Kickstarter spotlight: Spike
Solving touch screen typing issues is something many companies strive for. Remember the quick-keys? TouchFire? iKeyboard? Well make room, for here comes another contender in the iPhone category: Spike.
The concept of the Spike isn’t too different from the ones above, but I dare say the execution is better. It’s still an accessory that trades away electronics for some cleverly crafted pieces that push through to the existing touch screen keyboard, but the business end of it is a lot more like a keyboard on a true qwerty device. There are two models, and both feature a case that you put on your iPhone. The cases have a keyboard piece that you can swing onto the screen and type away at a hardware pass-through keyboard.
The difference between the two versions, is that the cheapest of them requires you to flip part of the case manually to bring the keyboard to the front, while the more expensive version has a hinge system that goes all the way around. Named the Spike and the Spike 2, you can grab them as low as $20/$40 respectively if you’re quick on Kickstarter, with normal pledge levels being $25 and $50 once the limited rewards run out.
The obvious issue with these keyboards, aside from being iPhone only, is the same as for the other solutions mentioned at the beginning: It’s designed for the US iPhone keyboard. International shipping is offered, and rightfully so, but not everyone will have a use for it when it requires the English keyboard to be active.
Despite this, it looks like a really nice product. The keyboards look a lot more like actual mobile device keyboards than what the more plasticy earlier offerings do, which hopefully translates into a nice typing experience.
[Kickstarter]
