Austin Yang

Like your iPad well enough but wish you lived in the heyday of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg? The iTypewriter lets you go all angel-headed-hipster on your tablet.

Austin Yang, a product and industrial designer in Edinburgh, Scotland, conceived of the iProduct as a way to merge new with nostalgia. Just slide your iPad into the landscape iPad dock like a piece of blank paper and start typing. Little mechanical hammers with protective coverings align with the touch-screen keys on your iPad to deliver a tiny electronic discharge as you click-clack away.

"For some specific group of users, this product provides an easier way to type on the iPad," Yang says on his site, though the sluggish pace of typing in the video below casts doubt on that claim.

While the iTypewriter probably won't show up in Apple Stores anytime soon, products like the Retro iPhone case, USB Typewriter, and Tworse Key for Morse code tweeting indicate a clear fondness for retro styling in some circles.

As a big fan of "Mad Men," I totally get the pull toward the past. As someone who's very protective of my gadgets, however, I confess to getting a bit nervous each time I heard the iTypewriter hit the iPad screen in the below demo. At least Yang didn't bust out the Liquid Paper.

(Via Crave UK)