Your new iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max needs a portable, foldable or even rollable keyboard



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With these giant screens, you will use your phone more and more, which could even become your main computer. You need, and your iPhone deserves, a physical keyboard to work hard. AppleInsider examines the scene.

Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard with iPhone on the hood of the car

You know that there are keyboard cases for the iPad: protective cases with a slightly cramped physical keyboard. There was a little keyboard case when the iPhone 6 came out too, but these failed because they were too small and too small. Now, however, we are looking at a range of iPhones that are bigger than ever.

No doubt: there will be new keyboard cases and you can bet that the first device to get one will be the iPhone XS Max. This screen size and this powerful device mean that it is a serious tool and that the keyboard gets the most out of it.

Using a Logitech K780 Standard with an iPhone 6

You do not have to wait for the manufacturers, though. If you still can not get an iPhone keyboard case, you still have options. You already have several ways to use a physical keyboard with your iPhone and you may already have what you need.

What you already have

If you have an external Bluetooth keyboard of any kind, it will work with your iPhone. It may not be very practical to extract the Apple keyboard from your iMac Pro and carry it in your pocket, but you can do it.

A little more practical, if you have an old iMac Bluetooth Keyboard in reserve, you can throw it in your luggage and do some fun checks while recording.

So, a little closer to practice, you may already be using an external keyboard with your iPad. If it's in an iPad case, you can not do anything: it's connected to your iPad. However, if you use an external device, you can pair it with your iPhone exactly as you did with your iPad.

Logitech Create a case for iPad

In addition, many external Bluetooth keyboards can be associated with multiple devices. You associate them separately and assign them to a particular button or key sequence on the keyboard. The exchange between the iPhone and the iPad is then a simple tap on the keyboard and can count to five before you start typing on the new device.

We did it a lot, many times. By writing on our iPad, we receive a text message on our iPhone. Tap a button, tap an answer on the phone, tap another button and go back to writing on the iPad.

It's worth it for the convenience, speed and fun of blowing up your message recipient because you just sent him a 100 word answer in seconds.

It is not worth it if your keyboard can only be associated with one device. Yes, you can pair and unlink it as often as you like, but sometimes these connections are less Bluetooth and more alchemical. You may have to go through the same pairing process again and again before it works.

The alternative is to buy a keyboard specifically for your iPhone and it is at that time that you can go to town with ridiculous little ones. Not only small but foldable or even rollable.

Typing is a very personal thing: your absolutely perfect keyboard may not be ours. We will continue to explore this and examine the best of each class that we can find, but for you to know the range of possibilities, that is what you can buy while you wait for it. arrival of your new iPhone.

Just small keyboards

For reference, the standard Apple Magic keyboard without keypad is 27.9 cm (10.98 inches) wide. The keypad model is 41.87 cm (16.48 inches). Now, compare this to an example of the small keyboards that you can buy.

Bluetooth HDE keyboard

The HDE Bluetooth 3.0 Keyboard Mini travel format is only 11.5 cm (4.5 inches) wide.

Or in other words. This keyboard is narrower than any top shipping iPhone. Turn your iPhone into a landscape, place it under it and you'll have a little space on the sides.

Maybe it's too small for serious use and it's probably way too small for prolonged typing. However, it will only cost you $ 13.99 to find out. This is actually a typical price for this keyboard size or slightly larger.

Foldable keyboards

We were once early for a meeting, so we had a table in a Starbucks, we pulled out a foldable keyboard – and we wondered why this little girl in roller skates kept spinning around the table. In trying not to be too obvious about it, we looked for his parents and they were there, very close and completely indifferent.

So we ignored the little girl and kept working. Until then, about the tenth orbit of our table, she shouted "It's really smart" and joined her family.

She meant our keyboard and she was right. There is something about being able to take out a device the size of a CD case, break it and tap on what is close to being a normal size keyboard.

Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard, closed

It's the one that she liked and it's our favorite too: the Microsoft Universal Foldable keyboard. It usually sells for around $ 75, but be sure to follow this link to check: Microsoft has very similar names that we do not like as much.

This one, however, is fine. The feel of the keys is remarkable: for a device as thin, it has a great movement on the keys, you are really aware that you press a physical keyboard.

There is one thing you will notice when you open it. This is a split keyboard.

Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard, open

Yes. It takes time to get used to this separation between the two halves of the keyboard and especially if you are a typist. However, when we say time, we talk about seconds. You get used to it very quickly and you can tap something that approaches your maximum speed. Note, however, that if you stop thinking about your fingers, immediately start to fool yourself.

If you keep typing, it works very well.

In fact, this one works so well that we have used it for at least tens of thousands of words. For example, the Apple Magic Keyboard does not have the same depth of movement and the key spacing is tighter, so your hands are not positioned properly.

If you like mechanical keyboards, these are the ones that really slam when you type, so you're out of luck for foldable keyboards. Except that there is the iClever, which is getting closer.

The foldable keyboard iClever

The iClever foldable wireless keyboard has just a little more antiquity and folds like a steampunk. Where Microsoft folds in half like a book, the iClever comes in three sections.

Once extended in its 16.2 cm (6.46 inches), you can also turn on a backlight. It's an LED backlight that gives you a choice of three colors and we think the carrying bag provided is a little more useful. However, he looks cool.

The iClever foldable wireless keyboard is typically sold for around $ 37.

You're kidding, is not it?

We do not wear this Microsoft keyboard absolutely everywhere – but that's because it does not fit in the pockets of all our jackets. When that's the case or when we want to carry a little baggage, we do it.

If you do not have jacket pockets, if you never wear a bag, or if you're just curious to see if it's real, you can pick up a keyboard to wrap.

It's real and there are a few, but here's one: the 2-in-1 Rollable Glosse Wireless Keyboard, which costs about $ 26.

Glosse keyboard with wheels

This one winds up in a small holster and it's very clever. However, when we learned that the keyboards were rolled, we did not think of those who have each line of keys on a separate hinge mechanism. In truth, we imagined something like the piano keyboard wrapped in "Star Trek: The Next Generation". You can get keyboards like that, those that are literally happening, but they all connect via a USB cable and are therefore not useful for iPhones.

One more thing

There is another type of keyboard that could be useful if you can determine where to place your iPhone. This is a projection keyboard. You place the projector on a flat surface and, using lasers, displays a QWERTY keyboard in front of it.

Then, as you type, it detects the parts of the laser path that your finger interrupts and then interprets them in the key you had to press.

Projection keyboard

It was one of those devices that had been promised for years, a real fanfare when they arrived – and, in a way, they seemed to disappear. Nevertheless, they do exist and an example, the AGS Laser Projection Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard usually sells online for $ 29.

It's worth it

This projection keyboard could be a gadget. Even if this is not the case, you can tap directly on the wood of a table or on any surface in front of you and it will not be good for your pleasure or your fingers.

Then, rollables and folding keyboards could be fragile. We've had one for a few years now and Microsoft has had the slight problem of not recording a hit from time to time, but is strong and robust.

The keyboards on the screen of iPhones are excellent and you can type them very well, but you can type much better on an external keyboard. You have heard this for years about the iPad and that is why there are so many keyboard and keyboard options for this.

Now, this is also true for the new big screen iPhones, since the iPhone XS Max is a good percentage of the size of the iPad mini.

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