A $20 iPhone Keyboard for all iPhones

Do you need an external iPhone Keyboard? This may be a cheap solution.

Earlier, an iPhone hacker has posted a very cool video in his blog that shows an iPhone is paired with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard. Though it’s just a prototype, undoubtedly, that solution will only work on jailbroken iPhone.

This time, PerceptDev engineers Zack Gainsforth and George Dean developed a hardware and software solution that allows you to type on any iPhone using infrared keyboards. Technically, according to PerceptDev, this is how they did that:

Zack used a Cypress PSoC microcontroller to emulate a simple modem, and then expanded it to detect an infrared signal or read from a USB host controller, which converts this signal to FSK for transmission to an iPhone.

George then created an iPhone application to decode the FSK signals to interpret the keyboard data and display the appropriate characters on-screen.

And, the cost of electronics are less than $20. PerceptiveDev will soon release the schematics and source code for this iPhone keyboard. Probably you can make one on your own

The developers also posted a video that demonstrates how you can type on iPhone via an external keyboard.

As a long-time iPhone user, I’ve already get used to iPhone’s virtual keyboard. The virtual keyboard is well-enough for normal use. And, I won’t expect to type an essay or write lengthy blog post using this virtual keyboard. So, honestly, this $20 iPhone keyboard is not designed for me.

But how about you? Are you expecting this kind of hacking solution or waiting for Apple to allow you to plug an external keyboard for iPhone?

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Tagged as: iPhone Keyboard

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Barbara April 2, 2009 at 1:01 pm: Its not designed for all

2 Melissa June 12, 2009 at 9:19 am: not as conveinient as it sounds, still needs improvment, like an actuall keyboard! You guys should check this out, Second Voice is a service that offeres you to have 2 cell phone numbers and 2 voice mails in one phone. Take a look, thought it might be interesting.

http://www.secondvoice.com