I have no doubt at all that this idea will raise the eyebrows of many an iPhone 3G owner. PimpMyultra mobile PC blogger Valto has put together a presentation of a concept he calls the eXtendr. In the presentation you’ll see a slider keyboard but it you read the article you’ll see that it’s not just a keyboard idea. The concept could be used to carry speakers and batteries a bit like the original iPaq jacket and, more recently, the Digifriends MID. Because this is the iPhone though, it somehow seems to have more impact. Good work Valto!
Full news item at Pimp My UMPC
Greetings:
Do you think that this blogger Valto has already sent patent pending doucements to the FCC.
Cause the concept is very cool.
Or may it be possible that Apple and Steve have already thought of this.
Regards Robert
Awesome, they would sell millions!
Is iPhone already not a MID or what? It is the small screen not the keyboard that’s missing. iPhone’s soft keyboard is better than any such hard thumb keyboards I’ve used so far (Treo, HTC, OQO…).
Mounting an iPhone into a chases with larger battery and screen is a good one though.
interesting take on the whole thing.
i recall that ipaq jacket where one could stuff a pcmcia card in. imo that was a nice idea, but i guess it added to much bulk for regular use as a phone…
Yes I had that HP (not iPaq) PDA with PCMCIA/battery add-on, used for a CDPD modem, 14.4K from ATT for $30/mon. Plugging the CDPD modem into a HP Jornada 720 was much more useful.
No patents, just doing my best to push the markets forward ;)
Anyhow, in my blog, rthe question is how would you extnd the hardware side of the iPhone? VGE, USB, SD, ?? those could be easily implemented in this setup with matching software. So what do you think would make sense to add to this?
Let’s hope some third party accessory makers for iPhone picks this up….
Greetings:
The best third party accessory for the iphone would be a mini LCD projector.
Think of all the Business presentations that would be done in bars at happy Hour, talk about a fast sale.
Regards Robert
sdhc, host USB? Everything! Is it possible to make a desk docking station? I can’t see it now becouse I am at work using iPhone browser, he he.I wish to have VGA out and couple of USB ports for keyboard/mouse and external hard drive.
Since BT nor WIFI wouldn’t be very feasible for a number of reasons, one being the iPhone not supporting it, the second being the need for a battery.
So you are left with a “plugin” option, which could be done strictly physically speaking, and I don’t see it as very impossible from a technical standpoint. Hopefully *if* someone does this they would chose a better keyboard (layout/solution) than the all too common but not best QWERTY keyboards by HTC.
i wonder if not one would be better of in the long run if one did something like this for neo freerunner rather then iphone.
less jumping to flaming hoops held by apple at least…
To be sure, makes the iphone significantly thicker.
Also…what happens to the camera?
Any of the available cases for the iPhone makes it bigger, and frankly in my opinion only better/nicer. As for camera there could be a hole like with any other cover available now.
Having had my own iPhone now for months and seeing people really be so impressed with it, I have also come to conclusion that this really would help apple to sell more iPhones. One of the main sceptism is towards the lack of phycical keyboard and this would help those people to make the jump.
At the same time I think that many would eventually just leave this extndr behind after they would come familliar with the software keyboard on iPhone.
Ps. Written with iPhone ;)
Great write up. The iPhone is truly revolutionary and I don’t like being without it. This time last year I had jumped in a pool with my iPhone and it was dead. I had to wait 10 days before I was able to buya new one. The phone I had was a cheap go phone. I really love all the games that can be downloaded to the iPhone. The best part about the iPhone to me is the ability to check emails on the go. Thanks for the information.