Hi Anne and Krister,
Wow, Anne's done a lot of experimenting with the different French
language keyboards! But I agree that, especially if you're going to
set only one input language keyboard for your iPhone under the
Settings menu, you don't need to worry about buying a Bluetooth
keyboard that is specially designed for Swedish input. The easiest
way I've found to test different input keyboards is on my Mac, where
I'll try typing the various key combinations in a TextEdit window, and
check what VoiceOver announces. This can be used to test both the
available keys for a particular keyboard (e.g., Anne's test of the
range of keys on the mini Bluetooth keyboard, or my tests of the Think
Outside Stowaway keyboard), as well as a particular input language
selection used with that keyboard (e.g., U.S. English, U.K. English,
French, Canadian French, and Swiss French).
I notice that if I go to the Settings > General > Keyboard >
International Keyboards and double tap "Add New Keyboard" and select
"Swedish", that when I examine the "Swedish" keyboard options, there
is only one possible Software layout, called "QWERTY-Swedish-Finnish",
but there are different Hardware Keyboard layouts, with "Swedish-Pro"
selected by default, but also "Swedish". Those are the two options
you would probably select between, if you wanted to test a Bluetooth
keyboard with less than the full complement of input keys (like the
Mini Bluetooth keyboard).
I'll just add some comments, which will be developed in a separate
post. I'd like a compact, Bluetooth keyboard, but I prefer the
folding design of the Think Outside Stowaway keyboard, because if I
use an external keyboard with my iPod Touch or iPad, I want something
that I can touch type on. I also want compatibility with the Mac
keyboard shortcuts, and I don't want to try to figure out what to do
about missing accent key combinations for French or other languages.
As it is I'm using the iOS 4 language rotor options to work with at
least two languages that natively have non-Latin symbols (Russian
Cyrillic alphabet and Chinese Pinyin input), and I definitely don't
want to have to think about non-standard keyboard placements for
multiple languages. So a regular, Mac-compatible Bluetooth keyboard,
which is portable, but which can expand to a size that can support
touch typing is important. The best prospect I've found is the Jorno
Bluetooth Keyboard that's scheduled to start shipping at the beginning
of October:
https://jornostore.com/
As I said, I'll post this separately, but this is designed along the
lines of the Think Outside Stowaway keyboards, but support the full
set of keys of the Apple Wireless Keyboards when unfolded (e.g., this
includes the top row of number keys and the F keys). Folded size is
3.5 x 3.5 x 0.9 inches (90 mm x 90 mm x 23 mm) and weight is 8.8 oz.
-- so it's intermediate in weight between the Stowaway keyboard and
the Apple Wireless Keyboard, and instead of being a flat rectangle
when folded like the Stowaway, it's a slightly thicker square deck
that can still fit in the palm of your hand. The only thing is, the
manufacturer (in California) has stated that, at least at first, they
don't plan to ship/sell outside of the U.S. and Canada.
HTH. Cheers,
Esther
On Aug 22, 2010, Anne Robertson wrote:
Hello Krister,
If you can set a Swedish keyboard on the iPhone, then it will be the
same on a mini BlueTooth or other BlueTooth keyboard. The thing to
bear in mind with the mini keyboard is that it only has 49 keys,
with only 9 usable keys on the bottom row, and 9 on the second row.
This gave me trouble with the French France and French Canada
keyboards because they have ten letters on the second row (m being
to the right of l). However, the French Switzerland keyboard works
great, so I'll just stick to that for both French and English.
Cheers,
Anne
On 22 Aug 2010, at 19:19, Krister Ekstrom wrote:
I really wonder if this is true for Scandinavian keyboard layouts,
they aren't so big, so to speak as english, french or spanish.
/Krister
22 aug 2010 kl. 18.41 skrev Anne Robertson:
Hello everyone,
I've been doing some experimenting with the mini BlueTooth
keyboard, (thanks to Esther for making me think!), and I've
discovered that it behaves like the keyboard set on the iPhone. In
other words, when I change the keyboard layout on my iPhone to
French, the mini keyboard becomes French too, and I can get all
the accents easily as I would on any French keyboard.
So for those of you who use other languages, you don't need to
look for the appropriate keyboard for your language, just get any
BlueTooth keyboard and let the iPhone choose its layout.
Cheers,
Anne
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