Many of us complained about iPhone’s virtual keyboard is not good, and wished if apple could’ve integrated physical keyboard, So far apple has not thought of doing so. But now atleast you can connect your iPhone/iTouch to external bluetooth keyboard with your iPhone, BTstack Keyboard is out now, which lets you to connect your bluetooth keyboard with iPhone, We already posted about this few days back. However today I got the opportunity to test it personally.
I used my friends apple bluetooth keyboard with my iPhone 3G, and it works great, Typing is so easy, Now you can write emails, SMS, Notes and other apps where you need to use keyboard and it worked fine without any issues.
Though when I tried to type in search box of cydia, it didn’t worked.
BTstack supports 5 different keyboard layouts, special chracters are supported, though Cut/copy/paste and selecting text is not supported for now, but promised by developer that this would be included in upcoming versions.
BTstack Keyboard is compatible with iPod 2G, iPhone 3G and 3GS running firmaware 2.0 till 3.1.2.
Once BTstack is paired with keyboard, pairing is quite simple, once it detects your keyboard it generates a 4 digit number and prompts you to type on your keyboard. You can press home button to use it with other apps, it automatically goes in background, Connection is lost if it is not used for more than 15 mins.
BTstack not only works with Apple Bluetooth Keyboard but with other bluetooth keyboards as well, though not all bluetooth keyboards you can check the compatible keyboard list on you cydia’s Btstack keyboard page.
Also note that BTstack Keyboard is based on BTstack, an open source bluetooth stack, and so it cannot run in paralled to Apple’s default bluetooth, you need to quit this app to use Apple’s bluetooth.
Overall this is a must’ve app for those who do lot of typing on their iDevice and it is available on cydia under BigBoss repo for $5.00.
iPhone / iPod touch downloads
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This Bluetooth stack is amazing, and just one example legitimizing jailbreaking to enhance functionality.  My one issue, and I’m sure it can be fixed, is that the app appears to interfere with some cut and paste use (using the on-screen keyboard).  In particular, I couldn’t paste from the Dragon Dictate app into email.  As with all bugs, I’m sure it will be addressed.
Tryed this today and I love it! If they implement the use of Ã…, Ä and Ö using and english keyboard, I use the Thinkoutside foldable keyboard, I’d consider donating some more!