Keyboard review

[AnteL0pe]

making the horizontal keyboard available in more apps would be great...

 

[edmc]

Yesterday, I spent a significant amount of time with the iPhone again - trying to get proficient with the "keyboard". I still consider it a catastrophe. I'm easily twice as fast on my Treo 750's tiny, though physical, keyboard. Heck, I'm even faster with the stylus on the on-screen keyboard than on the iPhone. And BOTH Treo 750 "keyboards" have me typing nearly error free.

There are a number of useability factors contributing to the failure of the iPhone keyboard's effectiveness. One I left out last time is also quite significant. For whatever reason, Apple chose to do a little "pop-up" of the letter it thinks you are "pressing". Well, if I could SEE the letter I was pressing, I probably wouldn't be pressing the wrong one, now would I. This pop-up letter seemed to have been designed for Jobs' iPhone announcement speech where his fingers were not projected on the big screen (i.e. only what was displayed on the iPhone's screen was projected as I recall).

Apple, here's an idea... Make your pop-up letter appear somewhere OTHER than under my finger! Then, maybe I could "correct" my typing immediately.

BTW, that "missing manual" trick of sliding your finger from the "123" key worked like a charm. I must applaud that trick/innovation.

I bring this "trick" up because it applies here, too. Suppose I mean to press an 'M' and somehow the iPhone thinks I'm pressing an 'N'. If that pop-up 'N' were actually VISIBLE (i.e. not under my finger!!!), I would see the 'N' and know to "slide" my finger a smidge to the right to instead select the 'M' correctly.

This one suggested fix (i.e. pop-up letters somewhere OTHER than where my finger is), along with this trick, would go along way to making this keyboard useable for me. YMMV

 

[AnteL0pe]

I'm easily twice as fast on my Treo 750's tiny, though physical, keyboard.

So far you're the only person i've heard report that, most are saying that they're faster in the iPhone. Personally i think its about even for me, though maybe slightly faster on the iPhone.

For whatever reason, Apple chose to do a little "pop-up" of the letter it thinks you are "pressing". Well, if I could SEE the letter I was pressing, I probably wouldn't be pressing the wrong one, now would I. This pop-up letter seemed to have been designed for Jobs' iPhone announcement speech where his fingers were not projected on the big screen (i.e. only what was displayed on the iPhone's screen was projected as I recall).

Apple, here's an idea... Make your pop-up letter appear somewhere OTHER than under my finger! Then, maybe I could "correct" my typing immediately...... Suppose I mean to press an 'M' and somehow the iPhone thinks I'm pressing an 'N'. If that pop-up 'N' were actually VISIBLE (i.e. not under my finger!!!), I would see the 'N' and know to "slide" my finger a smidge to the right to instead select the 'M' correctly.

The letter pops up above your finger press, not underneath it.

 

[cmaier]

Maybe the problem is you are trying to correct letter-by-letter? In other words, if you meant to press M and it thinks you pressed N, keep typing and let it correct itself when you finish ethe word?

 

[edmc]

The letter pops up above your finger press, not underneath it.

You must have very small fingers

Seriously, unless you are holding the iPhone in a very slanted manner, the path from your eyes to your finger obscures where Apple chose to "pop-up" the letter. If they would just pop it up a quarter inch higher, I would be fine. As it is, my finger tip obscures the pop-up.

Remember that the pad of your finger is not at the edge of your finger. Your finger is mostly rounded on the bottom. So "pressing" a key means centering your finger over the key leaving the rounded tip of your finger (and certainly your thumb!) obscuring the pop-up - unless you have very small fingers or, perhaps, type with your fingernails...

I'm easily twice as fast on my Treo 750's tiny, though physical, keyboard.

So far you're the only person i've heard report that.

Perhaps the only one (of a few) posting here...

Maybe the problem is you are trying to correct letter-by-letter? In other words, if you meant to press M and it thinks you pressed N, keep typing and let it correct itself when you finish ethe word?

For english words, it does seem to correct the spelling a lot of the time - usually after you type a space. This is not as helpful when using non-english words (e.g. names, acronyms, etc...)...

...and really not nearly as helpful when typing in Web Addresses since, did you notice, no SPACE KEY?

Really, though, it just doesn't seem to be anywhere near as good as the Blackberry Pearl I was able to get proficient with in just a few minutes. And, mind you, the Pearl has TWO LETTERS PER KEY - certainly a bigger challenge...

 

[cmaier]

Does it auto-correct on punctuation, or just spaces?

 

[cmaier]

"And, mind you, the Pearl has TWO LETTERS PER KEY - certainly a bigger challenge..."

Not really, I think. With the pearl, the software only has to decide which of TWO letters you meant to type (one of the two on that key).

The iphone, on the other hand, has to decide which of 4 or 5 keys you meant to press (in the region of your finger).

So, mathematically, the Pearl only has to look at O(2^n) possibilities, whereas the iphone has to consider O(4^n) possibilities or so. (where n is the number of letters in a word). So if the word has three letters, it's 8 possibilities for pearl versus 64 for iphone, etc.

Unless the pearl also considers that you may have hit the wrong key entirely, in which case it's problem is comparable to iphone's.

