Keyboards have looked at and done the same thing for over 100 years, dating back to the typewriter days. So, when you think of keyboards, innovation isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind. But NUIO, founded by former Apple Product Design Executive Tom Wilson—one of the original creators of the MacBook Air— and his brother Greg Wilson are attempting to change that. The NUIO Flow Keyboard is reimagining what the traditional keyboard should be able to do.
Keychron has built a strong reputation for mechanical keyboards over the last seven years and now the company has jumped into the slim keyboard market. The new B1 and B6 Pro Ultra-Slim models come in Apple’s Magic Keyboard style with some added features and an affordable price.
Anyone play Mega Man back in the day? That’s the first thing I thought of when I unboxed the new NuPhy Halo75 V2 mechanical keyboard. The awesome “blue lagoon” color just screams Mega Man, and the aptly named Halo75 puts on a really playful light show for your Mac as you type. Come to think of it, those blues also give 9to5Mac vibes…
Keychron launched their Q1 Pro keyboard earlier this year. It’s a customizable mechanical keyboard designed to work great with Macs or Windows PCs. It’s a really high quality device, and I’ve been using it as my primary keyboard for some time now, so here are my thoughts on the Keychron Q1 Pro and why you should consider it over Apple’s Magic Keyboard.
The Keychron Q2, a brand-new fully customizable mechanical keyboard in a super-compact 65% layout, makes for a pretty sweet Mac desktop companion. Not only does it feature the ability to fully customize every key, but it comes with a tactile programable knob that can be configured to control various functions on your Mac. Watch our hands-on video walkthrough for the details.
SteelSeries is well known around Apple circles for its iOS and Apple TV gaming controllers, but the company specializes in other gaming-related hardware ventures as well, such as mice, headsets and keyboards.
After browsing SteelSeries’ site to find some information on its popular Nimbus controller, I stumbled upon its keyboard line. Anyone that knows me understands that I have a special affinity for mechanical keyboards, and that’s exactly what I found on the SteelSeries website.
The Danish hardware manufacturer’s marquee mechanical keyboard, the SteelSeries Apex M800, is not your ordinary mechanical keyboard. It’s a fully customizable, gaming-centric experience that lets you assign an overwhelming variety of functionality and colors to individual keys. While the Apex M800 ships configured for Windows, it’s fully compatible with the Mac, and even comes with OS X key cap replacements. Expand Expanding Close
Popular accessory maker Kanex today announced a new lineup of Bluetooth keyboards for Mac and iOS users that allow easy switching between up to four wirelessly connected devices, as well as two products aimed specifically at iPad users.
Microsoft appears to be planning to port its Windows Phone keyboard called Word Flow to the iPhone as a third-party keyboard, according to WinBeta. The company is currently reaching out to enlisted software testers to recruit iOS users with iPhone 5s or later to test the Windows Phone keyboard.
Word Flow works similarly to gesture-based third-party keyboards like Swype, which let you trace your finger across letters to suggest words for quick typing. The keyboard also supports traditional typing in the same interface. Emoji characters are even recommended when typing words so ‘dog’ might show the dog emoji when typing the word out.
This is how typing with Word Flow looks on Windows Phone minus gesture typing :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM7IdBWtQ6I
Microsoft is currently recruiting beta testers already in its Windows Insider Program with the following message:
Word Flow keyboard has long been one of the highly praised features on Windows Phone and was used to break the Guinness World Record for fastest texting. We are now working on extending this keyboard to other platforms, starting with iOS.
Before publicly releasing this keyboard to the App Store, we’d love to give Insiders like you a preview. With your feedback, we’ll build a roadmap of improvements to the keyboard over time.
Most third-party keyboards since Apple added the capability with iOS 8 haven’t been real home runs due to speed and performance issues, so we’ll have to see how Microsoft works around this. The company is certainly no stranger to developing for iOS with nearly 60 iPhone apps on the App Store to date.
There aren’t many iPad Pro-specific keyboards out there — Apple’s $170 Smart Keyboard and Logitech’s $150 Create (reviewed here) are the first two, if you can find them, with at least a few others announced and on their way to stores. But there’s really no need to wait on iPad Pro-specific keyboards, or spend a king’s ransom for one. Tons of iPad-compatible Bluetooth keyboards are already available, and thankfully at much lower prices.
Depicted with an iPad Pro on its box, Zagg’s Messenger Universal ($70) is clearly an alternative to Apple’s Smart Keyboard. Just like Apple’s accessory, Messenger Universal combines a full-sized keyboard with a magnetic iPad Pro-ready stand that folds down to a small size. But it skips the iPad Pro-only Smart Connector in favor of Bluetooth, and rather than serving as an oddly thick screen cover, takes the shape of a standalone folio that you can carry around as needed. Although it fits the iPad Pro perfectly, Messenger Universal works with all iPads — and other devices — so you needn’t feel constrained to using the keyboard with only a single tablet…
With iPad Pro officially going on sale tomorrow (possibly at midnight tonight Cupertino time if Apple follows past launches), it’s time to move our attention to accessories for the device.
