[Electronics-talk] FW: LARadio _ Seacrest's iPhone Keyboard Case (ABC News) (fwd)

[Baracco, Andrew W]

Interesting

                 Typo iPhone Keyboard Case: Ryan Seacrest Invests $1M So
He 
Can Toss His BlackBerry

Dec. 6, 2013
            By  JOANNA STERN, ABC News Joanna Stern More from Joanna >
Joanna Stern
Technology Editor
Ryan Seacrest attends "The Million Second Quiz" Cocktail Reception in
New 
York, Aug. 28, 2013.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Ryan Seacrest has a thing about keyboards. The TV host and media
personality 
has long carried two phones -- an iPhone and
a BlackBerry for its physical QWERTY keyboard.

But he has seemingly decided that's no way to live his life anymore.
Along 
with his friend Laurence Hallier, Seacrest has
created the Typo Keyboard Case, an iPhone case with a physical keyboard.

According to All Things D, Seacrest has invested $1 million into the
case, 
set to debut in January 2014 at the annual
Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company would not confirm 
Seacrest's financial investment when reached by ABC
News.

PHOTO: The Typo iPhone Keyboard Case costs $99. TypoKeyboards
The Typo iPhone Keyboard Case costs $99.

The $99 Typo Keyboard case will work with an iPhone 5 and 5s. Similar to
a 
Mophie Case for the iPhone, you slide two
parts of the keyboard-equipped case onto the phone. You then power on
the 
case and connect it via Bluetooth to the
iPhone. The keyboard looks extremely similar to the keyboard on the 
BlackBerry Q10, with frets to separate the keys. The
case does conceal the iPhone's home button but a button to the right of
the 
keyboard replaces the function.

It is available now for pre-order and will ship in January.

But the Typo Keyboard case isn't the first product to attempt to bring a

QWERTY keyboard to the iPhone. Others from
BoxWave and Dobi have all tried to solve this age-old problem, but the
use 
of Bluetooth is frustrating and the keyboards
themselves were slow and added a lot of heft to the phone.

Seacrest and Hailler said they felt the same way about those, which is 
apparently why they embarked on creating the Typo
case in the first place. "After ordering every iPhone keyboard
available, we 
realized that there was no solution that
worked well," they state on the Typo Case website.

They vow that this case provides a "butter-smooth" experience and adds
only 
a fourth of an inch to the thickness of the
iPhone. If that proves to be true, Seacrest and the rest of us die-hard 
keyboard fans may have one more thing to
celebrate on New Year's Eve.

I'm not wearing a diaper, so don't try to change me.