 

[AnteL0pe]

You must have very small fingers

Haha, actually no i have larger hands than most. I was one of the few people who thought the original Xbox controller was great.

Seriously, unless you are holding the iPhone in a very slanted manner, the path from your eyes to your finger obscures where Apple chose to "pop-up" the letter. If they would just pop it up a quarter inch higher, I would be fine. As it is, my finger tip obscures the pop-up.

You may be aiming a bit high then, because it pops up above my finger. I havent had issues hitting the right key or seeing the pop up letter and im usually typing with my thumbs just like on my treo.

For english words, it does seem to correct the spelling a lot of the time - usually after you type a space. This is not as helpful when using non-english words (e.g. names, acronyms, etc...)...

...and really not nearly as helpful when typing in Web Addresses since, did you notice, no SPACE KEY?

It doesnt autocorrect n web addresses or passwords. In these cases you just have to be a bit more careful, which isnt that big a deal. On the upside Safari has bookmarks and remembers and fills in visited URLs so you're rarely tying an entire URL.

Does it auto-correct on punctuation, or just spaces?

both.

 

[t4l]

So far you're the only person i've heard report that, most are saying that they're faster in the iPhone. Personally i think its about even for me, though maybe slightly faster on the iPhone.


The letter pops up above your finger press, not underneath it.

I have to strongly disagree. Once you clip your fingernails, you can type much faster on a Treo. Almost as fast as a regular large size keyboard (touch-typing) .. 50wpm. And you don't have to look at the keyboard once you get good at it.

The popup letters don't bother me as much, but there's no ideal place to pop it up; especially if you like typing with two thumbs. Autocorrect doesn't work as well once you get past simple words.

 

[JNGold]

Yesterday, I spent a significant amount of time with the iPhone again - trying to get proficient with the "keyboard". I still consider it a catastrophe. I'm easily twice as fast on my Treo 750's tiny, though physical, keyboard. Heck, I'm even faster with the stylus on the on-screen keyboard than on the iPhone. And BOTH Treo 750 "keyboards" have me typing nearly error free.

I bought my wife a 4gb iPhone today and I just got finished setting it up for her. Just about with an hour of use, I find typing is pretty darn quick with almost the same amout of errors that I usually get on my Treo 750. I find that pressing the keys a little bit off center (and to the left) works great.

Spending time in a store just won't cut it.

 

[edmc]

Spending time in a store just won't cut it.

It was more than sufficient to become proficient on the Pearl

 

[JNGold]

It was more than sufficient to become proficient on the Pearl

That's because most of us are familar with some form of physical keyboard.

The iPhone keyboard is a different animal altogether, and needs (IMHO) a little bit more time than a store experience to get aquainted with. Just look at Walt Mossberg's initial thoughts vs his comments after spending significant time with the device.

 

[MacUser]

I have to strongly disagree. Once you clip your fingernails, you can type much faster on a Treo. Almost as fast as a regular large size keyboard (touch-typing) .. 50wpm. And you don't have to look at the keyboard once you get good at it.

So you type using "Home Row"? You can close your eyes and type on a Treo keyboard doing 50 wpm?! I would love to see that video. I type 90 wpm on a real keyboard and can not imagine anyone typing 50 wpm on a Treo keyboard without looking at the keyboard.

Also, I don't look at what I'm typing when using the iPhone. I just look at the keyboard and when I'm done, I see how I did. Usually, I don't have to go back and correct anything. Then again, I've had my iPhone and gotten accustomed to the keyboard for more than a couple of hours in a store. As they say, practice makes perfect.

 

[cmaier]

50 wpm on the treo is a little hard to believe. Like macuser, i'm a high-speed touch typist on a real keyboard. But, even ignoring their tiny size, the treo keys have such a tiny throw that i can't imagine 50 wpm. Did you run some sort of software that timed your typing or something? I imagine that there are a couple of freaks out there who can do it, but I can't believe that 50 wpm is at all common.

Which isn't to say that I wouldn't prefer a treo keyboard to a virtual keyboard...

 

[AnteL0pe]

i am reasonably quick on a full size keyboard and dont look at the keys, but i do on either my treo or iphone.

 

[cmaier]

Well, I just finally tried the iphone at an Apple store. I was trying to enter a url. Eegads. It was a miserable experience. Unlike a previous poster, however, I was able to see the pop-up letters and thus drag my finger to the right place, but my initial click success rate was just about 0%.

My wife fared much better, having no trouble at all. I hope that "it takes a week" thing applies to me

I managed to bring up an Ajax website i wrote, and it sort of worked, but at some point the phone got confused, the state got stuck, and it refused to rotate the page when i rotated the phone. I theorize it was in a javascript loop somehow (though the page works fine on firefox and ie7). oh, well. when my iphones arrive on monday, i'll give them a more thorough once over.

 

[oalvarez]

so far so much better. over the week typing has become much easier and my success rate has improved dramatically. letting the corrective text do its job has helped as well. i've been using both thumbs after having started with just my index finger (pecking).

i like the fact that you can tap on the address bar to make the google search window appear.

 

[cmaier]

is there a way to get .net, .org etc., or just .com? It would be nice if once I hit xxx.xxx.n it would suggest .net, for example.