Openmoko keyboard mockup

[Jan Henkins]

Hello there,

Pascal d'Hermilly wrote:
> With 2008.12 release, a well working finger-friendly keyboard is the 
> most critical missing feature for me.
> I've made a mockup of a keyboard that I think would make things a lot 
> easier to type.
> http://dhermilly.dk/pascal/openmoko/keyboard%20mockup.png
>
> I don't have the skills to code this, but please. I really need a good 
> keyboard to be able to use my openmoko.
>   

I fully agree that we need a proper finger-friendly keyboard. I'm sure 
that it is planned, and I can sort-of remember that the Matchbox 
keyboard has big enough keys to be a lot easier to use than the Illume 
keyboard. Here are some other keyboard examples:

A weird keyboard on M$ Mobile (yech!):
http://msmobiles.com/news.php/6630.html

Iphone keyboard styled like the Macbook Air (now this looks the business!):
http://www.intomobile.com/2008/07/02/make-your-iphone-virtual-keyboard-look-like-its-macbook-air.html

Blackberry's Iphone keyboard ripoff:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1996

All of them have nice big buttons and share a simple layout. The FR's 
screen is big enough even in portrait mode to accommodate a keyboard 
like this. The Illume keyboard, as excellent as it is (thanks Raster!!), 
is fiddly to use without a stylus. I would like to not have to use a 
stylus to compose notes/emails/sms. For terminal use (and using VI) a 
more complete k/b is of course justified, but for everyday use we need a 
nice finger keyboard.

-- 
Regards,
Jan Henkins