^{My hands’ reaction to using a real keyboard on my iPhone}

When I read Larry Greenberg’s post a couple of weeks ago about using a BlueTooth keyboard on a jailbroken iPhone, I was quite pleased.  (Why do some people say “jailbreaked” instead of “jailbroken”?  Doesn’t that seem weird?  Sorry; I digress.)

Although Larry would rather use a netbook in cases where a BT keyboard would be useful on an iPhone (and I would rather have an iTablet), there have been many cases when I would very much liked to have BT keyboard capability for my iPhone.  I travel a lot, and prefer to avoid the hassle of pulling out, booting up, and dealing with my laptop, for example.  I don’t have (and can’t afford right now!) a netbook.  Sometimes my laptop crashes–damn you, Microsoft!–and having a backup machine on which to answer my mail is critical.  And so on.

So being the diligent sort (my wife Sami would say “The OCD nerd sort”), I followed the link to the writer of the BT keyboard code, a very nice gentleman named Matthias Ringwald.  Matthias and I exchanged a few emails in which he told me the keyboards he had tested his software on.

Well hey, that was enough for me.  With the kind help of our own Thomas Hall (who donated a couple of BT keyboards to the cause), I was able to test out the iGo Stowaway keyboard, the Freedom keyboard, and the Apple wireless keyboard.

The bad news:  the Freedom keyboard didn’t work at all.

The better news:  the Stowaway keyboad and the Apple keyboard worked just fine.

The best news:  I am finding the Apple keyboard to be light and portable enough to take with me in my laptop bag most everywhere I go.  It’s too big when I scale down what I’m carrying and am using my Wise-Walker gear bag (which I bought when it was recommended on The Gadgeteer when Judie was still there–that’s how long I’ve had it):

but even the Stowaway–which is a pretty nice small keyboard, honestly–is kind of bulky for a gear bag.  So the Apple is my current BT keyboard of choice.  (Maybe I should just get a bigger gear bag?)

So if you do a lot of texting with your teenage daughter who texts a lot faster than you because she’s been doing it since she was, like, born, or you need to answer your email while you’re on the go and don’t want to go through all the hassle of unlimbering and booting up your keyboard, or you’re a total gadget geek like me who just thinks it’s so cool to be able to do something like this, you might consider giving Matthias’ software a try.  It’s only $5 through Cydia.

Next up:  trying out the Apple Magic Mouse with Matthias’ new mouse keyboard driver.

And for those of you wondering, “Why bother?” I think most people expect an iTablet out sometime in the next few months.  While I hope and pray that Apple is smart enough to include BT keyboard and mouse drivers, I’m not counting on it.  So if I can get them to work on my iPhone, they certain to work on an iTablet, right?  Right?

I also believe in the tooth fairy, and people who tell me “the check’s in the mail.”