Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons
license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary
on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the
entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/


   Keeping in Touch With TouchFire

   Matt Neuburg

   The iPad is a fun and handy device, as everyone knows, but getting real
   work done on it can be difficult. Even replying coherently to an email
   message isn't trivial, because the iPad's virtual keyboard isn't a real
   keyboard. I'm a rapid and handy ten-finger typist, but the iPad turns
   me into a clumsy one-finger hunter-and-pecker with the brain of a
   six-year-old.

   One obvious solution is a Bluetooth keyboard; but that's just another
   piece of equipment you have to carry around with you. The [1]TouchFire
   proposes a different approach.

   The TouchFire isn't a keyboard at all; it's a piece of plastic that
   lies on top of your iPad, attached by some magnets, just covering the
   area of the standard virtual keyboard. The plastic is thin enough that
   your touches are felt by the iPad's touchscreen, but thick enough to
   give your fingers a sense of position and feedback, as if you were
   typing on a very thin physical keyboard. The result is that a
   ten-fingered typist can, with a bit of practice, type at a reasonable
   pace with ten fingers, and can thus create text at a reasonably mature
   level of intelligence. The proof is that the first draft of this
   article was generated entirely on my iPad with the TouchFire.

   [2]Image

   Undeniably, the TouchFire, while ingenious, is a compromise. It
   obviously can't solve the problem of the iPad virtual keyboard being
   undersized and deficient in comparison to a physical keyboard. It
   requires practice, as I've already said; there is an art to striking
   the keys hard enough to be felt when you want them to be, while holding
   your fingers still enough the rest of the time that they are not sensed
   as unwanted keystrokes. The TouchFire works rather poorly with the
   iPad's way of entering, say, an apostrophe, where you hold your finger
   down on the comma key and slide it upwards (the plastic resists the
   slide). And of course if you want to do anything other than type, the
   TouchFire is in your way; you can peel it back by detaching the top
   magnets, or remove it entirely using the magnets of the Smart Cover if
   you have one, but that requires work and thought.

   [3]Image

   Nevertheless, the TouchFire does work, as this article demonstrates,
   and I plan to take it with me on my next cross-country airplane trip,
   so that I can keep my diary, and reply to emails with something more
   than monosyllabic grunts. It folds up nicely into a small thin case,
   and weighs next to nothing. The price is steep, $49.95 (you can get a
   Bluetooth keyboard for much less); but for certain people with certain
   mindsets, of whom I seem to be one, it may well prove to be just the
   ticket.

   [4]Image

References

   1. http://www.touchfire.com/
   2. http://tidbits.com/resources/2013-05/touchfireInAction.jpg
   3. http://tidbits.com/resources/2013-05/touchfireFolded.jpg
   4. http://tidbits.com/resources/2013-05/touchfireInBox.jpg

.