Following on from the Apple Watch native apps hack, Steve Troughton Smith has also found that the keyboard view in iOS 9 has much better adaptability support on Apple’s latest operating system. As shown by the screenshots, at larger resolutions, the iPad keyboard rearranges itself to make use of the space. Tab and Caps Lock keys are notably added onto to the left side as well as an entirely new top row of symbols.
This new row reflects the symbols normally found on hardware keyboards above the number keys: @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ +. Next to the ‘p’ on the first row, the keyboard also gains curly braces and a pipe symbol.
Following the release of OS X 10.10.3 to the public, Apple has also released iOS 8.3 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The update, which has been in beta for several months, brings over 300 new emojis (including diversity options) as well as a new keyboard for inputting the symbols. The new keyboard features a scrolling UI, rather than the old page metaphor, to better accommodate the wider range of emojis available in the update.
iOS 8.3 also includes a whole host of new Siri languages, so more international users can benefit from Apple’s virtual personal assistant. The update adds Siri in Russian, Danish, Dutch, Thai, Swedish, Turkish and Portuguese. Siri’s voice has also been tweaked in this update.
As I noted in Part 1 of How-To: Decode Apple’s Tech Specs pages before buying a new Mac, Apple has designed the Mac purchasing process to be easy: pick a model, pick the good, better, or best configuration, hand over your cash, and enjoy your computer. Since most people get confused by tech specs — bullet points filled with numbers and acronyms — Apple downplays them in its marketing materials, leaving customers to sort through the details and figure out what most of them mean.
But these specs are really important when you’re shopping for the right Mac for your current and future needs. So I’ve created this How-To guide to walk you through each of Apple’s Tech Specs pages using clear explanations, hopefully enabling you to properly understand what you’re about to buy. Part 1 focused on the “big 5″ Mac specs you really need to know about, and this Part 2 looks at the rest — generally things that remain the same in a given model, regardless of the configuration you choose…
Following a US District Judge in San Francisco ordering Typo to pay BlackBerry $860,000, the Ryan Seacrest-backed company now faces another suit from the Canadian smartphone maker for continuing to sell its iPhone case with an integrated hardware keyboard. Expand Expanding Close
Fleksy has updated its popular custom keyboard app with a range of new features, mixing the practical and the fun.
On the practical side, you can now add a row of seven customizable hotkeys that act as shortcuts for anything from an emoji or symbol to an email address. The functionality of the globe button is also now customizable, for example making it dismiss the keyboard, and you can opt for a case-sensitive keyboard layout. More keys have been added to the iPad app, also appearing in the iPhone app in landscape mode, and dictionary words now sync between devices via iCloud … Expand Expanding Close
Tactus Technology is introducing a unique, new keyboard case today called Phorm that promises to bring tactile feedback to the typing experience while still using the on-screen touch keyboard. Phorm uses microfluids to raise a segments of a screen protector kept on with a frame and protective case to apply “physical” keys that appear and disappear at the swipe of switch. The goal is to improve typing speed and accuracy when typing with the iPad without requiring a keyboard you have to charge or pair with your tablet. Check out the video below to see Phorm in action. Expand Expanding Close
Typo, the Ryan Seacrest-backed company selling an iPhone case with an integrated hardware keyboard, has been ordered to pay BlackBerry around $860,600 in the ongoing case between the two companies, Reuters reports.
If you’re unfamiliar, BlackBerry didn’t particularly like the Typo keyboard’s resemblance to its own iconic, albeit obsolete, keyboard included on its dwindling smartphone lineup and covered by its patents. After the court handed down an injunction following an original suit filed in January of 2014, a US District Judge in San Francisco ruled this week that Typo will have to pay the £567,303, or approximately $860,600, fine for violating the injunction and continuing to sell the product.
Despite little interest from anyone and generally poor reviews, Typo plans to keep making its keyboard cases and noted to Reuters that the fines do not relate to its latest generation of Typo 2 products unveiled at CES last month.
