The BetterTouchTool External Keyboard: I would buy this!

Feature Requests
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This is what I want...

BTT Keyboard Concept 6
BTT Keyboard Concept 61312Ă—736 62.8 KB

BTT Keyboard Concept 5
BTT Keyboard Concept 51312Ă—736 61.1 KB

BTT Keyboard Concept 4
BTT Keyboard Concept 41376Ă—768 59.8 KB

BTT Keyboard Concept 3
BTT Keyboard Concept 31376Ă—768 48.5 KB

BTT Keyboard Concept 1
BTT Keyboard Concept 11312Ă—736 59.9 KB

Here why...

Like many of you, I have an Intel MacBook Pro. It's pretty awesome, but one day, I'm going to want a newer, faster MacBook, but it looks like those are not going to come with the TouchBars we've become accustomed to. So WE will be bereft of all the awesome BTT shortcuts we've become accustomed to.

I, for one, would really like to get an external board with a touchbar strip, but you can't buy one. Surprisingly, there are no external keyboards on the market with touchscreen strips.

With a BTT keyboard, we could finally get the FN keys and Touchbar above them that MacBook users have always wanted.

Also, it's damn near impossible to accomplish good ergonomic positioning with a laptop alone. Using a laptop for dozens of hours a week guarantees eventual head, neck, and shoulder pain issues (this can be kept at bay with mobility exercises, stretching, yoga, and a standing desk, but these are band-aid fixes, not solutions). You need your laptop or monitor on a rising stand at eye level with an external keyboard below it for good ergonomics and to avoid the eventual transition into a Golum-like posture.

Standing desk sitting diagram infographic ergonomic position
Standing desk sitting diagram infographic ergonomic position1650Ă—1275 61 KB

It seems to me that this is a great business growth opportunity for BTT/Folivora; eventually, nobody is going to use MacBooks with Touchbars.

  • It would dramatically expand the potential customer base of BTT/Folivora from the relatively small group of Touchbar fans to many millions of gamers, designers, creatives, developers - and Windows users, potentially.
  • I could see this sort of product raising six or even seven figures in a crowdfunding campaign - a good idea to validate the market demand for it.
  • Premium keyboards run $200-$300, which is what I would expect to pay for a BTT keyboard (maybe even more, as it would enhance my productivity).

Hope you do it, @Andreas_Hegenberg

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check this, I'm not affiliate or paid by them nor do I own one :slightly_frowning_face:

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Cool product, first I've seen it! But, I bet it wouldn't integrate with BTT.

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I can’t remember how long I’ve been following this forum. But I do know that during this time, there have already been a dozen people who tried to explain to the developer how to turn BTT into a much better app. Or how to update the marketing to the latest standards. How he could earn much more money. Where the potential lies that he might not see. Lots of “experts” wanted to explain the world to the developer.

No offense to anyone. But why does everyone think they know so much better than the developer what he should do? Hasn’t he already shown quite convincingly that he knows what he’s doing? :slightly_smiling_face:

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:joy: yes that happens often.

I mean I like the idea of such a keyboard, and the illustrations are awesome - but it's completely impossible for me to create something like this. I don't have the resources nor the knowledge to build this.

@JRoseland if you think you can get a successful kickstarter campaign running on this and feel you have the abilities to create such a hardware I would recommend to try it yourself. What might be possible is to have BTT support for something like this if it becomes successful!

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@JRoseland If you can manage that, I'll buy one too. :grinning_face:

Until then, with an app like Touché or a BTT floating menu positioned directly above the F-key, you can do almost anything. You move your finger to the menu icon, but press the F-key underneath.