Minuum building circular keyboard for Moto 360, but why?

Minuum-Moto-360

Minuum’s space-saving keyboard is being optimized for the Moto 360 smartwatch, its creators confirmed today. The circular keyboard will allow Moto 360 users to reply to texts and instant messages without pulling their smartphone out of their pocket, but does anyone really want to use a keyboard so small?

The Moto 360 is by far the prettiest and most elegant smartwatch we’ve seen to date, mainly because it’s nowhere near as big or as bulky as rivals like the Samsung Gear 2. Although Motorola hasn’t confirmed the exact size of its OLED display yet, we know it’s going to be very compact.

That hasn’t stopped Minuum from making a keyboard for the device.

“Minuum is all about typing anywhere,” the company says on its blog, “and what better place for a one-line keyboard than along the edge of a circular watch face? This is perhaps our most perfect example of how the original QWERTY keyboard needs to evolve to fit into the future of wearable devices.”

As you can see in the GIF above, the keyboard is tiny. You won’t want to use it too often, then, but Minuum insists that it’s handy for quickly sending short replies to incoming messages — particularly when you’re in a meeting or in class and you can’t pull out your smartphone.

We expect to hear more about the Moto 360 and the Android Wear platform that powers it at Google I/O tomorrow.