Touchfire Screen-Top Keyboard Review

By Bayle Emlein

What’s in the box:

• A (slim, lightweight) storage case containing
• Touchfire Keyboard
• Instruction sheet

The instruction sheet lists the cover magnets designed to hold the Touchfire to an Apple Smart Cover as a separate item, though they rest in their holders on the Touchfire.

This is the briefest instruction sheet I have seen: 4.75" x 8.75" and most of that pictures. But that is plenty to show how to use the Touchfire. There are the standard caveats on the back: the Touchfire does not render your tablet water- or drop-reistant. Small magnets can be a choking hazzard for young children.

An iPad is part of the company uniform where I work, so I try to work on one. Unfortunately, the on-screen keyboard of a any tablet is not a touch-typing environment, greatly slowing progress and greatly increasing errors. A variety of add-on keyboards seek to solve the problem. 

Standard operating procedure is a blue-tooth add-on. My favorite keyboard does not synch to my iPad, though my Android is happy with it. I have other keyboards that will synch to both. In every case, the keyboard is one more thing to carry around, keep charged, and keep connected–or disconcerted when I don’t want it.

The Touchfire screen-top keyboard takes an entirely different approach. It uses the tablet keyboard and literally sits on top of it. Made of soft, pliable, plastic or gel of some kind, it is totally transparent so that you can see your tablet keys through it. As a matter of fact, getting a decent photo of the Touchfire was the most challenging part of this review: it’s so transparent, you just see whatever is behind it.

The gel is molded into key-cap shapes that match the keyboard. Each keycap is slightly concave, so that your fingers sit comfortable >on< the key–once you’ve lined things up. The customary anchor keys–F and J–have the customary small bumps to help orient your index fingers to “Home.” If I pay really good attention, I can feel these without looking. If I install the Touchfire permanently, I plan to enhance these a bit. My standard substance for this is a pointy dot of puff paint, the stuff you use to make raised designs on tee shirts and other crafts projects. Many beginning typists benefit from having the orientation dots on the F and J enhanced.

Onscreen keyboards offer the option of accented letter forms–such as tilde, cedilla and various letter accents, and thus writing in over two dozen alphabetic languages–if you hold the key for “a while.” They also offer the option of flipping through multiple panes to find numbers, symbols, and most punctuation marks. Since the Touchfire does not change the tablet keyboard, that’s what you get with it. For touch typing, it is going to take some learning to stay off the Enter key, which I keep poking for the Semicolon/Colon and Single/Double Quote keys.

Also, I found the Touchfire touch a bit inconsistent: some key presses under it were super sensitive and some needed a determined push. My Android had a more even response than the iPad. Maybe it’s the screen protectors. The directions do suggest that the Touchfire will work better without a screen protector. Too late for either tablet. Not sure how much the screen protectors really protect, but they have been there for a while and they’re staying, especially since both devices get used by multiple people–including small ones.

Still having trouble? Check out the demo video at http://www.touchfire.com/start/,  where the installation instructions clarify the need to be sure the Home button has the correct orientation. There’s even a brief typing tutor to help you develop your tablet touch-typing skills.

It’s a rare tech tool that’s as easy to use as it promises. No surprises with the Touchfire and it certainly takes the pain out of literacy on a tablet. Even two-finger typists who spend a significant portion of their tablet time processing words will appreciate the improved keyboard management. If your hands and budget want relief at the same time, a Touchfire screen-top keyboard may be the bling you actually need.

www.touchfire.com/

$49.95 at Touchfire