Last Halloween, I was at a party where a middle-aged man dressed as an Oppenheimer Ken doll (“I’m Atomic Bomb Ken!” he kept proclaiming) was holding court about the days of yore, c ‘that is, the 2000s. Finally, he railed against modern cell phones, how touchscreen keyboards suck, and how the BlackBerry and its hardware keyboard was an awesome phone.
I never got Atomic Bomb Ken’s real name, nor do I know how to contact him. If I could, I’d tell him about the Clicks Creator Keyboard, a $139 iPhone case that has a hardware keyboard on the bottom and makes the iPhone look BlackBerry-ish. Compatible with the iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro, the case has a Lightning or USB-C connector that attaches to the iPhone. You can then use the keyboard to type, and since no touch keyboard appears, you can have a full view of what’s on the iPhone screen.
The keyboard features the familiar QWERTY layout, as well as a dedicated microphone key for voice typing. Users can even use the Command key for keyboard shortcut combinations, such as Command+H to go to the Home screen or Command+Space for Spotlight. The company was co-founded by Michael Fisher, a tech reviewer known as Mr. Mobile on YouTube.
Obviously, the Creator Keyboard adds considerable length to the iPhone: it extends by 7.41 inches (188.3 millimeters), or an additional 1.64 inches (41.1 mm). But hey, that’s the price you pay to satisfy a nostalgic craving. Clicks Technology offers the case in BumbleBee (yellow) or London Sky, which resembles Space Gray and seems to be a depressing allusion to the UK’s friends.
In addition to the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 Pro models shipping on February 1 and mid-March, respectively, Clicks is accepting $30 deposits for the $159 iPhone 15 Pro Max model that will be available this spring. It’s 204.1mm long, so I hope your low-rise jeans from the 2000s have deep pockets.
