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FingerWorks Offers Replacement PowerBook Keyboard
JerryKnight writes "FingerWorks, the inventor of TouchStream keyboards such as the LP, is taking pre-orders for a drop-in replacement for the keyboard in a 15" PowerBook G4 that is pretty much the same thing as the LP. Now the beautiful PowerBook can be completely smooth. Words fail to express the enthusiasm felt by me and hopefully anyone else who has used these keyboards. No word on availability. List price: $259." It's called the MacNTouch. Hm.
I was about to replace my Powerbook keyboard with one from an old Atari 400. Now I won't have to.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
After looking at some of the sample gestures for the keyboard, I have to admit I am somewhat impressed. Some very interesting ideas there. After looking at more of the sample gestures for the touch keyboard, I am still impressed, but wary.
It reminds me of the problems with 'logically designed languages'. (i.e. all words for colors in the language might start with "cro", "crob" is blue, "crog" is green, "cror" is red, etc. The problem being that a single typos in the word might still be a valid word of a similiar type, but not what you meant.) I suspect someone who became a total expert with the keyboard could do just fine, but an intermediate user could get highly frustrated -- forgetting to use/accidently using an extra finger in a gesture might cause some unwanted operation to happen, not merely cause the desired operation to not happen. Maybe the software is smart enough to second guess some of these issues, but...
Go to the company's page and look at the Enhanced Modifier Chords -- if you tap with six fingers on the home row, you get an Enter -- if you tap six fingers on the row above the home row, you get an Esc key press. (Personally, I would immediately redefine those two gestures to have far more difference between the two -- accidently hitting "Enter" when one meant "Escape" in some dialog boxes would be very bad.) Or the shift/control differences.
Of course, one could just not use the gestures, but then why bother with the keyboard?
Nonetheless, very interesting ideas, but it may not be ready for everyone.
BUT... ;) ...looking at the layout(which I hope is not final), why is the function key replaced with shift? When I reach out for the fn key on my current keyboard I have trouble accessing the other keys covered by the left hand. I know I have small hands, but come on... leave it where it is at the current size (two keys wide).
Same for return... umm enter... where is return??? I know quite some apps, where return and enter have different functions... take Fire for example: return sends out, enter makes a new line in the message... I do not think I would want to use additional shift for this. And it IS far too small, leave it at the current size, it was already difficult enough for me to stop hitting back-slash all the time...
Overall:
the whole right part of the keyboard is messed up and will require you to get used to the new layout.
Too much self advertisement... use it for bigger keys instead, although the hand is quite cute.
Can I press command + option with one finger only? I hope so.
NO IBOOK?
What about the heat? I have 1GHz and it gets quite hot already. If you look at the current keyboard, it is designed to provide better air circulation. You think it is not important? Buy the hoover TiBook, wait until the fans go on, lift the keyboard and wait for a while... the fans go off. With the keyboard it takes longer time for the fans to go off, I dunno about MacNTouch with no holes at all.
I do not think I will buy it, maybe I would for my iBook, but it has IMO too many design/usability flaws. I had to try it out first.
weeeee
On my PowerBook, I always tap on the trackpad in order to click. I always use the tap-drag to drag. I never use the physical trackpad button.
I'd love to find a piece of software that recognized the physical trackpad button as a control-click, thus simulating a two-button mouse.