Will you go the Apple route and stock up on the official but pricey Apple keyboard, case & cover, and Apple Pencil? Or perhaps you’re looking for accessories with features that aren’t offered by Apple’s. Whatever the case, below we’ve started rounding up the best of the best accessories for iPad Pro. Most are available to order now while a couple are coming soon. We’ll be adding more as they pop up in the weeks following the iPad Pro’s launch. Expand Expanding Close
In a press release early this morning, Korean tech giant LG announced that it wants to grab a bigger share of the mobile accessories market. It wants to do so with Rolly Keyboard, a wireless, portable, rollable universal keyboard. Opened, it forms a four-row keyboard with close-to full size keys. What makes the keyboard unique is the method by which it’s stowed. Unlike the traditional single fold down the middle, each row of keys has a hinge, enabling the user to roll it up in to a ‘stick’.
Rolly Keyboard is powered by a single AAA battery and uses two Bluetooth 3.0 channels to pair to two separate devices and enable easy-switching between them, similar to the Microsoft Foldable Keyboard we reviewed recently. What’s more, it also features two arms to hold smartphones or tablets upright. It’s made from polycarbonate and black ABS plastic and LG claims it “offers satisfying tactile feedback often not found on flexible silicone keyboards”. Judging from the selection of keys on the device, it seems it’s going to be compatible with multiple platforms, including Apple-flavored devices.
Instead of offering a separate row for extra function keys for tasks like media playback, volume etc. LG has opted to use an individual ‘Fn’ key which — when pressed with a labelled key — will allow users to skip tracks, play/pause, change volume, pair devices and much more. And it won’t be alone on the accessory market his year:
“LG Rolly Keyboard is just one of the many premium input devices we’ll be unveiling in the coming months as we expand our accessories offerings,” said Seo Young-jae, vice president in charge of Innovative Personal Devices at LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “The goal was to create a product that could add more value to LG smartphones and tablets at the same time offering a unique design proposition that hadn’t been explored before.”
LG will show off its Rolly Keyboard at IFA in Berlin at the beginning of next month and launch in the U.S. in September. Pricing and availability details will be shared once it’s available to consumers.
The iPad accessory market is full of keyboards. Most of them double up as cases, they’re about as big as the iPad and they’re not well optimized for other devices. The Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard is different. It’s small enough to carry around in your pocket when folded, and works with iOS, Windows and Android devices. What’s more, you can have it paired to two devices at once and switch between them with the press of a button. It’s safe to say that this is one of the most versatile and portable Bluetooth keyboards on the market. This review was written entirely on it.
Pixelmator is one of the best Photoshop alternatives available on the Mac App Store. I’ve been using it for quite some time now, but mostly just using a trackpad or mouse to manipulate layers, access tools and edit functions. There are tons of keyboard shortcuts. And if I had the time or patience to learn them all, I would have. Needless to say, I didn’t. So when I got the chance to check out EditorsKeys keyboard specifically designed for Pixelmator, I jumped at it.
To cut it down to the very basics – This is essentially a wired Apple keyboard with numeric keypad. Except it has custom keys to clearly label the Pixelmator keyboard shortcuts, making photo and image editing much quicker and easier. Simply put: If you use Pixelmator on Mac and you don’t already have a grasp of all the shortcuts, you should get this keyboard.
Logitech recently announced a new branding and marketing strategy and its BLOK family of iPad cases are the first products released under the company’s new Logi brand. The Logi Blok are highly protective, colorful, square cases and keyboard covers for your iPad.
The Logi BLOK family is made up of the Logi BLOK Protective Shell, the BLOK Protective Case and the BLOK Protective Keyboard case. All have square corners, designed to protect the precious rounded corners on your iPad. What’s more, they have been tested to ensure you can drop your iPad from “up to six feet high”, on to surfaces as hard as concrete, without killing your tablet. Unlike some other ultra-protective cases, Logitech promises that these aren’t bulky or heavy.
With Logi BLOK, you get drop protection without the bulk and weight that is often associated with ultra-protective cases. Additionally, the Logi BLOK family reflects the colorful and bold new Logitech look, so you’ll see a sleek design and bright colors on each case.
The two different case options are incredibly similar to each other. From the images, it seems the BLOK Case is the same as the BLOK Shell, except with the addition of a cover and a kickstand similar to that on the keyboard case. BLOK Shell ships with a screen protector and is available for iPad Air 2 and 2nd/3rd gen iPad mini in blue or black mini for $39.99. BLOK case costs $69.99 and is only available for the iPad Air 2.
The BLOK Protective Keyboard looks to transform your iPad Air 2 in to a Microsoft Surface. It adds a versatile and adjustable kickstand to the back and a magnetic detachable keyboard to the front. Like most iPad keyboards, it connects via Bluetooth, ensuring you can continue to type even if you don’t have it physically attached to the case.
It’s available in black, teal/blue and red/violet color combinations and will set you back $129.99. You can take a look at the new keyboard accessory in the promo video:
All three BLOK products are available to order from today at Logitech.com.
