Warp wrote:

>   IMO the iPhone is rather innovative. Before the iPhone you had basically
> just two options for smartphones: Either ones with the standard phone
> 12-key keyboard (plus a few), where writing anything was a big pain in the
> ass, or ones with a lot of space wasted for a full-fledged qwerty keyboard
> (although the Nokia E70 style of keyboarded phone does this a bit more
> efficiently).
> 
>   So the people at Apple thought: Why waste valuable space for a full-fledged
> physical qwerty keyboard when that space could be used for the actual
> *display* of the phone, and a fully *customizable* qwerty keyboard could
> be used on that display?
> 
>   There are obvious advantages: The keyboard layout and contents is not
> fixed (as it inevitably is with a physical keyboard) but can be customized
> on a per-application basis. And, most importantly, the keyboard doesn't
> take any space *at all* when it's not needed. That space can be used for
> whatever you want because it's just a display. A rather enormous one.
> 
>   IMO Apple has taken a significant step in phone innovation, which others
> will certainly soon follow. (And, not surprisingly, Nokia and a bunch of
> others have already announced their own versions of touchscreen-only
> phones.)

On the other hand, there are equally obvious disadvantages. [That they 
are obvious doesn't necessarily mean they're important of course.]

You now have fingerprints all over your viewing area. Good luck cleaning 
skin oil off a plastic display. ;-)

You get no tactile feedback from the "keyboard". Various HCI studies 
have showed that this is a very important factor. [I would imagine you 
could easily provide audible feedback - maybe the iPhone does this? - 
but it wouldn't be as good as being able to "feel" when you've pressed a 
key, or when your fingers are correctly aligned to the keys.]

But certainly - for such a small device - it has undeniable advantages. 
As a matter of fact, my sat nav device uses a similar on-screen 
keyboard. While it's a little slow to operate, it's not *too* bad... The 
key [pun!] is to make the keys big enough to hit reliably. Not all 
products manage this.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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