display the on-screen virtual keyboard. Although I am not sure why you would need to do that. Apple usually does not seem to put out many things that do not live up to their full capability but I feel that this keyboard could do more on the iPhone. Maybe Apple can do more with it through a software update. Having the enter button send text messages would also be a great addition. Many of the im clients work this way, Apple should make that change as well.
Overall, if you want to lay down some serious text I would say this is a great option. I shopped some other bluetooth keyboards and while this keyboard does not have as many functions as I would expect from a typical Apple product it does have more functions than any other bluetooth keyboard when paired with the iPhone.
Coming tomorrow or Friday... A review of the app Sleep Timer which monitors your sleep patterns based on your movements and wakes you up at the best time based on the pattern.
Sent from my iPhone 4
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