When I first got a whiff of Clicks – the new company that wants to bring keyboards to iPhones – I scoffed at it. "Who’d want or use this?" I thought when seeing how Apple’s slick industrial design gets smothered by a somewhat chunky polycarbonate case with a built-in BlackBerry-esque keyboard.
For some context, I’m one of those odd people who don’t like using cases with smartphones. There are far smarter and more creative people than I who’ve poured plenty of effort into making smart and slick rectangles of tech look great, so I don’t want to smother said devices with a hunk of plastic. And I certainly don’t desire a case that adds bulk with frickin’ keyboards.
But at MWC 2024’s Showstoppers showcase, where a suite of brands show off their latest products, I got talking to Clicks co-founder and smartphone mobile star Michael Fisher, aka Mr Mobile (take a look at the TikTok video below). And it was then that Clicks started to make sense.
Of course, Fisher has skin in the game here, but even so, he neatly explained that the Clicks case won’t be for everyone but will tickle the fancy of people who miss the BlackBerry keyboards of old.
@techradar ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs - Skittlegirl Sound
But then he went further. For the so-called Gen Z people, who weren’t brought up with phones with physical keyboards, Clicks could appeal to them. The key here is that by removing the need to use a virtual keyboard, screen space is freed up, a thing that can be very handy for content creators. And when you see this in action, it’s genuinely attention-grabbing with how much space one can claw back from pop-up software keyboards.
While the Clicks keyboard case might not be something one would use day in, day out, for folks who want to get stuff done on the move – such as myself while stalking the halls of MWC – the case could come in handy. I can imagine slotting it over my iPhone 15 Pro Max to quickly tap out some work without needing to awkwardly balance my laptop on my actual lap.
There’s more to Clicks too, with Fisher demonstrating neat keyboard shortcuts – something that should make cutting and pasting in iOS much easier and faster than I currently find it. It might sound like a simple thing, but in action, it’s low-key impressive.
They say seeing is believing, and when it comes to Clicks, this was hammered home. What once seemed like a bit of a left-field proposition, now looks set to be a compelling accessory for iPhones. Naturally, I’d need to try the Clicks case properly for a week or so to see if I could really embrace the idea of a physical keyboard returning to a phone.
Yet at a time when phone innovation appears to be close to stagnating – putting aside the hype around generative AI – Clicks is intriguing, moving phone accessories forward by looking backward. Now if the likes of Samsung and others on our best Android phones list can do something similar and bring back easily expanded storage and swappable batteries, a wry smile may slip over my jaded tech journalist face.
