At CES 2010, Ion introduced a £70 QWERTY keyboard for the iPhone – the iType.

This is something that we called out in 2007 as one of the five things Apple needs to do to fix the iPhone:

Fix Typing On The iPhone – Apple has made a big deal about demonstrating how easy it is to type on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.

With a phone this powerful, though, a phone that can do real email, view Word files and edit Web pages, lots of users will want to use it as a laptop replacement. While the phone makes the cut as a laptop replacement, the virtual keyboard doesn’t. If you’re a touch typist, being reduced to tapping out a handful of words a minute is painful.

Apple needs to work with accessory suppliers to develop Bluetooth keyboards that work with the iPhone. People that want just want to respond to an email can do it with the virtual keyboard. People that want to use the iPhone as a read/write Web device need a decent portable keyboard.

So, seeing the iType introduced is an exciting development.

Unfortunately, the iType is twice as big as it needs to be, puts the iPhone flat instead of tilting it up to make it readable, and is only supported by Ion’s own text editing application.

Let’s hope that Apple takes another look at this and opens up the iPhone to supporting accessories like this system-wide. The combination of an iPhone and a cheap portable keyboard would be a great mobile blogging, video blogging & podcasting platform.