ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Selene Scriven <selene.scriven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

* David Marceau <uticdmarceau2007@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Thank you Selene for sharing my pain with the ubunt-touch 
> on-screen keyboard.  It's really hard to use emacs with the 
> current OSK.

Emacs is hard to use with just one or two fingers, period.  Touch 
screens and key chording don't get along very well.

The UI concepts I had in mind were more along the lines of 
swiping between letters instead of tapping, holding a key to 
shift to a different set of characters, sliding off a key to 
indicate modifiers or alternate glyphs, adaptive bayesian text 
prediction to fix typos and guess what's coming next, integrated 
text-editing functions, and making the layouts highly 
customizable by end users.

> I'm also wishing the precious screen real-estate would be preserved.
> How hard is it to produce a full keyboard/mouse for a 
> cellphone. ...  I would have preferred a fully-integrated 
> keyboard into the phone with no bluetooth ...

Hardware companies tried in the past.  For example, the HP 200LX, 
the Sharp Zaurus SL-C860, the Sony Clie PEG-UX50, even the Nokia 
N810.  None of these were hugely successful, and physical 
keyboards of that size were mediocre at best.  My thumbs hurt 
even thinking about trying to type on my n810.  The market has 
mostly decided that a flat slab of touch-sensitive smart glass is 
the way forward.

Canonical doesn't make hardware though; it merely tries to make a 
better user experience on existing hardware.

A completely flat surface is a bit hard to type on, even when 
it's the size of a real keyboard and can handle all ten fingers.  
Look at the Touchstream LP keyboard for an example.  Great and 
innovative hardware, awesome gesture handling, but ultimately not 
as nice for text entry as a traditional keyboard.

> Why can't there be some standard keyboard manufacturer for all 
> phones with a standard connector for all future phones?  
> Shouldn't clamshell keyboards/mice on phones be a standard?

Standard connectors, yes.  MicroUSB and Bluetooth pretty much won 
that war.  Except for Apple, which refused to use MicroUSB even 
when the EU made it a requirement.

Otherwise, getting people to agree well enough to make anything 
on a phone standard is pretty much impossible...  especially with 
the huge variety of very different things people use their 
devices for.  Your earlier example of emacs on a phone 
demonstrates that point -- the amazing diversity of the population.

There won't be one solution which works for everyone.  The best 
we can hope for is to do one thing and do it well, and make sure 
it addresses many of the most common needs.


-- Selene