Chicago (IL) – Tired of the plain virtual keyboard on your iPhone? Here is an alternative for you: A carbon copy of the elegant black keys and glowing letters of the MacBook Air.

We are quite certain that we aren’t the only ones considering the graphic design of the iPhone's virtual keyboard as not quite cutting edge. True, the iPhone's virtual keys don’t need fancy graphics and we prefer them to remain easily recognizable.

But there is a way to pimp your keyboard and keep it simple at the same time. iPhones can be upgraded with an “unofficial” third-party application called MacBook Air Keyboard, which will replace the standard virtual keyboard with a virtual MacBook Air version.

Before you install this application, keep in mind that you'll need to jailbreak your iPhone first, meaning you'll have to use a hacking application that unlocks your handset for use with any carrier and opens its operating system to unofficial third-party applications. Those who already have jailbroken iPhones may use the install Installer.app or Planet-iPhone source (part of the Community Sources) to find and install the MacBook Air Keyboard application, but it is strongly advised that you first uninstall any customized keyboards you may be using.

If you don’t want to jailbreak your iPhone, you may want to wait until July 11 – the day when Apple’s iPhone 2.0 software update will arrive and deliver a built-in App Store application for browsing and downloading official third-party applications.

The MacBook Air Keyboard application may or may not become available as an official application in the future. At the time of this writing, the author had made no announcement whether the application will be sold through the AppStore.