As mentioned in the Mechanical Keyboard thread, I now am the proud owner of a Rosewill Cherry MX Blue and a Corsair K70 Cherry MX Red keyboard. I'm very happy with them. However, I've always wanted to get one of the beautiful Optimus keyboards. They're kewl because you can either get a "keyboard" that's essentially a big tablet and each "key" is just a space on that tablet, so you could, for example, have a "space" that looks like the Firefox icon and it'd launch Firefox when you hit it. There were also a couple versions that had physical keys that did this. The drawback is that they're incredibly expensive. The Popularis is $1500, for example.
Last year, Razer came out with a keyboard that has a big LCD and some keys that you can make light up like the Optimus keyboards. It's much better priced at $249. It's not mechanical, though, and I love me my mechanical keyboards.
But, wait. I have an iPad.
I found two brilliant apps that allow you to set up your iPad as an external keyboard with all the fun icons to click -- and a bunch more features. #1 is Air Keyboard. It was $2, IIRC. It gives you exactly the same functionality as the Optimus Tactus concept. The only drawback is that if you want to do custom stuff -- which I do -- you have to program it yourself and there's no manual. #2 was Mobile Mouse. It's also $2. It grabs applications from your Start menu (Windows) and creates little clickable icons for you. It also gives you a somewhat decent graphics tablet and a multitouch "mouse." If you're at all interested, go to their website and take a look at the videos.
As far as the musician world is concerned, I would have loved to have a tablet with every single Finale button on it. I can program that, now, or look to see if someone's already created a keyboard layout for that. Photoshop layouts? Bunches and bunches.
It's a great wide world of apps.
Last year, Razer came out with a keyboard that has a big LCD and some keys that you can make light up like the Optimus keyboards. It's much better priced at $249. It's not mechanical, though, and I love me my mechanical keyboards.
But, wait. I have an iPad.
I found two brilliant apps that allow you to set up your iPad as an external keyboard with all the fun icons to click -- and a bunch more features. #1 is Air Keyboard. It was $2, IIRC. It gives you exactly the same functionality as the Optimus Tactus concept. The only drawback is that if you want to do custom stuff -- which I do -- you have to program it yourself and there's no manual. #2 was Mobile Mouse. It's also $2. It grabs applications from your Start menu (Windows) and creates little clickable icons for you. It also gives you a somewhat decent graphics tablet and a multitouch "mouse." If you're at all interested, go to their website and take a look at the videos.
As far as the musician world is concerned, I would have loved to have a tablet with every single Finale button on it. I can program that, now, or look to see if someone's already created a keyboard layout for that. Photoshop layouts? Bunches and bunches.
It's a great wide world of apps.