I recently went on a ten day trip to China where I didn’t take my computer.1 I still wanted the ability to take notes quickly, so I bought a Bluetooth keyboard to use with my phone.
Boy do I love it.
There are basically three reasons.
1. Texting my friends on a keyboard is so much nicer
I hear all my Mac friends laughing at me. We’ve had that for years, Kai.
Still, it’s nice. I love being able to type quickly and use copy/paste. And it’s nice not to have to lug my computer around either — or buy a Mac.
It’s not all good, though. Typing exacerbates my tendency to be verbose in text chains.
2. Typing on the notes app is like a typewriter
Sometimes, I just need to sit down and write the darn thing. I’ve historically accomplished this by locking myself into a room with a notebook and a pen and handwriting the draft, even if it is tens of pages. This takes a while, and I’ve often wondered whether I should buy a typewriter.
Typing on a phone in the notes app gets me 80% of the way to the typewriter ideal. While typing on a keyboard into a phone, it's more difficult to access distractions. The phone screen itself is too far away to touch, so it's hard to switch away from work. Entertainment is less satisfying on a small screen anyways.
Even better, I still have some of the nice editing features of a word processor — I can skip around, copy/paste, and delete things easily.
(This post was drafted on a phone with my Bluetooth keyboard).2
3. Navigating my phone via keyboard shortcuts is a fun game
There’s a setting to let a keyboard control the phone. Go to Settings > Accessibility Keyboards & Typing > Full Keyboard Access and turn the setting on.
This lets me use the keyboard to switch between apps, select different text areas, and even navigate within apps. The effect is a bit janky, but I honestly really like it. I’ve always been a keyboard shortcuts fiend, and it’s nice not to have to touch my phone to switch between apps.
The most frequent command I use? Cmd + space to bring up the search feature. I really wish there was an alt+tab replacement for window switching in iOS. There is for iPad, but I haven’t been able to figure out any workarounds on my phone. Cmd+space is almost as efficient.
This navigation combines really with copy/paste and CMD+A to select all. It’s much easier to copy paste with a keyboard than using the dragging selection mechanic.
Conclusion
Do I have keyboard recommendations? Not really—I just bought the Logitech Pop keyboard as it was what wire cutter recommended and it was on sale. But if any of this appeals to you, I’d highly recommend checking a Bluetooth keyboard out!
Notes
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If you’re curious for more detail on my experiences, here’s a write-up I did with another person who went on the trip. ↩
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Now that I'm writing this up on the computer though, I do notice that my paragraphs are shorter on the phone. I wonder if this is because paragraphs look larger when the screen is smaller, so I natuarlly want to break up the text sooner. This isn't all bad though — I find it easier to get started because the blank page is literally smaller. ↩