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Doh! It just struck me - everyone here is either saying Apple can't add a physical keyboard because SJ trashed phone keyboards etc or that a physical keyboard for the iPhone is a must.

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER WAY.

Supposing the sliding out keyboard turns out to be...another touch screen keyboard! Because it's touch screen it could be thin enough not to make the iPhone any much bigger, it would increase the screen real estate enormously by effectively producing two touch screens, and if it came out the side you could rotate it and have a landscape touchscreen keyboard and full iPhone screen page to write on. Sorted!

And it wouldn't compromise SJ's stance on physical key keyboards...

i actually really like this idea, sounds like something apple might actually do!
 
Unless they could fit a physical keyboard in there without changing the size, I doubt it would ever happen. It's really setting the bar for future cell phones so I'm sure they've toyed with the notion, but I can't see it happening.

I plan on leaving Verizon in the next month or so and going to AT&T and the only request I would ask for on the iPhone is a physical END and SEND button, but that's just me. I could live without it though, which I plan on doing after I buy my 3G :D
 
Finally!!!! If Apple doesn't do this, some third party manufacturer needs to make a separate bluetooth keyboard.

I love the virtual keyboard on my Touch. I find I type just as fast with two thumbs on it as I do typing on a "normal" keyboard. Remember that even Walt Mossberg after two weeks with the iPhone said the virtual keyboard was a non-issue. I like it, and I think a real keyboard would be superfluous.

Why is Steve apparently going about-face on so much of what made the iPhone revolutionary?
 
if auto-correct wasn't constantly incorrectly correcting me, I would say that a physical keyboard isn't necessary. The sad fact is that in its current state the iphone keyboard is not "smart" enough.

every time I've used one, it drives me crazy. There's actually very little keeping me from an iphone now that the 3G one is coming...but I just can't stand constantly going back and fixing the "corrections." Have you ever tried to type "blackberry" on an iphone? it is hilarious. The best part is that OS X "proper" is the opposite. every instance of "iphone" in my post is underlined as being misspelled...but blackberry is in the dictionary!

ironic.
 
I really do hope this comes out and hell lets make it a dual slider while were at it.

If anyone has kept up with the HTC Touch Diamond... they now offer the Touch Pro...

Which is exactly how Apple should be handling this, give us the choice, yes there will be some bulk but think of it this way... for some of us we can really type faster with the physical keyboard as long as its proportions are set correctly and believe me HTC usually has that down like no other company.

Overall, Apple keep an eye out for HTC, what they're doing, they're going in the right direction.
 
Just because it exists doesn't mean it's a good idea... I mean just look at the Republican party :D

Good point. :D (same goes of a bunch of managers at work)


Seriously, though, when exactly are people supposed to use that keyboard? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen... hah.

The one from Blackberry? Those things are used by some of representatives I meet, when they come over for business. Not everyone of them likes to drag around a (heavy) notebook. Actually... the guys that only put their PDA or Blackberry on the table, usually won't bore us to death with a bad Powerpoint presentation - I really hate these.

No one has turned up with that laser-keyboard... yet.
 
Who really cares about touch only phones?

Why is everyone so hung up on this board about touch devices? Big friggin whoop!

Why can't Apple make multiple phones like everyone else? They could have a touch keypad on the standard model and a physical keyboard drawer on the executive model. Touch could still be used on the executive model for internet browsing, photo browsing, etc. The physical keyboard would slide out and allow the user to type a long letter or spreadsheet document while watching the display at the same time.

The real downside of typing using a touch display is that there isn't enough physical room on the device for a large text display of the typed material as well as the keyboard image. Touch however is very useful for internet browsing and graphical manipulation.

The fact is that even though the iphone is big success for Apple it really isn't a player in the entire cell phone market. Nokia phones and the Blackberry smart phones destroy the iphone in marketshare especially within the enterprise sector.

Did you think Apple was going to go to all the trouble of setting up a push mobileme network and allowing compatibility with Microsoft Exchange Server without producing phones that would appeal to the executive and enterprise business user?

Apple wants to be a player in the cell phone business. This means more than one model of phone and yeah maybe even a real physical keyboard instead of a naked emperor.
 
Un-be-frickin'-leivable

It's amazing how many people are buying this nonsense. A relevant quote from P.T. Barnum comes to mind.

I'll bet the lads at Apple's counter-intelligence dept. are laughing their heads off right now, as they read this thread.
 
Never really used it, ehh

Lack of physical keyboard is the #1 reason I am not getting an iPhone. I use my phone to type long emails, and the Danger Sidekick keyboard works great for me and lets me type extremely fast, while I have not been able to get used to the iPhone's soft keyboard and have found it quite sub optimal. The addition of a keyboard would be enough to make me get an iPhone, and I know several other people who have held off on iPhone purchases because of keyboard issues -- people who, like myself, need their phone to write long messages.

