Apple haters love to trot out the fact that the iPhone and iPod touch lack a physical keyboard. And of course, the first feature iPhone users notice about any rival keyboard-equipped smartphone is usually the microscopic keys. 4iThumbs attempts to bridge that gap, offering some of the tactile feedback of a hard keyboard without giving up all the benefits of the iPhone’s virtual keys.
Bumps on the clear 4iThumbs overlay simulate hard keys on your iPhone or iPod touch.
The 4iThumbs “keyboard” is a clear plastic overlay for your screen with small bumps spaced to match the iPhone’s onscreen keyboard. Two separate overlays accommodate portrait and landscape layouts, and installing them was pretty simple. A template helps to align the overlay properly, and once that’s done, you mount two thin, adhesive-backed plastic strips above and below the screen to hold the 4iThumbs in place. Voilà--slide one of the overlays under the plastic strips and use your phone as normal.
Contrary to what you’d probably imagine, 4iThumbs didn’t affect the iPhone’s responsiveness to touch commands. Typing worked fine, and the bumps did help our fingers find the proper targets, although we weren’t any more accurate with 4iThumbs installed than without it. While it might make useful training wheels for anyone switching from a phone with a hard keyboard, users with more than a few hours of iPhoning under their belts won’t find much improvement. And though you can see through the top half of the 4iThumbs just fine, the keyboard bumps obscure the bottom half of the iPhone’s screen, making it difficult to browse the web, read email, or use your phone for anything more than typing with the overlay in place. We found ourselves constantly installing and removing the overlay as we used our phone throughout a normal day--making it most attractive if you tend to go on mobile email binges.
New users might find 4iThumbs useful, but anyone with some iPhone experience will prefer typing on their device without it.
4iThumbs
COMPANY: 4iThumbs
CONTACT: www.4ithumbs.com
PRICE: $19.95
REQUIREMENTS: iPhone or iPod touch
Tactile bumps might help new iPhone typists. Includes overlays for both portrait and landscape keyboard layouts.
Hard to read screen through 4iThumbs. Won't work with any case that covers the front of your device. Nubs can obscure characters when using secondary character layouts.
