Ryan Seacrest (yes the Ryan Seacrest) bankrolled a startup 10 years ago with an almost identical product. (They were sued out of existence by an already dying BlackBerry.)
I remember listening to an interview where he explained they restricted the product to smaller iPhone models because user testing showed the product didn't work well in larger models - the increased weight of the larger phones caused too much of a bending moment whilst holding the phone by the extended bottom, making it extremely uncomfortable to handle and not conducive to typing. It was therefore restricted to the iPhones 5 & 6 only.
Recall QWERTY phones of yore were literally half the size or even smaller than the models this is targeting. I recently found an old BlackBerry cleaning out a junk drawer and was shocked by how small it was. It would fit inside my current phone and remember these phones had removable, user-replaceable batteries.
Not to mention this looks much cheaper quality than Seacrest's forgotten startup produced. Perhaps it's the children's toy-inspired design asthetic.
This will fail.
For years Omega used to write "the first and only watch on the Moon" on their Speedmaster watches, even though people kept pointing out over and over and over again that it's just simply not true - other watches were also used on the moon, including a Bulova Accutron when the nasa-issued speedmaster popped its crystal while on the lunar surface. So it was an obvious and easily provable lie, but for years it adorned a multi-thousand dollar watch. Omega did eventually change it with the new revision of the watch, but there is no reason to believe that it was because people were complaining about it.
I'm not saying it will succeed - I agree that it looks awkward. But neither am I going to dismiss it just because something similar failed years ago. Times change, expectations change, and good product leadership will seek out old experiments and improve on the designs to overcome known problems.
This may or may not fail.
If It's a big or $75+ item, usually prices are same as Amazon.
Why did you get it if it’s useless for you? Not being critical at all, more so curious how it turned out to be a bad fit.
As if most of the originals aren't made in the very same factory in China.
Here is today’s random example: https://a.aliexpress.com/_mr2D3Y4
Couldn’t find anything like that on temu
I don't understand how a portrait mode keyboard will be any better, but I hope to be wrong.
https://www.frontgate.com/bluetooth-slide-out-keyboard-for-i...
This certainly must have been an option they explored. Without a case secured to the body of the phone, pushing the keyboard buttons would probably pop off the magsafe connection. There's a lot of leverage on those clicks.
But also.... no, I don't think I need/want this. But a cool design exercise.
I knew they were wrong, but I figured there would at least be a permanent market for some 5% minority who needed their chiclet keyboards. Wrong!
Honestly surprised that a device took so long to come to market… I’m not making any predictions this time.
After that, I looked at buying a Motorola Photon Q, but I would have had to hack it to get it on my preferred carrier. Even then it would have been expensive. I think my next actual phone was a Nexus 4, and I eventually got used to swiping.
For overall typing and mobile software development experience, I've instead settled on relatively small and handy Chromebooks. This is even easier now days, because installing the Linux development environment is a few clicks.
https://www.t-mobile.com/devices/sidekick
It was a solid device, but it got sluggish pretty quickly. Not sure if it was because of my mom's usage habits or the hardware.
And my first android phone was the Motorola cliq
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Cliq
I think I went through several devices on warranty because it malfunctioned in some way.
Anyway, I just mention this because smartphones with keyboards are not new inventions, but fewer are being manufactured. I don't think I would get a smartphone with a keyboard, but I'd love to see more innovation in this space. I'm kinda tired of the whole "more, better cameras" and "more processing power" pattern we've been seeing.
Despite that, modern screens have become remarkably accurate and responsive. Autocorrect is pretty good and makes up for a lot of the slop. I can often type without looking at the onscreen keyboard, and that’s impressive in and of itself (not because of me, but because of the technology). The trade off still makes sense. Things were so much worse when we first left physical keyboards behind.
But like you I do love the idea of a phone with a good physical keyboard, still.
I don't begrudge pro-keyboard people their position, of course. It's a perfectly sensible preference (to the extent it's even my place to judge)!
I think I'd prefer an adjustable magsafe attached keyboard that can do either landscape or portrait, though. Sadly, I don't see ctrl, alt or arrow keys. SSH won't benefit as much.
All that said, if this were $50, I'd already have ordered it.