The SmartKeyboard Concept: Dammit, I Want an iPhone and A Physical Keyboard Too

In 2006, Steve Jobs first said that virtual keyboards were the answer. The way to enable typing on a mobile phone while preserving a large display for browsing. The iPhone, released in 2007, ushered in virtual keyboards as the default for smartphones. Physical keyboards are dying out (and Blackberry along with it).

SmartKeyboard is a conceptual design aimed at those users who want to have their cake and eat it too: an iPhone and a physical keyboard too, thank you very much. And no, we’re not talking about a bulky external keyboard here.

Check out this design demo of SmartKeyboard by Jing Yang, a.k.a JIMMYs, Motion Director of eico Motion Lab.

SmartKeyboard is a sleek physical keyboard for iPhone 4 that studies the design of iPad 2′s Smart Cover. It users a magnetic hold to attach to the bottom of iPhone. Flip it to the back of the phone, and it serves as a triangular stand, yes just like Smart Cover.

In conversation, JIMMY’s revealed that he is in fact a Palm guy. To him, a physical keyboard is still essential to the user experience of any mobile device. A poorly designed virtual keyboard can destroy user experience when it comes to typing. Hence a considerable number of non-jail broken Chinese iPhone users have migrated to hand-written input.

Demo video of JIMMYs SmartKeyboard, also available on Youtube.

Users who jail-break their iPhones can use a variety of local input software produced by the likes of Sohu, Baidu, and QQ. These each came with a cloud-based system that predicts input results based on the Latin characters inputted so far.

About eico

eico Design is Chinese design house that is known for their stunning work in interface designs, especially in the realm of mobile phones. Some of their landmark works include the HTC FLO3D, an earlier generation of HTC phones operating Windows Mobile 6.5, Taobao.com’s official iPhone App, localized version of Opera 9.6, Google Chinese input software and their most successful iPhone App to-date, Weico. Weibo is a Sina Weibo client app that is now also available for Android phones and has reached 1.3 million active users.

Editor’s note: SmartKeyboard is a personal independent project of JIMMYs, with no ties to eico.

To learn more about the SmartKeyboard you can follow it on Twitter @SmartKeyboard or JIMMYs on Sina Weibo @JIMMYs动画剧场.

SmartKeyboard is only a conceptual design, if you want to help to develop it in to a real product please also get in touch with JIMMYs via email.