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.
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).
I canât remember how long Iâve 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 âexpertsâ 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? Hasnât he already shown quite convincingly that he knows what heâs doing?
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!
I bought one, and I'm now waiting for it to arrive.
Andreas: You should ask them to send you one, and in return develop BTT features for it. BTT would fit like a glove on that keyboard. I can't wait to start having BTT do stuff with it.
It's a kickstarter. I paid for mine two years ago...
It's been delayed a bunch of times, but it's not vaporware. They are now producing it, and they are currently sending out devices to beta testers. I expect mine by the end of the year or something.
Frank: It is a physical keyboard with transparent keys, and a display under them. I.e. you can change the print on the keys on the fly. Change input language, and all the keys will change their print accordingly. They can display whatever you want, so you could for instance play chess on it (some crippled variant though, since there aren't eight rows of keys).
If you are in for it, you can also have animated background and similar bells and whistles.
And there are some knob add-ons for graphics / video / audio people.
They've sent a lot of info and pictures from their production facilities. If it's a scam, it's a well produced one. They raised 3.5m USD, which should be enough to get things going.
I have pinged the Flexbar guys again and they'll send me a test device. So at least with their native Touch Bar implementation BTT should soon fully support it.
You should ping the Flux guys too! They should also send you a unit.
Flux has a module row at the top. Currently there's a volume knob module, a triple knob module (for graphics / audio stuff) and a three button module. They could easily add a touch bar module. You could suggest that when you talk to them.
Nothing is stopping anyone from buying both Flux and Flex.
When you said that their newest firmware works with system touch bar support, I guess that was about Flex?
This looks pretty AWESOME, but I donât want to pay $500 for a first gen piece of hardware. Iâd get the Flux keyboard 2.0 (after they iron the bugs out of it)
yes that happens often.
