Jake Ludington

The first time I saw the iPhone I commented that no one who relies on a Blackberry would ever switch. Typing speed is too important and the iPhones keys just can’t cut it. Apparently a new study by User Centric has some science to back up my assumption, although the sample size is a bit small. In tests, people could type text faster on tactile keys. Which got my thinking about 3 billion other people who will enter their native language faster on devices other than the iPhone – the half of the world that writes something other than a Roman character alphabet as their primary language. You need a stylus or some other writing tool to quickly enter most complex character languages and the iPhone prides itself on not having a stylus. My own recent trip to China finds me switching away from my Blackjack to a Treo 750 so that I have the convenience of a keyboard and the flexibility to enter Hanzi when I need to.