(*tl:dr there’s precious little space to do cool innovative hardware on the front of phones nowadays since most handsets are almost entirely monopolised by huge touchscreens.
Yet as phones get bigger, to accommodate larger fronts, there’s increasing amounts of under-utilized space on the back. Ergo some exciting stuff is going on round the back.)
The latest to contemplate all that unused rear space and see dollar signs is London-based hardware startup Cliq Cases. It’s taken to Kickstarter to crowdfund a range of touch-sensitive smartphone cases for Android devices whose flagship feature is three hardware buttons on the back.
That’s right, they’re adding buttons back so users can cook up their own custom shortcuts. Specifically, pressure-sensitive keys (to help minimize accidental presses). The NFC-powered keys will be customised via a companion app, supporting both short and long presses, to extend the possible shortcut permutations. So you can have six shortcuts in all if you desire.
What can the buttons be programmed to do? Plenty of stuff on the native side – from switching on the phone’s LED light to shortcutting to the torch function, to calling up a predefined contact or sending a pre-written SMS, to acting as a dedicated camera key.
They also note Cliq will be open and reprogrammable so it can be used with Tasker, Automateit and other IFTTT-style apps. So while the keys aren’t initially going to support specific apps, in-app functions will be programmable using Tasker, et al. (And Cliq’s makers say they hope to add app support if there’s enough demand for it in future.)
It’s worth noting that for Cliq to function it needs the Cliq app to be running in the background — although if the app has been closed, pressing one of the buttons will fire it back up again (but there could presumably be a micro lag between pressing Cliq and executing your shortcut in that instance).
Cliq is much like Pressy but with more discrete buttons on tap (three not one). Cliq also incorporates its keys into a smartphone case, so the whole thing doubles up on the utility front by protecting your phone’s rear from pavement scuffs should you drop it.
It’s also making use of NFC rather than the headphone jack to extend the Android hardware. One of the main advances Cliq’s makers are claiming is making a small enough NFC module to fit the unit in a slender case.
So, as well as standard rear-protecting Cliq cases, they are able to offer very thin skins for those that prefer a barely-there case.
