The New York Times has an excellent article today on the current state of smartphones and the brewing battle between Blackberry-maker RIM and Apple for world dominance. The article points out well-known statistics such as…
–worldwide smartphone shipments jumped 60 percent in the last three months of 2007 as compared to the same timeframe a year prior
–the iPhone grabbed 17.4% of the US smartphone market in its first six months
– and, while 54% of Blackberry users are very satisfied with their devices, a whopping 79% of iPhone users are.
The article discusses the challenges RIM faces as the iPhone’s long-awaited ability to use MSExchange approaches, as well as some of the steps RIM is taking to maintain its dominance. These include an upcoming 3G device and the possibility of a touch screen interface.
It is a good read and worth hopping over to the Times. There was one line in particular that grabbed my attention.
In the article RIM co-chief executive and technological visionary Mike Lazaridis discusses the possibility of a touch screen Blackberry. He comments on his personal dislike of "soft" keyboards stating,
“I couldn’t type on it (referring to the iPhone’s touch screen) and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it, It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”
Six months ago I would have been in complete agreement with Mr. Lazaridis. The idea of trying to REALLY type (rather than send a brief sms) on a glass keyboard seemed all but impossible. When I first got my iPhone I loved the phone but HATED the keyboard. In all honesty it was almost a deal-breaker for me. While I was a BAD typist on the physical keyboard of my WM device I was even worse on my iPhone.
Then I decided to listen to my good friend SteveJ and "trust the keyboard".
I also spent some serious time with TypingWeb’s Typing Tutor. 
The result was that I quickly got the the point where I was a just as poor a typist on the iPhone as I am on other devices. In fact, I have becomes slightly LESS poor on the iPhone. (Even the best keyboard can only do so much when you are "spelling-challenged").
A few weeks ago I spent some time with a loaner Blackberry Curve and a loaner WindowsMobile Blackjack in order to do a little comparison between all three keyboards. The result surprised me-
I disovered that I am now as fast or father (or would it be as slow or no slower?) on the iPhone than I am on the other two devices. More significantly, however, was the fact that I realized don’t LIKE typing on a physical keyboard. I actually found that the on-screen keyboard is much more comfortable than the physical ones and causes far less fatigue when I type for a significant amount of time.
According to Britian’s TimesOnline one of the (MANY) recent rumors about the upcoming next generation iPhone is that it could have a sliding keyboard. All I can say is…
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
I’m curious about about what others think. Is the iPhone’s keyboard something you-
-tolerate?
-can take or leave?
-have come to like and appreciate?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
While I do find some issues with the keyboard on occasion (usually when it thinks I mean one abreviation instead of something else) most of the time I find I can type a lot faster in the soft keyboard of the iPhone or the iPod touch than I ever could on the keyboard of something like the 8525.
Again it really does come down to just trusting the keyboard to know what you really meant to type. I really don’t worry to much about how long a reply to something like this post is going to be – mainly because I can reply fairly rapidly. I never used to do that on my WM devices.
I know a loy people throw that arguement into the whole WM vs iPhone arguement… But until you’ve used utnfor an extended period of time (and not switched devices daily) you never really get the hang of it.
Short answer: I love the keyboard on the iPhone/touch. Hated it for the first couple weeks.
Brandon- you raise a good point- and not just with regard to abbreviations- for me the weakest link in using keyboard comes when typing short two or three letter words that aren’t long enough for the self-correction to grab. Still, I find it a lot faster and easier than a physical keyboard.
I freaking love SIPs. So the iPhone keyboard is right up my alley. My alley is called “SIPs Alley”.
I find touch-typing on the iPhone a lot faster and less tiring than a physical keyboard on a smartphone. The spellcheck definitely helps too. This is after I’ve owned and typed a fair bit on Nokia 6820, E70, E61i, 9300 and 9500. As with most good designs, why didn’t someone think of this earlier?
…slide out keyboard, no chance. HTC has one that I toyed with. It felt flimsy. I am not sure it would be possible to make a cost effective one that would feel solid. Besides that, the profile of it would undobtedly be much thicker. That would stink as well.
The main advantage of the iPhone is that the screen is multi-use. The Blackberry has half of the front side space dedicated to a keyboard so the screen is small and unsuitable for video. Can you imagine a Blackberry with a screen as big as the iPhone’s, but still the hardware button keyboard? It would be huge!
For all the downsides of a glass screen keyboard, the monstrous upside is the multi-use, and large glorious video!
I will keep my glass screen thanks.
Guys, I have to disagree with you. While I’m finnaly used to the iPhone keyboard, I still have to say that a real keyboard is better for me in most cases. I guess it depends on the phone you used before the iPhone. Mine was the sidekick and helio ocean. The sidekick keyboard cant be beat. Its way better than any other phone keyboard I have used. The iPhone kills it in every other way but the sidekick keyboard still rules the smart phone keyboards.
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