Our very own Josh Schnell wrote an article about iPhones to get projectors, you can read it here. On that post we got a comment from Chaz French, his website is charlesfrench.com, about using the projector as a lighted virtual keyboard that could be projected onto a surface.
Now, this would make an iPhone OS device even more useful. Having the ability to have a full size keyboard that you could easily type on with speed, yet not have to carry around with you everywhere would be the best of both worlds. I can type somewhat quickly on an iPhone OS device, but I would love to be able to type up something anywhere I am without having to drag a MacBook or MacBook Pro around.
There’s only one flaw in this equation. The screens on the current iPhone OS based devices are entirely too small to be able to type on for an extended amount of time. They are fantastic for quick notes, short emails, or status updates. However, they are not very usable for long blog posts, essays, and longer emails. At present, you would have to prop up the iPhone OS device and somehow project the keyboard. It would be entirely too hard for most to be able to read at any distance. With that stated, I would expect to see a larger device, like the rumored tablet.
In case you have not been made aware of the Tablet rumors, there are a few rumors going around. The first version of that the device will run Mac OS X, probably 10.6 Snow Leopard, be about 8″ diagonally, with all of the bells and whistles of current Macs.
The second rumor is that the device will be approximately four iPhone or iPod touches in a square setup. It would be running iPhone OS and basically be a gigantic iPod, with Wifi, bluetooth, and now a rumored projector chip for a keyboard.
The third, being my own, is that the device would be about four iPod touches in a square format, that would dual boot both iPhone OS and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. I would love to see this so then you could have the best of both worlds. The ability to run the Mac OS, and the ability to run the iPhone OS. I know I haven’t fully flushed out the whole thing yet, but it would definitely be a plus to see both. But that’s just what I want to see.
I can see projectors being added to Macs, particularly a tablet mac, however I do not know if this will ever come to fruition or not. So we’ll just wait and see what Apple does come up with and when they decide to release it.
[Image from Flickr, by factoryjoe]
