Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
iPhone Experience: The keyboard
We've got our iPhones. Now it's time to see what these puppies can do. This is the first in a series of posts intended to explore the iPhone's features. This time, it's about the keyboard.
With the iPhone, Apple eschewes the "real" keyboard of some other smart phones, and offers virtual replacement. It shows up when needed, and disappears when it's not. It's available in both landscape and portrait orientation, depending on what you're doing. Let's look at an example of each.
First of all, the iPhone's response to your keystrokes is immediate. The "Notes" application (as well as a few others) requires you to use the keyboard in portrait mode. Create a new note and the keyboard emerges, taking over the lower half of the screen. By default, letters are displayed with a QWERTY layout, as well as a backspace button, shift, and spacebar. An additional button swaps letters for numbers and symbols (for punctuation, etc.).
Click any key and it immediately "grows" from underneath your finger to confirm your selection. The problem for me, at least, is that I don't always see the letter I expect.
Typing on this thing in portrait mode with 100% accuracy requires the hands of a adolescent girl. When typing a 27-letter phrase ("This little piggy went to market," if you must know), I made 5 "errors." That's not a whole lot, but it's enough to be kind of annoying.
Apple must have predicted that people with adult-sized fingers would have trouble, so they've built in a helpful feature. As you type, the iPhone takes a guess at which word you're after, and places it on the screen just below the cursor. To accept the guess, simply hit the spacebar. While this is handy for avoiding errors in portrait mode, it's a real speed booster while in landscape.
This is where things change. Typing in landscape mode - say, while using Safari - is much easier. Because it's got more real estate, the keyboard is wider and the keys are larger. I was able to type my test phrase with no errors and as quickly as I could find the necessary keys. Speaking of Safari, the keyboard acquires a handy ".com" button while you're on the net.
It's also more comfortable to type in landscape. Your hands quickly learn how to position the iPhone so that it's secure in your grip while leaving your thumbs free to type away. I wish there was some why to flip all applications on their sides, just so I could make use of that nice, wide keyboard.
If anything is at fault here, it's my massive Meat Mittens, not Apple's software. However, I would imagine that a number of users have hands like mine. For us, "slow and deliberate" is the name of the game.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
hotep said 3:40PM on 6-30-2007
tuaw used to rock until erica came around...
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minus1 said 3:43PM on 6-30-2007
If you get an email with an mp3s attachment, can you play it? download it?
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Eric said 3:47PM on 6-30-2007
QWERTY by default but is it possible to change it to AZERTY?
By the way, is the iPhone multi-language?
Is it possible to change the current language to french in the setting menu?
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jared said 3:54PM on 6-30-2007
Eric, I just looked, and I don't see any way to change the keyboard from Qwerty. Similarly, I don't see any way to change the language. Sorry.
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FamousLastMCRmy said 4:02PM on 6-30-2007
This little piggy...is 27 letters not words.
Anyways, I thought i read that the iPhone comes with a stylus that can be used? Maybe I'm crazy, and it doesn't. However, if it is included, wouldn't that make it easier to type with when it portrait mode?
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punkassjim said 4:02PM on 6-30-2007
My hands aren't huge, I'd guess about average...when typing on the demo unit at the store, I made tons of mistakes. I noticed this when I tried paying attention, and got frustrated.
But as a test, I tried to just stop giving a ****, and just blow through the errors and see how a paragraph looked when I was done typing. My results? Didn't have one error. Took me 5 minutes to figure this out.
With big meat mittens, you'll likely need a LITTLE more coordination that I need...but still, once you relinquish control a little, you'll see that the keyboard really is as smart as they say it is.
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FamousLastMCRmy said 4:12PM on 6-30-2007
Off-topic: how do I change my password from the default one so that I don't have to confirm every comment I leave? I'll never memorize the default one...
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Kai Cherry said 4:09PM on 6-30-2007
Its like this:
I you are anal retentive...the keys will drive you up a wall :)
No. Really.
Its very, very hard to describe how to use this without sounding like either a dirty hippie or an apple marketdroid...but the truth of the matter is...well, you just have to type. Just...type what you are thinking.
As long as you hit space and type and a fairly regular pace and just "run with it" you will find you'll get about 96% accuracy or better *even tho you may be hitting the wrong keys*
If you want to constantly stop and correct...is just not the way to go. Type it all out then go back and fix.
You'll be surprised how little there is to fix in the first place.
just lightly and quickly tap and rock on. Once you get the hang of it (it took me a couple of hours; a good way to "practice" is to type song lyrics into notes out of your head; you'll get the pacing pretty quickly that way) you'll be doing like 30-50wpm.
Its almost as if the worse you type the better it works. Its certainly not like "what you're used to" in this regard.
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punkassjim said 4:35PM on 6-30-2007
@8 FamousLast:
If you're not familiar with CopyPaste, you should get it. I can't remember my password either, but I keep it in a saved clipboard so all I have to hit is cmd-v-1 and it pastes the password.