I don't understand... you pay for two phones? An iPhone & a Sidekick? Which is it? So you went to the store, and tried the virtual keyboard for a few minutes, and you're an expert? How long did it take you to learn to type on the physical keyboard on the sidekick? Exactly. Same learning curve. The iPhone keyboard works very well and very fast, once you spend some real time with it and learn it. Once I learned it, I would never go back to a physical keyboard... not that I don't like physical keyboards... but on a small device, you have endless options with virtual keyboards that you will not get with the physical. The only advantage I can think of for a physical keyboard is discreet replies to email while not looking at the screen... but big deal. Again, nothing against a physical keyboard... but actually use the phone for a few weeks before forming an opinion... who knows, you might actually like it. The truth of the matter is, most everyone is unhappy about something about their phone... whether or not you ever get an iPhone, everyone should be thankful to Apple for raising the bar.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I absolutely love the iPhone keyboard. I love that when I type there isn't annoying clicking noise from the sound of the keys and that it is completely silent. Having haptic feedback would have some merit, but it would get extremely annoying having my phone vibrating non-stop while I text or email. I've even written a 4 page paper on my iPhone and it worked like a charm!
 
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I call BS! I would pretty much kill myself if this happened! :(
 
Uhh if Apple would just frickin' make all apps that make heavy use of the keyboard work in landscape mode i'd say we'd NEVER need a physical keyboard.. but since they are too idiotic to program all keyboarded apps to be used in landscape mode i'm actually not against a physical keyboard.

I'd welcome one as long as the keys are off-set like a real keyboard (like the Sidekick).. I hate hate hate keyboards that have the letters stacked on top of each other (all HTC phones). Atleast the iPhone's virtual keyboard has off-set keys.
 
Yes, it's probably true that Apple might sell a few more phones if they had physical keyboards. But I still don't see it ever happening. It would be a major step backwards for them. Apple KNOWS their virtual keyboard is the way of the future, and that it opens up a world of possibilities -- they're not going to cave in and change all the innovation they've done so far for the few ignorant people who won't even give a virtual keyboard a chance.

Way of the future? I tried a touch-screen remote control for my home theater many years ago thinking that it'd be nice to configure it to control my home theater without 'wrong' keys being assigned something just so I can make all the buttons work. Well, it didn't work very well because you can't operate a touch-screen remote WITHOUT LOOKING DOWN AT IT all the time to see if you're pushing the right button. No vibration function is EVER going to make up for the feel of an actual key, especially a shaped one (the remote control analogy) whereby you can tell which key you're finger is resting on without looking (if you have to wait until you push it to get a specific vibration, then you've already pressed the wrong key!) I don't have to look down at my keyboard while I type right now because I know how to type and the F and J keys have little bumps on them to tell me I'm in the home position. If anything, the future of remotes is nice shaped keys you can feel and the future of a phone keyboard is something you can type on by feel alone without having to look down at it. I could believe voice recognition (if it could be made to work accurately) is the future, but not touch screens for typing. Touch screens for other functions is fine. But thinking that having an OPTION for an additional input method that is more ergonomic (flat touch screens are ANYTHING BUT ergonomic) is a bad idea just strikes me as wrong. What would it hurt to have a slide-down keyboard, for example? If you don't like it, don't slide it down and use the touch-screen that already exists. Frankly, the iPhone could use at least a couple of physical function keys on it, IMO. One power button for the menu is just not enough to be really efficient, IMO. I could use a few (preferably programmable) shortcut keys for things I use all the time. They would not have to get in the way of the touch screen at all. Such a thing could also be useful for gaming on the iPhone. A dedicated gamepad could be a dual-function navigation tool and joystick, for example. It's what it needs to compete against the Nintento DS on that front. It could probably never beat it, but it could gain sales, for certain.
 
In the future no keyboard or touch screen device will be required -- the iTheremin (SM) interface will empower the masses with the power of capacitance!

When the user moves his/her finger the resulting change in capacitance (measured between the device's wifi antenna and the user's hands) will trigger a "key press."

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It should be an accessory

It should be an accessory that can be plugged into the port at the bottom. If you really want to downgrade on the available technology, be my guess. Virtual is the way to go.
 
Everyone is forgetting about apples 'touch feedback' patents!! What about having the physical surface of the touch screen slightly bump up where buttons are on the screen using piezoelectric materials...... if they were clever enough, they could even replicate the "click" press of the key.... forget slideouts unless they give us a dual screen........ hmmmmmm iPhone DS...........
 
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