Apple is preparing an all-new MacBook Air for 2015 with a radically new design that jettisons standards such as full-sized USB ports, MagSafe connectors, and SD card slots in favor of a markedly thinner and lighter body with a higher-resolution display. Sources within Apple, who have used internal prototype versions of the upcoming computer, have provided in-depth details about the machine, and our exclusive artist renditions of the revamped MacBook Air provide the first close look at Apple’s first major step in mobile Mac computing since the Retina MacBook Pro launch in 2012.
If you’re a fan of emoji, you’ll want to 👀 at Emoji Type, a new third party predictive keyboard for the 📱. Emoji Type comes from the iOS developer of Product Hunt. Like with any iOS 🎹, installing the Emoji Type app prompts you to enable the keyboard in Settings. Once you’ve done that, you can switch to Emoji Type by hitting the 🌐 icon on the keyboard.
SwiftKey announced on Tuesday that it has collaborated with Intel on an ambitious project for the past two years: improving the communication system of Stephen Hawking. The custom keyboard maker makes it easier for the well-known scientist, who has motor neurone disease, to predict full words, based on a small sensor activated by a muscle in his cheek. Expand Expanding Close
The SwiftKey iOS keyboard has been updated today to include support for several new languages. This will be a welcome update for many users, as the developers say that support for new languages has been one of their most requested changes. The new languages included in this update are:
Swedish
Danish
Norwegian
Dutch
The addition of these four languages brings the total to seventeen. SwiftKey is available on the iOS App Store for free.
Logitech today announced its latest case/Bluetooth keyboard combo with the new Type+ for iPad Air. Like many of its past products that we’ve reviewed, Logitech’s new keyboard puts a Bluetooth keyboard inside of a light protective case that provides protection on both sides of an iPad. It also said it’s made some big improvements to the keyboard over previous generations: Expand Expanding Close
SwiftKey has long been known as one of the most popular third-party keyboards for Android, but the company kept no secrets earlier this year in announcing that the app would be making its way to Apple’s platform with the release of iOS 8. Today, the company has shared some more details about its features, and given us a first-look at the swipe-to-type entry method running on the latest build of iOS.
The popular Fleksy keyboard for Android will be making its way to iOS 8 this fall, according to the company behind the software. While the keyboard isn’t quite ready for a public beta, the developers say it will be ready by the release of the next-generation mobile OS.
Keeping in line with today’s update for the Android version, the iPhone version is on schedule to ship with support with over 40 languages.
Apple has just announced at WWDC 2014 that as part of its iOS 8 extensions capability, users will be able to install systemwide keyboards, such as the popular Swype system. The keyboards will run in a secure sandbox and not have access to anything except text input, though they can ask for permission to use the network in order to provide more features.
These keyboards can be installed through third-party apps on the updated App Store.
The Typo iPhone case has been blocked from sale by BlackBerry, according to a report from Reuters. The smartphone maker sued over the design of the case earlier this year, saying that it infringed on several of the company’s patents and its “iconic” keyboard design. The case is designed to add a BlackBerry-like keyboard to the iPhone 5 and 5s.
The injunction blocks the sale of the Typo, which is made by a company co-founded by TV personality Ryan Seacrest. A San Fransisco federal judge ruled that BlackBerry had established a “likelihood” that the Typo case infringed on its patents, while the case maker was unable to prove that it had not.
SwitfKey, the popular Android app that replaces the stock on-screen keyboard with a gesture-based, predictive typing system, will soon arrive in an official iOS app from the same developers. While details are slim, the screenshot above from @evleaks comes with the caption “SwitfKey Note,” which we assume is a note taking app of sorts by looking at the image. Since Apple doesn’t allow users to change the system-wide on-screen keyboard to third-party alternatives like on Android, we assume that the gesture and predictive typing features will be accessible only within the new Note app. Expand Expanding Close
Editors Keys today announced the first ever wireless shortcut keyboard for Apple’s recently released Logic Pro X audio suite. The keyboard sports 150 shortcuts and the company notes it was also able to fit in some extra shortcuts as icons sitting behind the text on each key. Perhaps the best part of the new Logic Pro X keyboard is the fact that Editors Keys used an actual Apple wireless keyboard for the product, which means you’ll be able to swap out your current Apple keyboard without sacrificing the look and feel. The company says it worked with the Logic Pro X community to develop the best experience possible for users: Expand Expanding Close
With its wide-range of applications, touchscreen capabilities, portability, and fast processing, the iPad Air has been regarded by many users as a tablet capable of content creation. Coming from a dedicated laptop, however, the Multi-Touch keyboard is a weakness. Not because it is incapable, but because it is sometimes slower to type with, less accurate, and less comfortable.
