Even as the latest phones and wearables tout speech recognition with unprecedented accuracy and spatial computing products flirt with replacing tablets and laptops, physical keyboards remain beloved for their efficiency. Earlier this year, for example, sci-fi novelist Robert J. Sawyer created a comprehensive archive of files that enables modern PCs to run WordStar 7, the DOS program’s final version. He favors the once-dominant word processor, also used by Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, in part because of its effective use of “home row” keyboard shortcuts to speed navigation and editing.
The keyboard is also a vibrant target for tinkering. Crowdfunding campaigns over the past year or so have included Mobile Pixels’ Tetra, a split keyboard with a repositionable screen; Naya Create, a sloping, modular keyboard; the Clevetura CLV1, which integrates trackpad functionality into the keys themselves; and the Flux, a keyboard that combines control modules and a display under the keys for infinite combinations of appearance and function.
Alas, neither WordStar nor these daring designs are well-suited to mobile usage. On that front, Michael Fisher (aka Mr Mobile) and Kevin Michalu (aka Crackberry Kevin)—two tech media veterans with keyboard phone nostalgia coursing through their thumbs—teamed up to launch the Clicks keyboard for iPhones this year. While a well-designed accessory, it adds significant height to what can already be a large phone. And like the Blackberry keyboards that inspired it, it can be uncomfortable for extended text-entry sessions.
Such have long been the compromises of typing on the go. But in 2015, a keyboard that looked and worked like nothing before or since went up for preorder. It claimed to capture the holy grail of a comfortable and familiar typing experience in a pocket-friendly package. It promised to turn phones into text-entry powerhouses and halve the thickness of tablets paired with keyboard covers. And as it got close to release, the company solicited feedback from a community of passionate testers who loved the product and pleaded with the company to release it. But this breakthrough device never shipped to customers.
WayTools’s TextBlade consisted of three rectangular sections, each about the size of a stick of gum. Its “KeyBlades,” which split the letters of a QWERTY layout, attached magnetically to each other and an oversize space bar called the SpaceBlade. The heart of the product, the SpaceBlade included the device’s battery, Bluetooth radio, and a line of 10 LEDs that indicated the device’s status and modes. When not in use, the three sticks neatly stacked magnetically, sliding into a plastic brace that doubled as a stand for a smartphone or tablet.
WayTools even sweated the details when it came to charging the TextBlade. Lightly knocking the SpaceBlade against a surface such as the side of your hand dislodged a half-height USB “nano charger” adapter with metal contacts that connected to the SpaceBlade. After charging, the adapter could be docked back into the SpaceBlade like the stylus in a Samsung Galaxy Note or S24 Ultra.
