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(Yet Another) Mobile Keypad

A reader wrote to us about Intel's newly unveiled mobile keypad, which, all things considered, doesn't look nearly as terrible as most mobile keypads. Still not exactly stirring, but not too bad either. Of course, there's getting it into production, licensing etc etc

14 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. A good mobile keyboard is . . by Brahmastra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    . . . a dead mobile keyboard. Every mobile input device I've used until now is slow and sucks arse. A good speech based input device may help but you can't use that everywhere. It'll be like the annoying cellphone freaks who think we want to listen to their conversation in a restaurant.

    1. Re:A good mobile keyboard is . . by Zakabog · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I never understood people who think talking on a cell phone in a restaurant is rude.

      It'll be like the annoying cellphone freaks who think we want to listen to their conversation in a restaurant.

      Oh now it all makes sense. I completely agree, I never want to listen to someone's conversation in a restaurant. I mean come on, it's time to study and you've got all this work to do, why the hell do people have to talk while you're at a restaurant! Those pricks should all be shot. Wait a restaurant is a what? A place to eat? Oh.

      Generally while you're eating you like to discuss things with the people you're their with right? So what's wrong if I'm on my cell phone talking to someone? Not like you're sitting their with your friends all quiet, why is it that if someone's not physically in the restaurant they don't have the right to talk to people eating, and people eating don't have a right to talk to them. Sure you can't hear the other person talking but it's none of your damned buisiness what the other person is staying so butt out.

  2. What about us with big fingers? by GuyinVA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I already have a hard enough time with a regular key pad, now I have to deal with this too? The idea is good, but will not be usefull for me.

  3. Quite frankly... by Soukyan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    keyboards are the next bit of technology that need to be brought into the 21st century. While they have come a long way, you'd think we'd have some more intuitive device to use by now. I think the concentration isn't in the right area with respect to keyboards. I'm thinking light sensor keyboard that could project on any smooth surface.

    1. Re:Quite frankly... by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      well, that exists already!
      http://www.alpern.org/weblog/stories/200 3/01/09/pr ojectionKeyboards.html

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      stuff |
  4. Nope by stratjakt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Get speech recognition, or improve handwriting recognition.

    Scre any and all cheesy ass miniature keyboard thumb twiddling little clusterfuck pain in the ass monkey boards. They'll never come up with something truly usable.

    And I hate those stupid thumbpads and twizzle sticks on laptops too. Put a damn trackball down in the lower right (fuck lefties!), you insensitive clods!

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  5. Even smaller keys? by fruey · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What are these mobile designers on? Acid, probably, if they suddenly develop a random love of small things, maybe to them it looks "massive"?

    Now, I love the T1 predictive typing thing. As long as you can spell more or less accurately then you can get very fast on that, and you still only need the letter keys. However, having seen proof from many people I tell about it who never switch it on because they don't "get it" or get frustrated... maybe it's not the way forward. Also, ppl cnt wrt abbrvs in thr texts w dicts...

    I also liked the look of that system where letters sort of scrolled in front of you and you picked the one you wanted, automatically likely choices for the next letter were bigger and so on. Wasn't particularly intuitive though, even less so than T1 dictionary stuff.

    But now, tiny keys, and not in the QWERTY pattern either? How is this helping? And you have to press multiple keys to get numbers, once the basis of all telephone dialling circuit I/O?

    Just another gimmick. There's a proverb from some oriental culture that says 'there are those that will try to sell the same thing with an extra spurious (useless) addition on the merits of the spurious addition, and win the marketing war'

    Rough translation, obviously.

    --
    Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
  6. You're totally missing the point... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This isn't a keyboard for PDAs, it's a keyboard for mobile phones, hence the juxtaposition of alphabetical keys around a numeric keypad with the primary focus still on the numbers.

    The whole purpose of this layout is to make texting (sending text messages via SMS) easier but the primary focus is still on dialling.

    This isn't designed for PDA text entry. It's not even designed for PDA/phone convergence devices. It's designed for phones and phones only.

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
  7. Ick. by Kaki+Nix+Sain · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Why did they put the keys in alphabetical order. Bad, bad, bad.

    Would have been better to pick this layout

    --

    (C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.

    1. Re:Ick. by DarkSarin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ACk!
      why use a qwerty based layout? QWERTY was designed to slow typists down, since old typewriters couldn't keep up with ultra-fast typists. Sure the concept of pc keyboarding helping is nice (technically this is called priming, borrowed from pouring water down a pump to start it going), but priming effects only go so far, and are frequently cancelled out by other cognitive and linguistic factors (such as letter frequency in any given set of words).

      The layout you show in your link is interesting, but hardly the best imagineable. The real comparison would be to a dvorak layout, or something similar.

      I imagine a fairly simple test of this--change only the layout and give the sorry things to 500 different people. You could either do this as a repeated measures expirement (where each subject gets both designs, with half getting one design first, and the other half getting the second design first), or as a independent measures (where everyone only gets one of the layouts).

      Either design is valid, but shows slightly different things. Either way a simple statistical test would show you which layout was better, with your dependent variable being the number of words "typed" per minute, using a fairly lengthy set word set.

      This is the kind of process real usability folks (frequently applied (human factors) psychologists) use. Until I see the hard data, I reserve judgement, but I don't know that I would predict one over the other just based on priming.

      --
      "We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
  8. QWERTY keyboard by JaCKeL+1.0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know someone might steal this idea but, anyway, I want to help the development. Why not keep this great concept and by rotating the phone right, we can have a QWERTY type keyboard instead of the ABCD type proposed by the prototype. You just have to add a little sensor able to rotate de display in the direction the phone is rotated and now IM will sell like hot bread.

  9. Why don't they just? by yotto · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I have no problem with the '4 type' rule, but they could make it even easier.

    You could even work on it to mix common and uncommon letters, putting the common ones first and the uncommon ones 2nd, and the damn right rare ones last.

    Like so: (Taken from 'etaoinshrdlu' and just tossed the rest of the letters in there)

    1 2 3
    edm tlp auq

    4 5 6
    obv icw nfx

    7 8 9
    sgy hjz rk.

    # 0 *
    ... ... ...
    The periods signify 'common symbols' that I don't really care to think about. Enter, backspace, and space seem good ideas for #, 0, and *'s main character, with a mode where that's all they are. Anyway, I've given this too much though for how late in the post it's going to end up.
  10. Chording Keyboard by Matimus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think it would be nice if a good chording keyboard standard caught on. It would be a lot easier to make a smaller keyboard if it only had five buttons.

    --
    GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
  11. Re:I dunno by rde · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A lot of people I know use predictive text; a lot don't. I'm among the latter; I tried it briefly on my nokia, but after the constant cycling between 'on' and 'no' and similar sets of words, I decided I was better off without it. 'night' is still a pain in the arse to type, though.

    I don't know about that 'ugly' thing; granted, many people are obsessed with frippery like polyphonic ring tones and ridiculous logos, but as far as I'm concerned, as long as a phone has bluetooth, a data port and a moderately decent ergnomic feel, I'll be happy with it. I suspect I'm far from alone in this regard (a few people have remarked on teh ugliness of my 6310i, but I don't think it looks bad).

    Speaking of bluetooth: graffiti on a Tungsten is the best way of writing text messages. It may be gratuitous overuse of technology, but it beats Intel's 'change for change sake' attitude. IMO.