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Speaking of having benefits for different crowds: when he mentioned the "why-is-this-here moments" his inability to understand that different people like differ

Speaking of having benefits for different crowds: when he mentioned the "why-is-this-here moments" his inability to understand that different people like different things became pretty clear. Why is it so hard to believe that some people may actually want a physical keyboard? Yes, it typically makes the phone bulkier and/or uglier, but for some people the extra utility it provides is worth it. Apple's approach has often been "we'll tell you what's good for you". That's how we got iMacs only available in Steve Jobs's favorite shade of blue (later more colors were added) the green "resize this window to Apple approved dimensions" button in Mac OS X, and now the one-size-fits-all iPhone.

Legion 16y ago
Yeah, when he listed the physical keyboard as a "why is this here" example, I knew the guy had nothing to say that was of any value to me. I certainly have no problem with people liking the Apple Way (typing this on a 13" MBP, charging my iPad in the other room), but I find it endlessly annoying when someone feels incredulous that someone else might want something outside the strictly-defined Apple bounds.
samstokes 16y ago
I don't think he was saying that any physical keyboard is superfluous, so much as that the Droid's keyboard, which is terrible, is superfluous. Something about the design of the Droid keyboard - the flat keys, the squishy response, odd placements of some keys - makes it much harder to type on accurately than my Nokia E71 whose keyboard is nearly half the size. And the fairly decent predictive / autocorrect functionality of the Droid's virtual keyboard gets deactivated when you're using the physical keyboard, so there's nothing to rescue from typos. It's actually faster to use the virtual keyboard, so you really do wonder why the physical keyboard is there. No-one who's used a Blackberry for a while will be in any doubt of the value of a good physical keyboard.
- iamdave 16y ago
  Blackberry user here, and to this day I defend the primary point of me continuing to use a physical, full qwerty keyboard is the responsiveness, and the user centric design of the keyboard. Case in point of this having two shift buttons on either side of the spacebar, both iOS and the Android platform lack this logical affordance (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-mistakes.html http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-mistakes.html). Great points, Sam.

Legion 16y ago

Yeah, when he listed the physical keyboard as a "why is this here" example, I knew the guy had nothing to say that was of any value to me. I certainly have no problem with people liking the Apple Way (typing this on a 13" MBP, charging my iPad in the other room), but I find it endlessly annoying when someone feels incredulous that someone else might want something outside the strictly-defined Apple bounds.

samstokes 16y ago

I don't think he was saying that any physical keyboard is superfluous, so much as that the Droid's keyboard, which is terrible, is superfluous. Something about the design of the Droid keyboard - the flat keys, the squishy response, odd placements of some keys - makes it much harder to type on accurately than my Nokia E71 whose keyboard is nearly half the size. And the fairly decent predictive / autocorrect functionality of the Droid's virtual keyboard gets deactivated when you're using the physical keyboard, so there's nothing to rescue from typos. It's actually faster to use the virtual keyboard, so you really do wonder why the physical keyboard is there. No-one who's used a Blackberry for a while will be in any doubt of the value of a good physical keyboard.

iamdave 16y ago
Blackberry user here, and to this day I defend the primary point of me continuing to use a physical, full qwerty keyboard is the responsiveness, and the user centric design of the keyboard. Case in point of this having two shift buttons on either side of the spacebar, both iOS and the Android platform lack this logical affordance (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-mistakes.html http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-mistakes.html). Great points, Sam.