Keyboards

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ8ZS2BKdz4]

Logitech just announced a new Harmony Smart Keyboard that it says is specifically designed for controlling Apple TV and similar living room devices. The idea is that the Harmony Smart Keyboard, with support for “225,000 home-entertainment devices and over 5,000 brands,” will become your ultimate living room controller. The keyboard packs in a touchpad on the right hand side, a ton of quick launch functions for changing channels, browsing menus, and controlling media, and a number of interesting new features powered by the included Harmony WiFi hub and companion app. It’s essentially the best of both worlds from Logitech’s keyboard and Harmony remote products. 
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The Wall St. Journal today covers two different physical keyboard attachments for iPhone, the $100 (aptly-named?) ‘Typo’ and the Solomatrix Spike. The TL;DR is that both of these keyboards are OK (Joanna Stern seems to prefer the Typo) but have fatal flaws that push them towards edge cases – people who’ve recently just shifted away from a Blackberry, have sausage fingers, or suffer from some other problem with getting data into their phone via a screen.

Their real problem is that iOS on the iPhone isn’t designed for a physical keyboard. It is designed to flip back and forth, from landscape to portrait depending on the use and the app. It was designed from the very beginning to be agile and portable and with that portability, the ultimate sacrifice was made to the smartphone physical keyboard.

To this day, I don’t think I am faster at typing and multitasking  on an iPhone as I was on the physical keyboard of the 2007 Danger Sidekick that it replaced. But the wealth of other keyboard options and the ability to be both portrait and landscape more than make up for the speed.

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We’ve been maintaining a running list of the best new iPad Air cases ahead of its upcoming Nov. 1st launch date, and today Logitech announced four new products for the device with a new line of Ultrathin cases, covers and keyboard folios.

Available starting next month, the company will be offering The Logitech® FabricSkin Keyboard Folio, Logitech® Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, Logitech® Ultrathin Keyboard Folio and Logitech® Folio Protective Case all for Apple’s new iPad Air. Most of the products are similar to Logitech cases already available for previous generation iPads:
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