Pointless Computer Tricks: Keyboards for Phones

      If you are like me, you find sending text messages on your phone annoying. The on screen keyboard works well enough for a word or three, but three words does not a coherent sentence make. Sure, there are tricks to make it easier, but that doesn’t change that my fingers are too fat and the letters are too tiny.

      Enter the OTG cable.

Works for me…

      I was sitting at my desk, dreading having to reply to a text. Somewhat of an exaggeration, but I was not looking forward to it. I knew what I wanted to say, but it would take too many letters to be pleasant. I would have much rather used my keyboard and sent an email or similar.

      Which was when I realized, I had a spare keyboard and the necessary adapter to hook it to my phone. A minute later, the text was sent. Conveniently typed out on a ‘real’ keyboard.

Probably not for you…

      From what I’ve seen, this wouldn’t be practical for most people. Carrying around a full sized keyboard defeats the purpose of a handheld device. But for me? It’s a good fit.

      The vast majority of my texting occurs at my desk. I can easily leave a keyboard hooked up to the OTG cable, ready to plug into the phone as needed. Now I too can write text messages that are too long to be easily read, and thus defeat the purpose of the short message service.

May have other uses…

      You can also hook up a mouse to a phone this way, and should be able to do both with a USB hub. While phones are reasonable ‘smart’ these days, it’s possible they won’t recognize everything that is plugged in to them. They have in my experience, but I haven’t tried anything more exciting then a keyboard and mouse. In other words, your mileage may vary.