[geeks] iPhone interface

[Michael Parson]

On Thu, 14 May 2009, Mark Benson wrote:
> On 14 May 2009, at 01:36, Michael Parson wrote:
>
>> It is a bit bigger than what I used to carry, but not overly so.  I
>> really like having a real keyboard, one of the many reasons I won't
>> be getting an iPhone.
>
> I don't get why everyone has such a bone in their mouth about the
> iPhone's input system. I used the on-screen keyboards on both my WinMo
> devices and I can type pretty well with the ti of my finger on both, I
> swear, I used to hate using on screen keyboards too, I had a HTC MDAII
> with a keyboard like the Magic, then went over to a Touch with no k/b
> and was in typing hell for a while, but you get used to it and now I
> think the extra keyboard layer is a unnecessary bulk on the device.
>
> Before you ask I'm a mal-co-ordinated baffoon who is dyslexic and has
> a known problem with hand-eye co-ordination, so you don't have to be
> a 12-year-old SMS kiddy to work these things, it just takes a little
> practice, just like remembering where all the stupid key combinations
> are on those HTC keyboards are.
>
> I'll admit that the iPhone's on-screen keyboard maybe won't suit,
> like, 5% of PDA/smartphone users, but way more people get a bee in
> their hat about it than that and I think it's a little unfair.

To be honest, I'm looking forward to the on-screen keyboard in 1.5.  It
will be nice to have for typing in quick URLs, replying to SMS, etc,
w/o having to flip open the device to start typing.  However, I don't
like losing the screen real estate to it.  Depending on the application,
loss of that many pixels really gets in the way.  I like having the full
screen to work with, and the units with real keyboards give that to me.

I didn't even have keyboards on my first several PDAs.  I went from
Newton (MP130) to Palm to Handspring.  The first one I had with a
keyboard was the Treo 180.  I rarely used the screen keyboard on the
Newton, it did a decent enough job reading my handwriting.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org