The Mobile Keyboard Solution – Folding it Out, In
Posted on 01. Apr, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features, News
One of the biggest challenges faced as devices get smaller and smaller is that the traditional keyboard still requires a certain footprint in order to be useable. This fact is even more evident when you look at tablets and phones which don’t have a keyboard at all – they require you to use an on-screen touch interface in order to write. For many, this trend could be problematic since there is an enjoyable degree of tactile feedback that comes with using a traditional keyboard.
That’s why when I came across this post from Wired I knew I had to write about it. Sure it’s only a mock-up, but this is the best way that I have seen so far on solving the keyboard problem, which is to fold it:
Designer Yang Yongchang has put up some images and a small write-up on how his device, the iWeb 2.0, would work. I really like the idea, and although I’m sure this has been tried in design labs before if it could be pulled off by being usable there would be appeal for this. Two things come to mind, however. A folding keyboard would have many parts making it expensive and possibly fragile. Another problem could be that although the pictures look good, it needs to be comfortably useable to a vast amount of people in order for something like this to sell.
With the mobile device market creating new genres of gadgets such as the tablet and especially the smartbook which will blend together elements of a netbook with a smartphone – the keyboard problem becomes magnified. Whether it runs Android, Chrome OS, Linux or some variety of Windows a smartbook is going to need to have a real keyboard.
I know that in the mobile phone market the trend is to shy away from manufacturing smartphones with full-on keyboard. The Nexus One has done so, along with other Android devices. The Motorola Droid, however, does come with a keyboard. I suppose it is all in terms of a person’s taste, but for those who like to write having a keyboard is really helpful. Especially if you’re clumsy with a touchscreen.
