Hasta La Gadget!

With the Apple Tablet likely to change the world as we know it in less than a week, you may be wondering (still) about the merits of a soft, on-screen keyboard. Phil Gyford was wondering the same thing, only instead of just sitting around and lazily pondering (like you) he did something about it.

Phil dug out an old Newton MessagePad, a Palm Vx, a Palm Treo 650 and an iPhone 3G, and typed out a pre-memorized 221-word passage of text on each one, timing each try twice. To balance the test, Phil also typed the text once on his most familiar keyboard (a MacBook) and wrote it out by hand. With a pen. And paper.

The results are only unexpected if you have not actually used the iPhone for any length of time. The MacBook came in first. The iPhone’s soft keyboard came a very near second, with the Treo’s tiny hardware keyboard close behind. Next was pen and paper, followed by the Newton’s handwriting recognition and finally, in deserved last place, the Palm Vx with its frustrating Graffiti input.

None of this explains just how Apple plans to put a soft keyboard on a big ol’ tablet screen, but it does show us exactly why Apple will never ship a dedicated hardware keyboard for either the Tablet or the iPhone: Unless you are a professional writer, you just don’t need one.

Pen v keyboard v Newton v Graffiti v Treo v iPhone [Phil Gyford via ★]

Photo: Phil Gyford