And there it is: your old beloved iGo (Think Outside) Stowaway bluetooth keyboard. Collecting dust since the day you got your first iPhone because Apple decided to support only the audio protocol in it’s OS. Well, you could jailbreak the iphone and use BTstack (supports a bluetooth mouse too) but I didn’t want to jailbreak and/or use 3rd party apps.

Yesterday, Apple released iOS4 for their mobile devices. Installed it yesterday evening and was wondering: “What’s new in ios4?”. After Googling I ended up here: Apple IOS 4 software updates. And there I read it: “Wireless keyboard support – Pair a keyboard based on Bluetooth wireless technology with your iPhone.” Whoohaa! Finally! Apple was wise to decide their new OS should support HID input devices out of the box.

And so I ran to the attic to grab my old keyboard. Darn.. no AAA batteries in the house so I had to wait until this morning to buy a fresh pair of mini penlites, load them in the Stowaway keyboard and.. nothing.. There is no ON button to power on the keyboard. No flashing lights, no nothing. After more googling I found out you have to press CTRL – FN – FN (both the green and blue FN) on the keyboard for a second or more to make the keyboard discoverable. In a breeze my iPhone detected the keyboard as “Think Outside Keyboard” and after typing the 4 digit code it was paired and I was good to go. Happy typing to you all! This should also work for the iPod Touch and the iPad but not for the iPhone 3G and older (I have a 3GS).

And question for you: Any idea how to ‘slide’ with the Stowaway keyboard?

extra tip: to toggle between keyboards, use CMD + space. Command on a windows keyboard is the WIN key.