in related news, “Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard” http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/
Anyway, does anybody understand why this is? Does Steve Jobs believe that the typical iPhone user has no interest in writing anything beyond two sentences? Or is the iPhone virtual keyboard comparable in convenience to a real miniature QWERTY for writing long texts, e.g. emails, detailed notes etc?
I’m not sure where you’d fit the physical keyboard. I have an ipod touch, and I find that I can write pretty well with the on screen keyboard. It’s not as fast or easy as a full sized keyboard, but it’s at least as easy a mini-keyboard like you’d have to have on a device that small.
That isn’t an iPhone only thing. A lot of smartphones don’t have physical keyboards. It took me a while, but I’m better at typing on a virtual keyboard on my Android phone than I was typing on my Blackberry’s physical keyboard.
Because it doesn’t need one. Companies like Apple do studies, extensively, before releasing a major product. Back when they released the first generation iPhone I’m willing to bet they explored the pros and cons of small physical keyboards such as you see on the BlackBerry and other phones.
I know some people who, with extensive use of touchscreens, still prefer the small QWERTY keyboard. However, I suspect that studies done by the cell phone companies have shown that for a majority of users, the touchscreen keyboard is superior after adjusting to it.
I do think some touchscreen advocates oversell the technology. I think it’s great in the phone and tablet form factor, but I basically think someone has magic beans to sell if they try to tell you the touchscreen interface is good for typing in long documents, working with spreadsheets or et cetera. Even when you read reviews from people who are in love with the iPad, they usually say it isn’t very good for working with spreadsheets or typing in long documents.
However, the use cases that require a keyboard actually are smaller than you might suspect when you compare it to the normal use of consumers. For enterprise uses obviously there are many millions of individuals that do a lot of touch-typing and/or working with spreadsheets and other tasks. No one is expecting touch to replace the keyboard/mouse for those people, but individuals who mostly only use a computer for home web browsing, video streaming, brief emails…that is a big market and one where evidence is showing a traditional keyboard isn’t as important.
Including a physical keyboard guarantees that the physical space the keyboard requires on the phone is always unavailable for any purpose other than being a keyboard. Physical space on devices like smart phones and tablet PCs is very limited. The virtual keyboard can go away entirely and allows more of the phone to be used for other purposes when no keyboard is required.
It has a touch screen with a fair amount of real estate. It doesn’t need a physical keyboard.
No it doesn’t. The keyboard can hide away, like it does on quite a few touchscreen phones that do have keyboards. And, yes, they have iPhone sized screens.
And I can’t see how it’s superior when it has to have a large amount of autocorrect to be useful.
The phone would have to be slightly thicker to hold the keyboard inside it, which would make Steve very angry. Other things that make Steve angry include laptops that run cooler but have a tiny amount of audible fan noise when they’re idling.
Autocorrect isn’t only used or abused for smartphones. Every cell phone I’ve used has it.
I would just like to note that the virtual keys on my iPhone are much larger than the physical keys I have seen on Blackberrys.
So if you think typing on an iPhone is hard, it is doubly so (or worse) on a Blackberry.
I’ve used a physical keyboard on a friend’s phone, and didn’t really prefer it to the touchscreen keyboard on my iPhone, although obviously part of that might just be that I’m used to the touchscreen, having used it extensively at this point. I do like that the touchscreen “keys” are bigger than the physical keys are.
I really don’t find the touchscreen a hindrance. I’ve used my phone to make multi-paragraph posts on message boards and the like, and while obviously it’s quite a bit slower than typing with a full-sized keyboard, I don’t think it’s significantly slower than using a phone-sized physical keyboard.
I used to be a regular blackberry user. They were issued by my employer and corporate culture was that you were available and responded no matter where you were so I got very very good at typing on the keyboard.
I switched to the iPhone when I changed jobs and I don’t use it even close to as often but it still only took me a couple of months to be comfortable using it.
Overall I prefer the iPhone for it’s functionality but if I was using it solely for email, I would go back to the old blue Blackberry in a second flat. As a single function device it was awesome. It couldn’t handle a phone call at the same time you were looking up information or emailing however.
ok, some google searching returns addons that seem to provide a physical keyboard for the iPhone. E.g. this bluetooth thingie sells for the exorbitant $80 Zahipedia.com is available at DomainMarket.com. Call 888-694-6735
So I guess there is something for everyone. If such addons are reasonably priced, it is perfectly natural to allow some to use them and others (folks who don’t type much, are good at touchscreens or care too much about thickness) to do without.
Rick, I never said that typing on touchscreen is hard because of size of keys. If anything, I have small fingers.
I guess I ought to borrow an iPhone and practice more, some time this decade. I remember feeling that “touchscreen sucks” when I tried, but apparently I never articulated the precise reasons for this even to myself.
Given that some people in this thread don’t like the touchscreen either, maybe they could chime in.
I feel like the physical keyboard is old fashioned. I honestly look at that shit like a rotary or something now. Can’t go back to it.
It doesn’t look cool. Touchscreen keyboards are garbage, but they do look cool, and as far as Apple is concerned, appearance always trumps functionality.
Other phones are just following the trend.
Yeah, that’s *exactly *why I have a touchscreen. It couldn’t be that I actually prefer the greater screen real estate, or the larger buttons.
A lot, if not most of us don’t give a fuck about appearing to be cool. If so, I wouldn’t be driving a station wagon or living in a mobile home.
As someone that has an Android with a slide out keyboard, I’ll have to disagree. I’ve had this phone for over a year and the only time I’ve used the slide out keyboard is the handful of times I’ve needed the D-pad when I was have a problem placing the cursor.
As with everything, there’s a learning curve. And things with learning curves tend to turn people off during their initial exposure to them. So the first few times you use a touchscreen keyboard, you’re likely not going to like it. That reaction isn’t invalid - but it doesn’t hold very much weight.
Yeah - the iPhone has a fair amount of auto-correct. Why is that a bad thing? The end result is still very efficient. I can type out a text message faster than my friends with blackberries or other physical buttons. Once I learned to let autocorrect do its thing, my typing speed probably tripled.
I am an iPhone owner, but my phone immediately prior to it was an LG EnV, which had a physical keyboard like so, with keys about the same size as the T-Mobile Sidekick, and much larger than a Blackberry’s keyboard and I’d never use it for anything more complex than a tweet. I hated emailing on that thing and forget anything else.
Meanwhile, on my iPhone, I tweet, I email, I play word games and games on Sporcle that are all typing all the time. I write grocery lists, I write (short) blog posts, I write detailed captions for photos I take on the phone then upload to Flickr. I’d post here but I don’t have that forum app and I’m on a not-buying-apps moratorium right now.