Companies like Logitech, Zagg and others have been making their iPad keyboard cases thinner and thinner with each generation, but a year from now we might be seeing accessory makers take advantage of a new technology from CSR— The world’s thinnest wireless touch surface that could make your iPad keyboard case paper-thin. The company develops a number of silicon, software, and wireless solutions for OEMs in the consumer electronics space, and tonight it showed off its new printable, flexible 0.5 mm thick touch surface for the first time during ShowStoppers, the official media showcase for the IFA consumer electronics show taking place here in Berlin.
CSR partnered with Atmel and Conductive Inkjet Technology (CIT) to develop the ultra-thin wireless touch surface. The device uses Atmel’s touch silicon to sense multiple contact points on a surface, and can offer a full touch surface or power optimised key detection. The flexible membrane is enabled by CIT printed conductors. CIT’s reel-to-reel printing process enables copper and other conductors to be applied to the surface of the ultra-thin and flexible membrane, and can be printed to fit a range of tablet shapes and sizes.
Not only is it the thinnest touch surface ever made, it’s also wireless thanks to built-in Bluetooth 4.0, which CSR tells us helped the prototype achieve “market leading battery life” in the thin form factor. It also has touch latency of about 12mS, which means no noticeable lag while typing, but also possibilities for gaming and other applications. It’s not just for iPad keyboards, however. Tablet keyboard cases might be the ideal form factor– and CSR agrees– but it can also create table-sized touch surfaces and even customizable layouts that can be easily and inexpensively added to the keyboard. The tech is capable of picking up handwriting and stylus input as well, so typing and keyboards are certainly not the only implementation that we could see in the near future.
While it’s still a prototype, the company tells us its in discussions with many OEMs that are interested in the technology and that we could see consumer products implementing the paper thin touch surfaces as early as the holiday season next year. Head past the break for our first look at the prototype from tonight’s ShowStoppers show at IFA in Berlin. Expand Expanding Close
Logitech appears to be making the case itself a little larger than the iPad mini in order to achieve a more comfortable keyboard size, but its solution for holding the iPad mini in snug seems to be a little more elegant than some of the other solutions we’ve seen. The company tells us the case utilizes a “SecureLock system” to hold the iPad in securely, and it’s using new materials that are “ultra-thin and ultra-light” in addition to being water-repellant.
It’s also making a version without a keyboard called the Logitech Folio Protective Case for iPad mini at $49 (pictured below). Logitech will be making the cases available in a selection of colors including grey, purple, and pink, but didn’t offer any specific details on availability. We’ll have a review as soon as they become available. Expand Expanding Close
Apple currently supports over 50 languages and varying script systems with its system-wide keyboard in iOS, but a new job listing hints that it is working to add support for additional languages and writing systems. Apple is looking to add engineers to its iOS keyboard and text team, and its UIKit Frameworks team, to “work closely with international teams and native speakers to accommodate all the world’s script systems.”
Apple has done a lot of work on the iOS keyboard in terms of language support in recent years, and most recently announced that “improved Chinese input including handwriting recognition for multiple Chinese characters” would be arriving in iOS 7.
iOS currently supports the over 50+ languages listed below, but users continue to request other unsupported languages and script systems. For example, Maltese, Afrikaans, and the Persian or Perso-Arabic alphabet are just a few not yet supported. Expand Expanding Close
Santechi released a new Bluetooth keypad today that sports a similar look and feel to Apple’s aluminum wireless keyboard. The keypad works alongside any existing Bluetooth keyboard to give you access to a full number pad that doubles as a calculator at the press of a button. You can get it now on Amazon for $34.99.
