Do you wish the iPhone had a keyboard? Some would say yes, some would say no, and some would make Photoshop prototypes. But nobody seems to take into account how much thicker a tactile keyboard would make the device — and so we dance.
Please witness two wish-list iPhone prototypes, one by Mat Brady, the second — an altered version of Brady’s — by Gizmodo. Some features include an impossibly thin slide-out keyboard, high-quality camera with an optical zoom, 60GB of storage, a front-facing chat camera, and even Nintendo-esque game controls which, of course, add almost nothing to the thickness of the device… mm-hmm.
Mat Brady’s design, the iPhone Elite:
Gizmodo’s design, the iPhone Pro:
CrunchGear’s “actual thickness” design, the iPhone Sandwich:
[via BBG]
It is arguable if it needs one, and if the extra thickness would be a hindrace to it.
But I for one would still not buy an iPhone even if it had a keyboard, despite how I refuse to use a phone that does not have one, simply because it does not fit my needs.
I need a keyboard for typing large amount of test and sending commands to my phone, I use it practically as a micro-laptop, with doens of tweaks, changes, and custom-installed apps, many of them utilities. I care very little on what the phone actually looks like, I care about what ti can do.
Because of this, the iPhone is specifically NOT made with someone like me in mind, and Apple clearly dosen’t care about the “business” or “geek” demographic but instead the “casual” and “trendy” demographic.
This is why I don’t think people even care about a keyboard on the iPhone. Its only used mostly for entering text messages (not very large) or typing in a url, not typing long documents or sending commands. The current multi-touch keyboard suits this fine, even though I feel the fact that there is no tactile feedback and that it is difficult to use the phone with one hand is a hindrace.
Yes I would switch from a blackberry to this because of the keyboard. Maybe carry both and downgrade the BB Plan just for business and use this for every day personal use.
I would happily take double thickness for a 5MP camera on the phone. The only regret I have of swapping from my sony ericsson to the iphone is the crappy, crappy camera.
samwidge…yes please. {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/eWyqVZCoXc_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”samwidge…yes please. ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/m71nyYfhdI”}}}
The full keyboard will be extremely useful for composing official emails etc. High quality camera will be a added advantage.
http://simplyqa.net
The Nokia E71 has a full keyboard and isn’t that thick