2011 is so back with the Clicks physical iPhone keyboard

Yellow Clicks case on an iPhone in front of a press image from Apple
Credit: Clicks / Apple

Yellow Clicks case on an iPhone in front of a press image from Apple
Credit: Clicks / Apple

The good old days of Blackberry are way behind us, with the physical mobile keyboard lost to time in favour of touchscreens, but Clicks Technology is not just holding onto the past, but actively bringing it into the present with a tactile-feeling backlit physical keyboard case for iPhone.

Announced ahead of CES 2024, where the company will share more about the product, the Clicks case is currently available for pre-order on the official website. The earliest you can get the case is with the iPhone 14 Pro version, which starts hipping on February 1, 2024 for a costly $139, while iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max cases start shipping mid-March and early spring respectively.

The case works similarly to some of the best phone controllers, like the Backbone One, by connecting via the USB-C or Lightning port. Clicks uses the iPhone itself to draw power, and the case does feature pass through charging. Currently, it only comes in two colours, those being the bright and cheerful BumbleBee and a slate-grey like colour called London Sky, which is very fitting for the UK's miserable weather.

However, unlike any other attempts to bring back the physical keyboard for mobile phones, Clicks has a cool trick up its sleeve. Clicks features a CMD key, allowing users to perform shortcuts on iPhone using the keyboard itself. It remains to be seen how useful these will be in daily use, but at the very least, it's something interesting and distinct.

The major issue is that the Clicks definitely increases the overall size of your phone. Considering that the Clicks case is (currently) exclusive to the Pro and Pro Max models of certain iPhones, if you find those models to be quite big already, prepare for the Clicks to further increase the size. Hopefully, Clicks Technology will introduce Clicks cases for the standard iPhone models in the future.

An iPhone next to an iPhone with the Clicks case on it
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Credit: MrMobile
Comparison of the iPhone with and without the Clicks case

If you've seen all of this and think "wow, just what I've been waiting for", well, you can pre-order one of the Clicks models and get an exclusive Founder's Edition version of each case, which comes with a special badge, serial number, and "exclusive VIP support".

There's currently no mention of an Android version of Clicks, but considering the sheer amount of Android smartphones on the market, it could make things quite challenging. That being said, if the product is successful, maybe there'll be a version of Clicks for the most popular Android brands.