TouchFire: Is it the iPad’s Ultimate (Typing) Accessory?

If you have ever tried to type on an iPad then you can understand why TouchFire- a simple keyboard overlay that marks typing easier- has raised almost $100,000 on Kickstarter.

Rather than inserting a string of chatter into your style as usually occurs when your rest your fingers on iPad’s keyboard, TouchFire does not set off a single key when you rest you fingertips on the product. Its distinct keys make typing whereas looking away from the screen likely and its silicon body is an unusually thin and flexible solution to a problem that is probably solved with clunky plastic add-ons.

“When everyone else think about a keyboard, they usually try to replicate what a mechanical keyboard is.”, says TouchFire co-founder Steven Isaac.

Isaac is not actually from a mechanical engineering background. He worked on an operating system for one of the major tablet-like devices in the early 90s, helped develop Internet Explorer 1.0 and led the team that thrown MSN.com. But he was inspired to build his first piece of hardware when the iPad came out.

With the help of the co-founder Brad Melmon, he tried to make the keyboard more than twice as thin as a credit card and easily rollable to the side of the iPad when that is not in use. Magnets on the keyboard’s sides snap it into place to type and snap it to the iPad case for storage.

The secret patent-pending pulp is a group of small microstructures in each key that permit fingers to rest on them at any angle without touching the iPad. When the device does finally go to market (as of now, an undefined date), Isaac expects it to retail for about $45.

Not so bad for a prototype that had its first of 49 iterations created in a garage with an exacto knife.
“This really was just two guys in a garage,” Isaac says. “And who knows, it could end up changing the world.”

Posted in: apple's iPad, iPad, iPad accessory, iPad touch, iPad typing, iPad Typing accessory, iPad's keayboard, TouchFire