(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

Comments

Why the confounded close-ups?

[casio282]

Both pictures available in the article are too close-up to see the entire keypad...Here's a better pic:

http://www.futurebytes.ch/images/news/fastpad.jpg

Re:Why the confounded close-ups?

[InfiniteWisdom]

Ah now I know why.... in your picture the phenomenal ugliness of the keypad is much too obvious

A good mobile keyboard is . .

[Brahmastra]

. . . 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.

Sweet

[-Grover]

j4Ust W1h1a8t we al3l ne21ed!!!

Okay, obligitory funny out of the way, it actually might just work out. As far as I'm concerned the extra $2 bucks a month I spend on unlimited text messaging on my phone saves me a ton of money because I'm not using minutes. Anything to help facilitate me using it more, I'm all for.

*slaps forehead*

[cybermace5]

Too obvious! This is a "why didn't I think of that five years ago" moment.

Mobile input is THE barrier to true interactive use of wireless data. I could see a keypad like this speeding up my mobile text input by at least four to five times, yet still non-clunky enough to fit in a flip-phone.

Just glad it's not QWERTY.

[Thinkit3]

Plain alphabetical order is better than a poorly designed layout that sticks around because most people are afraid of change.

Re:Just glad it's not QWERTY.

[cybermace5]

Plain alphabetical order is better than a poorly designed layout that sticks around because most people are afraid of change.

You deserve a +5, Funny. What exactly is alphabetical order, if not a layout people have been afraid to change for a few thousand years?

Re:You're totally missing the point...

[b!arg]

I've always wondered about touch screen pads. Why can't you have a phone that is the same form factor but is essentially just a touch screen? And depending on what you want to do it shouws you a numberpad, keyboard of your choice or handwriting recognition.

Keyboard Innovation is a Good Thing (TM)

[kb3edk]

Thank god at least someone still cares about trying to come up with a better interface for a cell phone keypad. I was beginning to get worried that everything was going to converge on the standard, kludgey keypad ("Hit 7 three times for R")... while it looks like some people in this thread have gotten used to it, I can't stand it. Think about it... the interface is 40 years old (first touch tone telephone, 1963) and was never intended for text entry. The engineered inefficiency and its overwhelming rate of adoption is a creepy repeat of how QWERTY still dominates over Dvorak.

(Not that QWERTY is all bad, it still is much faster than a numeric keypad. I can type 15 words per minute on my Treo using just two thumbs... Of course, 15 years of Nintendo served as excellent training :-)

Emergency!

[Baby_with_a_nailgun]

Quick, dial KLOP KLOP ABEF !

button mashing

[pavon]

There have been several incorrect statements about how the input will work. Here's the facts that I found from a manufacturer of this device:

1) If you have small fingers you can press the inset button to get a number.
2) If you have large fingers you can press the four buttons surrounding the number.

But what happens when you hit 2 of the surrounding buttons? Or one alpabetic button and a one numeric button. This mistake could happen if you were trying to hit the letter or the number, so there is no real smarts that could be added to the device to make it "forgiving" to these types of mistakes. So, without using the device I will still have concerns about how easy it is to mash the wrong button combinations.

Also, full blown handwritting or speach recognition not panaceas, when you concider that it is not uncommon for a people to make mistakes reading their own handwritting, or listening to other people.

Although it would be interesting if hand printing and diction started being taught in school again to help with computer interfaces, I don't think that they will ever become the primary input method for a computer. Typing is faster than handwriting, and more accurate. And having cubicles full of people talking to computers all day would be too annoying (then again I've never worked in a call center :).

For cell phones, eatoni's WordWise is the best thing I have seen yet. It is a predictive method. And let me tell you I hate most predictive input methods, and usually end up switching back to multi-tap. But with wordwise you use a shift key to provide a little more info, which lets it do an incredably good job at guessing. The site has a bunch of research that shows how the number of keystrokes is smaller than both predictive and multitap methods. Plus, unlike predictive methods where your next keypress can dependant on what the current guess is, WordWise is non-modal, allowing your actions to become habituated, and thus even faster (ie you can touch type on it).

For PDA's Quick Writing is very cool. It requires you to learn the input method, just like you have to learn how to type, but is it damn fast. Faster than grafitti, and often even faster than handwriting. Think of it as cursive on amphetamines :)

- jackson

Ick.

[Kaki Nix Sain]

Why did they put the keys in alphabetical order. Bad, bad, bad.

Would have been better to pick this layout