I like this iPhone case’s physical keyboard, but that’s not even its best feature
Key points of ZDNET
- The Keyboard for iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max Available for $139/$159 in four colors.
- The keyboard is very well designed and supports hundreds of shortcuts, is backlit, increasing the display area for your iPhone.
- However, it increases the overall size of your iPhone and is quite expensive.
I recently met up with two longtime mobile industry friends at CES 2024 to talk about their new company. It is called Number of clicksand it just released its first product, Click Keyboard. It’s a physical keyboard that attaches to the bottom of your iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, but it’s more than that.
We talked about their long history of using phones with physical keyboards, their attention to detail in product development, and the effort they put into creating this new keyboard accessory. As soon as pre-orders went live, I ordered my own Clicks keyboard in the “London Sky” color for my iPhone 15 Pro Max.
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So far, I’m extremely satisfied with this accessory. It’s been on my iPhone since it came out two weeks ago, except when I’m jogging, cycling, and on a few occasions when I need to put a smaller phone in my pocket. A great feature of the keyboard is that you can easily remove the device completely if needed.
Clicks is a unibody accessory with a silicone body and a hard back. Advanced buttons are present for the right button, volume button and action button. A rigid frame surrounds the rear camera array while also providing some protection. There’s also a textured vegan leather panel on the back
36 buttons are located at the bottom of the case and believe me, a lot of attention has been paid to the placement and design of these keys. The keyboard is powered by connecting to your phone and is even backlit in low light conditions. The keyboard supports pass-through and wireless charging, but I discovered that my Viture Pro XR glasses don’t work with the Clicks keyboard.
Clicks’ ability to connect seamlessly to iOS without the need for third-party apps or keyboards is amazing. There are a variety of keys on the keyboard here, including the left shift button, the 123 key to access numbers and symbols, the CMD button to activate native iOS shortcuts, another button to show/hide the keyboard and emoji and microphone buttons let you convert speech to text.
Some native iOS keyboard shortcuts you can use include:
- CMD and H: Returns you to the Home screen
- CMD and spacebar: Launch iOS search
- Spacebar in Safari/Chrome: Scroll down the web pages
- Tap to wake up: With Face ID, just tap any button to wake your iPhone
- CMD and N: In Messages, use this feature to compose a new message
- CMD and R: In Messages, use this option to reply
These are just a few keyboard shortcuts; Ultimately there’s a lot to explore here, and some third-party apps may also support their own keyboard shortcuts. This A guide on how to fully optimize your Click keyboard is a tool that helps me create my own keyboard shortcuts, which is what really turns the Clicks keyboard into an effective tool that goes beyond improved typing.
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Using native iOS shortcuts and setting up custom shortcuts in Shortcuts is where the real power of this accessory comes into play. It’s refreshing to be able to see the entire screen of my iPhone 15 Pro Max instead of having the keyboard pop up taking up 1/3 of the screen. I also hate the iPhone’s default keyboard and find third-party keyboards mostly an exercise in frustration.
My biggest challenge now is remembering all the shortcuts I’ve created, but the ability to quickly launch apps, repeat common actions with ease, and enjoy the full screen of my iPhone. I am worth the effort.
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Clicks are available for two iPhone 14 Pro models and all four iPhone 15 models. There are a variety of colors available, so check back on the site if you don’t see the color you want. I’d love to know what shortcuts you’ve created and which ones you found most useful, so please leave a comment below.
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The original iPhone was launched when there were still phones with physical QWERTY keyboards, and now thanks to Clicks, we’ve perfected some of the same well-designed functionality. A lot of lessons were learned along the way and the guys at Clicks really applied their expertise and attention to detail when designing and building Keyboard click. It’s now an essential accessory for me and I continue to find ways to improve it on a regular basis.
If you miss the physical keyboard on devices like the Blackberry then this accessory is worth the price.
