I don't get how it doesn't belong here...
Surely a good design doesn't impede ph functionality?
The "hole fix" doesn't seem to make much sense, yet.

Not yet, I should have one in the coming months.

i ment the form factore... slide out with angle...

We were not talking about Tactus, but about an extra transparent plate of soft plastic, with rectangular shapes on it. User needs to put the keyboard plate on touchscreen. But the Tactus keyboard looks more versatile, because the tactile keyboard seems to be a transparent membrane, under which goes a liquid which raises the keyboard domes. At least the shape of the keys is correct: spherical and elevated enough. Please ssee the videos of http://www.tactustechnology.com/technology.html and http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/06/tac...ring-keyboard/ . If the Tactus techology becomes available as acceptable keyboards, then we may need to say goodbye to conventional HW keyboards. Or the other half might consist of an extra touch screen, with the Tactus keyboard on its surface.

Also a company called Senseg seems to bring a new technology which makes you feel something on the screen. But on their page they tell more about feeling textures rather than keyboards. http://senseg.com/ . According to some news, Nokia and Apple have been customers of Senseg, which has its HQ in Espoo, Finland.

This is the news about Nokia and its texture-feeling touch screen: http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.UlcnJFO2Xb0 They tested it on N900 Apple seems to have applied for a patent about something related: http://readtechnews.com/apples-lates...rtip-feedback/

Tactus looks interesting....

That Senseg & Nokia stuff has been news/info for years, nothing concrete has ever come from it.
I'd trust Apple more to finally deliver something...

Should there be a separate thread about constructing a keyboard that doesn't require mass production?

It's easy and cheap to get a PCB from Itead, a 3D printed casing from Shapeways but how about the actual physical buttons?

Or is the best way to buy a replacement keyboard for some known qwerty phone and build the PCB for that?

Crazy concept idea: transparent keyboard?



When any mechanical stuff is well designed, why not show it?

Or a variation on this one

Transparent looks nice. Probably not very durable though.

Yes, the Senseg/Nokia texture-feeling feature hardly is as good as the Tactus way of feeling where the key tops are. Tactus calls it "orientation". But how do they make a Tactus key click? A good haptic feedback may be needed, à la N9. Now would be needed real keyboards instead of videos. According to the web pages of Tactus, something will be available "in 2013".

There is some speculation on JollaUsers that Jolla will develop a qwerty otherhalf. Perhaps this makes this discussion useless, perhaps they are following us closely.

I hope the latter!

In that article he claims the tweets prove that they almost certainly have plans for a qwerty OH.
But none of the tweets do that, all they do is suggest that they have their own branded OH's planned.*
He often does that in his writing style, makes "great leaps" etc...

*granted a qwerty OH is probably the most likely OH for them to release if they've been listening