“Text input, more than anything else, is the problem Apple needs to solve to make the concept work,” Herrman writes. “So how will they do it? …How do you create text without a keyboard?”
“We’ve been comfortably typing without physical keyboards for years now, and this is largely Apple’s doing,” Herrman writes. “One of the great triumphs of the iPhone was to make onscreen keyboards bearable—something that, even if you hate the concept of virtual keys on principle, you have to admit they accomplished.”
Herrman writes, “The onscreen keyboard as we know it doesn’t scale gracefully, and unless Apple wants their tablet to be completely useless (our sources say they don’t) they’re going to have to figure this out. So what are Apple’s options?”
Herrman covered four possible solutions:
1: A Giant iPhone
2: Voice Control
3: The Dreaded Stylus
4: A New Style of Keyboard
Full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Winston” for the heads up.]
Delete John’s comment.
@ ElderNorm
Not 60 degrees, but 57.2957 degrees.
And Apple will call the device “Radian”.
@My Vote
I posted this 2 days ago:
“My prediction (with a grain of salt):
The Apple iSlate will be released with a 10″ touch screen and an OS somewhere between iPhone and Mac OS X. The back will be touch-sensitive, too, like the Magic Mouse. You type on the back of the iSlate using a split virtual keyboard that is displayed on the front of the device. That is the only way that you could accomplish complex text entry on a device like a tablet without a physical keyboard or setting the device down on another surface. The Magic Mouse is a test-bed for the rear surface of the iSlate.
Fingerworks pioneered development of unconventional keyboard layouts and input methods. This will be their day to shine.”
Voice control is where Googles excels. They used their large global base to collect different dialects and data mine them. It is a great idea that they have and why they are able to offer great voice control in their apps. It is not that it is imposable, but they would have to pay Google for it. Even with voice control you would still need another input device.
A 10″ diagonal screen equates to a 5 3/4″ x 8 1/2″ unit. If you hold it in portrait orientation, and if they slightly split the “keyboard” in the center, you can dual thumb it easily.
People: it’s so nice to have fantasies and think “outside the box”–good for you (all those “it’ll have input from the back” folks, voice input folks, stylus??). Now let’s come back to reality and make a REAL prediction. It’s going to be a virtual keyboard just like the iphone. I am 100% correct. It may be modified, slanted, divided, or whatever, but it will be a software driven virtual keyboard. Mark my words. I will bet anyone $1000 it will not be controlled by stylus. Takers? There may be a way to connect a bluetooth keyboard, that’s possible, but this is supposed to be a MOBILE device remember? SJ does not want you to lug around an extra keyboard with you on the road. I thought MDN people were smart and I see very few smart comments here. Where are the people with VISION?
using an I-Tech Virtual Laser Keyboard (BlueTooth version) popped into my mind…
Last week a KEYBOARD for the IPHONE was shown released. It was also shown at the CES show. There is no reason this same keyboard won’t work on any so-called iTablet.
Or why not have a USB port on the so-called iTablet and plug in any old keyboard!