Keyboards are important — so important that many people won’t “work” on their iPads without real keys to type on. No one complained when desktop mice gave way to laptop trackpads, or when trackpads evolved into tablet touchscreens, but the switch from physical to virtual keyboards has been met with plenty of resistance… specifically because virtual keyboards offer no resistance. There’s something about the responsive, up and down movement of actual keys, known as “travel,” that people clearly prefer over tapping on completely flat glass.
I’ve tested a lot of keyboards, and since I rely upon them professionally every day, I have some strong opinions as to the best options for different types of Mac and iPad users. You might be surprised by my advice, as it bucks a couple of Apple’s trends (“smaller!” “thinner!”), but if you’re like me, you’ll be a much happier typist if you “think different” on this topic than the folks in Cupertino…
SwiftKey, one of the more popular third party iOS 8 keyboards on the App Store, is out with a new version today adding both new features and additional languages.
Since iOS 8, SwiftKey had been able to replace the standard Apple iOS keyboard, and the new version also packs in the complete Emoji keyboard in one package. This makes it even more simple (👌) to find that smiling pile of poo (💩) or slice of pizza (🍕) when you need it without having to toggle between system keyboards. Similar to Apple’s QuickType predictive text feature, the latest SwiftKey update also adds Emoji predictions to the word suggestion area. Expand Expanding Close
iOS 8 brings support for third party keyboards. This allows the user to further customize their device and they are no longer forced to use Apple’s keyboard. Now that we have been using them for a while, it would be nice to even further customize the order in which the keyboards appear. In this how to article, I will discuss how to choose the order in which the keyboards appear as well as how to disable Apple’s QuickType feature.
With iOS 8, Apple now allows developers to create alternative keyboards on iPhone and iPad that can be used almost anywhere to replace the system keyboard. We told you about several third-party keyboards for iOS 8 including when the major operating system update was released last month, and a few more interesting third-party keyboards have since been released. The first is an Emoji-only keyboard called Emoji++ that makes finding the right Emoji character much faster, and the second is both a language and symbol keyboard called Character Keyboard for typing out special characters. Expand Expanding Close
Apple has finally released iOS 8.0.2 to address the issues discovered in yesterday’s 8.0.2 update on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The new release includes all of the HealthKit and keyboard fixes, among others, as well as the ability to actually make phone calls and connect to a cellular data network.
Apple said yesterday that the update was coming “in a few days” and instructed users to downgrade to version 8.0 while awaiting the fix. The new update is rolling out now and can be found in the over-the-air software updater built into iOS.
Apple told CNBC that “less than 40,000 devices” were affected by the buggy release. The change log is below:
Apple’s next iOS 8 update following the public release of the operating system earlier this month will reportedly bring various fixes for phone and keyboard related bugs, problems with video in Safari and more. MacRumors claims to have details on the upcoming iOS 8.0.1 release from a source. In addition to fixing bugs with the phone, keyboard, and Safari, the fix will reportedly also include a fix for AirDrop support with Passbook and a problem with installing VPN profiles.
Here’s the full list of changes according to the report:
– Phone: Addresses bugs with call forwarding and freezing when accessing visual voicemail
– Keyboard: Fixes an issue with keypad not appearing to enter iCloud Keychain verification codes
– Safari: Fixes a problem with videos occasionally not playing
– Sharing: Fixes AirDrop support for Passbook passes
– VPN: Addresses an issue with installing VPN profiles
In iOS 8, Apple is adding support for third-party keyboards. This means that iOS users can finally replace the default stock Apple keyboard with a myriad of choices already available on the App Store.
Keyboards are tied with an app. There is not a separate ‘keyboard store’. To find a keyboard, you search in the iOS App Store like any other app. Once you have downloaded an app that contains a custom keyboard, you must then enable it in Settings. Go to Settings -> General -> Keyboards -> Add New Keyboard and select the new app. This is kind of annoying, since it forces every app to instruct you how to install their keyboard in case you are new to the concept.
With that out of the way, what are the best keyboards available for iOS 8 to download today? Read on for 9to5Mac’s comprehensive roundup.
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.
Logitech is introducing three new products for iPad users including a new lineup of protective cases and an updated version of its Ultrathin keyboard cover for iPad Air and iPad mini.
The new Logitech Ultrathin keyboard cover (pictured above) introduces a thinner and lighter design at 6.4 mm thick and two-thirds of the weight of the iPad itself. It comes with a magnetic clip in the same “high-grade aluminum construction and matching finish” that securely attaches the case to your iPad and allows for multiple viewing angles. It’s arriving for $99.99 for iPad Air and $89.99 for iPad mini in the U.S. and EU next month.
Also announced today are the three protective cases pictured above including the Big Bang for iPad Air & iPad mini ($99/$79), the flexible Hinge for iPad Air and mini that allows for 15 to 65-degree viewing angels ($59/$49), and the Logitech Turnaround for iPad Air and mini ($59/$49), a case that lets you rotate your iPad between landscape and portrait mode.
