Miss you BlackBerry phones? Do you want your iPhone 15 had a real keyboard, with real buttons that you could press with your thumbs? No one misses having a phone keyboard like longtime BlackBerry fans, and one of the biggest BlackBerry fans of them all has started an iPhone accessories company to pass the phone keyboard torch to a new generation of fans.
In a bold move, two technology journalists, Kevin Michaluk of Crackberry.com And Michael Fisher from Mr. Mobile YouTube Fame, have teamed up to create a hardware company called Clicks. The two have also hired team members from companies like BlackBerry (obviously), Apple, and Google, but to be honest I tell people I worked at Apple when in reality I worked at an Apple Store in the US. Chestnut Hill Mall near Boston.
I admit that I know both Kevin and Michael, and I saw Michael recently, but I had no idea he was secretly working on an iPhone keyboard. Some of my Ny Breaking colleagues noted the similarity between this accessory and Ryan Seacrest once tried to take the iPhone world by storm with his own Typo keyboard for the iPhone. Also that other time Ryan Seacrest tried again with Typo2. Seacrest was taken to court by BlackBerry, which somehow had enough life left in 2015 to win a lawsuit.
Of course, the Seacrest Typo design was a direct copy of the angled BlackBerry keyboard, while the Click keyboard looks more like a series of black beads in straight lines, with no slants. You'd think Michaluk would know enough to avoid the pitfalls of Seacrest's failure, since he's the Typo story for Crackberry.com earlier.
Will they bring back the thumb wheel next?
Clicks is clearly hoping that today's users will skip the on-screen keyboard that takes up space and plug in the new USB-C or Lightning keyboard instead. The Click keyboard works with a iPhone 14 (Lightning) or iPhone 15 And iPhone 15 Pro Max (USB-C). No word on why Clicks chose to skip the iPhone 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro, but support for those devices is not mentioned.
Clicks isn't just a simple keyboard, there are some nice features on board. There's a pass-through USB-C port, so you can charge your phone even with the keyboard plugged in. The keys are also backlit, which is pretty snazzy, and should help with typing at night. There's an app to download to check if the keyboard works, and then you're given some keyboard shortcuts like CMD-H to return to the home screen.
The Clicks keyboard is now available for pre-order at Clicks.tech, and the company expects to start shipping as early as February 1. The first batch will be available in two colors: a yellow called Bumblebee (calling Hasbro?) and a cloudy blue called London Sky. It will retail for $139, which is $50 less than the cost of the Ryan Seacrest Typo device.