The creative minds at Ion have recently announced a new product named ‘iType’. The product holds your iPhone firmly in place, and converts it into a mini workstation of sorts. Note the full QWERTY keyboard in all its glory. The idea here is to give iPhone users a full QWERTY keyboard to punch out notes, emails, whatever… and is clearly aimed at the power-user in need of a full keyboard to jam out emails at full speed.
As simple and easy-to-use as the iType looks, there are unfortunately some negatives. Big ones, actually. Because Apple frown’s upon external devices for input, you can’t actually type emails within Mail.app. To do this, you’ll need to load up an iType application to punch in what you want to say, and THEN send the content to yourself via email or copy/paste. Ugh. Bit of a hassle. A second negative? Well, it’s kind of big. Look at the size of it! You want to lug the iType around with you every time you want to punch out a lightning-quick email? Not me.
If the Ion iType doesn’t look like an optimal solution to you, I can’t hold that against you. My advice? Deal with the on-screen keyboard, I mean, c’mon, it’s not that bad… Either that or hold tight for the iSlate. If you do a lot of texting on-the-go, and your iPhone isn’t cutting it for you… It may be time to hunt for another device. Just sayin’. Perhaps something with a physical QWERTY will float your boat?
Love it or hate it, the Ion iType should be available by Fall 2010 for around $70. I’ll keep an eye out for it. Maybe the folks at Ion will be kind enough to send me a unit for review.
[Via: Gizmodo, GadgetLite]