iPhone OS 4.0 and iPhone works with iPad Keyboard Dock!

Did you know that the iPhone 3GS will work with the iPad Keyboard Dock? Well, consider yourself put on notice. Steve Jobs was so busy talking up the multitasking and iAd features of the iPhone OS 4.0 on Thursday’s keynote stage that he apparently forgot to mention that the next major iteration of the iPhone OS had a handy little trick hidden up its sleeve. With iPhone OS 4.0 installed, the iPhone 3GS is fully compatible with the iPad Keyboard Dock! In addition to enabling Bluetooth keyboard support on the iPhone, the iPhone 4.0 OS allows you to use your decidedly more pocketable Apple phone with the keyboard dock designed for the iPad.

What’s interesting here is that Apple is allowing the iPhone and iPad to cross-compete in ways that we wouldn’t have expected from the iron-fisted gadget maker. With the ability to work with wireless keyboards and the iPad’s keyboard dock, the Apple smartphone essentially treads on ground that could be seen as primarily the Apple tablet’s turf – using the device for long-winded productivity tasks, like lengthy emails and docs.

So, the question is – if both the iPhone and iPad support Bluetooth keyboards and multi-tasking (which they will, eventually), will you be inclined to buy both the iPad and iPhone? If so, why? If not, which would you rather buy?

[Via: Gearlog]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

kyussmondo

This is all very nice but I can’t really see the benefit of using this with an iPhone. I could see myself using it with an iPad because of the iPads 10″ screen so I could possibly edit or wright a report. But the iPhone’s screen is too small, and if you are going to write a quick email or a quick note then the iPhone’s onscreen keyboard is sufficient. It is also nice that Apple added support for bluetooth keyboards is OS 4.0 but would you really want to type something long on here, although it does make the Blackberry physical keyboard look silly in comparison, but then I would get a 3G iPad or netbook if I was an email demon or was wanting to edit documents on the go.
Zaphod

@kyussmondo
Being able to hook up a keyboard to the iPhone would be more helpful than you might realize. Ten years ago I knew a lot of people using fold-able external keyboards with their Palm Pilots–and the screen was no where near as nice as the iPhone/Touch. A lot of the people saying “What would you want an external keyboard for?” have forgotten that. It was a great way to write on the plane, in the airport, in the classroom, etc. and not have to carry a notebook. Give me one of these that folds and lets me put the iPhone in on its side and I’m sold!
Joe Woodcock

To be honest, I have no interest in buying an iPad as I think the price is outrageous for something that doesn't even have a usb port. But having an iPhone, this does appeal to me a lot. I personally feel that if the dock would work with the iPhone, it would be so much more convienient just to have it sitting on my desk in this dock and if someone does text/email me, it would be a lot easier to send one back. Also with docs2go with the iPhone you would, if you wanted, be completely able to use it as a replacement netbook to save some money!
John23239

I have an iPad and an iPhone 3GS. Admittedly I am not poor, and if I could only have one it would absolutely be the iPhone, but I love the iPad. I mostly use it for reading books, playing games, web surfing and handling email away from the main computer (MacBook Pro). The larger screen is so much better for these tasks than the iPhone. We also take it on vacations instead of the laptop now, as we can do everything we need on a trip including watching movies. I’ve gotten pretty fast at using the iPhone screen keypad. I actually prefer it in the original portrait configuration, and I type letters with all four fingers of my right hand and use my left thumb – which is holding the phone from the bottom – to hit the space bar. This works pretty well, but now that I’ve read your post, I’ll check into getting the Apple wireless keyboard. I would love to have something that allows me to really type info into the iPhone at full speed when I’m in a meeting, and I could use it with the iPad as well of course, as the iPad virtual keyboard – while not bad – is nothing like the real thing.
Vrsinc

I’m using it right now: the keyboard with my new iPhone 4. It’s pretty wonderful. There’s a short timelag between some of the letters appearing on the screen after I type them, but I’m a decent typist and just keep going. I’m sure it won’t bother me, and it doesn’t seem to happen when I write emails.

I’m also happy to realize that my old iPhone classic, untethered to AT&T since purchasing the iPhone 4 two days ago, is functioning very well as a handheld search apparatus. I have it plugged in to speakers right now, running Pandora on Wifi.

Very happy with all of this.