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Kevin said 4:43PM on 6-30-2007
By far the thing I'm most "wowed" by is the keyboard. punkassjim is right, blow through the typing and you'll be amazed. The keyboard is very smart and knows what keys you are trying to hit by knowing what keys are beside the ones you are hitting. Typing sqeey will auto corrct to sweet as you hit the space bar to move to the next word.
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lgc90 said 4:49PM on 6-30-2007
Perhaps its just that im just used to delicate tinkerings, etc, but I'm already typing faster than I ever could with a blackberry. Now, I do have some gripes; no period on "main" keyboard, and right now (i'm typing this on it now) it's a little laggy. (maybe it just needs a restart)
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jeremy said 4:50PM on 6-30-2007
do you have to use text messaging in portrait?
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B deR West said 5:09PM on 6-30-2007
Yeah, just pushing through and slamming at the general area of the letters you want gets you a 100% OK message, no errors no problems.
In my typing experiences, anyway, the phone knew exactly which word I meant time after time. Very impressive.
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matt weeder said 4:57PM on 6-30-2007
Try moving your finger over keyboard until you see the right letter then release it is working well for me.
On a side note this phone is going to change everything it is to cool.
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Rick said 5:03PM on 6-30-2007
In landscape mode (Safari) it really is possible to do the two-thumbs routine without much practice - it seems odd that landscape hasn't been enabled for mail and notes, as well, which are (obviously) more text intensive. And I agree that putting the basic punctuation (period, comma at the very least) on a separate screen/keyboard is just clunky and inefficient.
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Billy K said 5:15PM on 6-30-2007
@9 - I don't think it's possible here to change your password. I keep a text clipping on my desktop. Select clipping, press enter (to select all), command-c. There ya go.
I do wish TUAW (Weblogs Inc.) would work on this.
RE: Keyboard - I'm getting used to it faster than I expected. I think it's gonna be fine. I do not have meat mittens, though. I feel for you Dave, as I can't see anyone with fingers larger than mine typing on this thing.
FYI: I've been all over the place today looking for the perfect case. My idea of the perfect case is like the 3G ipod holster - slid in, slide out, everything protected. I hate the style that covers everything but the controls. Sadly, I am in the minority here and that's what I ended up buying from the Apple Store.
But here's my point: when I was in the Apple Store aorund 2:00 they announced the last 8GB iPhone for sale. Frankly, I'm surprised they had any left. When I departed they had nothing but 4GB. I think the 4GB is going to be a dog.
I did find the case I wanted (Belkin - just like the old iPod holsters) at an AT&T store. Wow - what a difference in atmosphere. Cramped, dark, unfriendly, employees just sitting around doing nothing. I asked to take the case out and look at it, and they flatly denied permission. They would rather have me bring it back than check before I bought it. Seriously.
I talked with three of their guys about the iPhone and they asked if I had any trouble with service, and if I was an existing customer. They were not surprised that, as an existing customer, my activation took only 15 minutes. I think new customers are the ones mostly having trouble.
Interestingly enough, they too had sold out of 8GB iPhones, but had plenty of 4GB models. Again, 4GB = dog. Oh, and they asked me if I had "done anything with it." I told them, "of course. I've done everything. I think...I keep finding new stuff." And when asked what I thought, I told them it surpassed my high expectations. Then I kinda mumbled, "you know - except for EDGE."
The AT&T guys are definitely looking like the villains here. Wow - I wonder if that was Steve's idea all along and he just set them up?
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Gene Cowan said 5:20PM on 6-30-2007
I'm astonished at how well the keyboard works -- I wish that the Mac keyboard had this kind of predictive correction.
One neat thing: when I first tried to type "Hiya" the iPhone corrected it as "Hoya." The next time, when the "Hoya" balloon popped up, I touched it -- it has a red X in it -- and it dismissed "Hoya" and left "Hiya" in place.
The neat part: it learned! The next time I typed "Hiya," it didn't try to correct it.
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Michael Curtis said 5:22PM on 6-30-2007
The keyboard is great, you just have to learn to trust it. If you don't look at what is showing up as your are typing and just blaze through, you'll rarely have an error.
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LD said 5:45PM on 6-30-2007
I'm not a fan of the virtual keyboard. Tried out my friend's iPhone last night and struggled to type just about anything. My Blackberry Pearl is easily 3-4 times faster to type on. And I can type without needing to constantly look at the thing. The omission of just about everything tactile makes certain tasks more difficult and others easier.
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Walter A. said 6:16PM on 6-30-2007
The trick, as was pointed out recently by an early reviewer, is to "use the force" - trust the iPhone and just type away without pausing to check for errors. In most cases the iPhone will correctly anticipate and correct your intended input. But if you frequently pause mid-word to make corrections, you will have a poor experience as the predictive input AI seems to take timing into consideration when guessing what you're typing.
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