Did you see the Urtak collaborative survey poll thing I published on the site early this morning? Well we’ve had quite a few people use it. I started it off with 10 questions I typed in randomly about the mobile industry. For instance, I asked “Do you own an iPad?” (37% said yes) or “Does Apple’s Siri represent a next generation mobile user interface?” (25% said yes).
One of the questions I was most keen to get a perspective on was over touchscreen vs physical keyboards. It’s my belief that QWERTY wins. ALL the time.
I think we all *put up* with the touchscreen keyboards, but if you have to get through a ton of mail (or messaging) quickly, you need buttons. It’s just quicker.
89% of respondents reckon they can type faster on a QWERTY keyboard compared to just 11% who misguidedly think they’re faster on touchscreen. Ok, so I’m being a little bit emotive there.
I’ve been using an array of touchscreen phones recently and I’m sorry to say I keep on having to come back to QWERTY to get things done. I would very much like to be able to only use one device but right now I think I’ll stick to my standard configuration of BlackBerry Bold 9900 as the primary device, with the iPhone as the secondary.
What about you?
Have a play with the poll questions here:
Quelle surprise. So why are there so few decent mobile phones with slide out keyboards? Apple has almost certainly skewed the market by making mobile manufacturers think that’s all consumers want. And manufacturers will try and tell you that consumer research says consumers want iPhone lookalikes. But to misquote Henry Ford “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” The paucity of decent Android or Windows Phone handsets with good keyboards means consumers can’t make a rational choice as it simply isn’t available. Sony Ericsson (disclaimer: former client) showed with the Xperia Mini Pro that you could produce good phones with a keyboard. Just a shame you can’t get the Arc or an HTC Desire HD with a slideout keyboard. It’s ironic that this is one area of mobile phone design that has gone backwards. More than ten years ago you could get decent PDAs with keyboards from firms like Psion. Today I’d willingly sacrifice a bit of bulk for ease of use.