Openmoko keyboard mockup

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:46:15 +0000 Jan Henkins <jan at henkins.za.net> babbled:

> 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.

with dictionary correction the illume keyboard (and the qtopia one) in normal
plain qwerty for writing notes and emails and sms's work just great - i've used
them walking down the street and i can type better on it than i can on my rokr
e6 WITH a stylus. in fact my n800 with a landscape 4.3" screen is almost
equivalent in usability (it doesnt dictionary correct).


-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com