There will never be an iPhone with a physical keyboard. Perhaps a larger or smaller screen but never a physical keyboard.
Well the advantage of a foldout keyboard would give Apple the ability to reduce the size of the screen and with that, smaller battery, thinner, lighter. If the new phone is supposed to be inexpensive then we ought to look at the ipod lineup to understand what Apple may do. The iPod Nano would definitely be the analogous to a new category of iphone in that Apple created a premium line and a less expensive line. They're probably ready to that with the iPhone now.
What will it look like, who knows? We're just speculating on the rumor that the new phone might have a keyboard. If this were the case, why? There are reasons why this might happen and reducing component costs is one reason. The presence of a keyboard could imply a smaller screen that couldn't accommodate the virtual keyboard. Other rumors had us talking about a simpler interface akin to the ipod nano UI, which makes sense since we're talking about a less expensive iPhone.
With the nano, the screen is smaller, the apps are simpler, the function is simplified. There may still be a dev kit for simpler apps (streaming media, Nike apps etc) but it won't be an Iphone any more than the nano is a IPT.
Which features would you strip away from the iphone if you had to create one a different group of people would want? Seems like there are allot of people that want something simpler, less expensive, less cumbersome (physically and in usability) than an iphone. I would say that it's just as critical that Apple capture that audience as it did with the Ipod.
Heh. Apple will follow this up by releasing an iPad with a full-sized keyboard... it will fold over and cover the screen when not in use. And they will call it... NetPad Air
My understanding is that Apple may actually go through dozens of prototypes and design iterations to come up with the final product. That really shouldn't be a surprise either. The assumption here though is that these are further along than normal lab prototypes, more like production tests units. Or maybe the translation is messing with my mind.
What doesn't mess with my mind is this idea of an iPhone with a keyboard. I think it is a very real possibility. Why? It is pretty simple really, such a keyboard provides for a larger screen or view port while entering text. Such a device makes for far easier text entry and more importantly far better editing. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing those little auto correct errors after you send out a message.
More importantly the slide out keyboard doesn't have to be the fixed function device we have seen on other phones. Instead it could be a slide out LCD touch screen of sorts. This would allow Apple to continue to have one device for world wide distribution due to the nature of a soft keyboard. It would be well worth a few bucks extra at the check out counter, especially for people using their iPhones a lot for text entry. In effect you get a much larger screen in the same form factor. The issue then becomes how do you do such a keyboard without making the iPhone FAT.
Why waste a keyboard when they can just expand the screen size it will solve two purposes have larger screen estate plus more room for the keyboard & content to co-exist without cluttering.
I agree completely, anyone who has followed Apple for any length of time knows they would not consider a slide-out keyboard. They made that prototype to expose a leak (or else it is just chaff).
or a false start to their competitors, I am guessing the competitors might have bought themselves to the 7" inch ipad (ignoring the display pricing). And there is one more thing that such leaks does is that the some competition may actually buy into one of these as their future product and start working in the wrong direction.
the moment apple release and iPhone w/ a HW keyboard, I'll can my awful android phone.
I don't care what you say, you can't type as fast on an iPhone as with a 5 row keyboard!.
Nobody who can touch type ( or any fast type) can. I bet all the long posts here promoting the iPhones screen were on a laptop. Its fine for text, twitter and messages. Not for real work.
I just read on macrumors theres an ninth prototype that boots off cassette.
You do know that back in the Apple II days (over 30 years ago), while the machine booted from ROM, you loaded programs from cassette (before Wozniak developed the floppy drive controller). Computers like the Apple II and the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I (lovingly known as the "trash-80") used to come with portable Panasonic cassette recorders with piano-type control keys.
I think it worked on the Apple pretty smoothly (but obviously slowly), but on the Radio Shack, you'd see two asterisks on the upper right hand corner of the screen. You'd adjust the volume control so that one asterisk was solid and the other blinked. Then you'd rewind the tape and start the "real" load of the program.
When Apple, Commodore and Radio Shack came out with the first floppy drives (all of about 130K each), it seemed miraculous. Accessory manufacturers used to sell punches so you could notch a write hole and use both sides of the floppy, even though the back side would not have been certified.
I saw a report on Fox that the 12th iPhone prototype has a slide-out muslim from kenya. And it's all an Egyptian/AOL conspiracy to restore the caliphate. Or something like that, I was just flipping channels waiting for American Idol to come back on.
Ahh, brings back memories! I started out on a C64 in the early 80's. It would really make a player wrestle every last ounce of enjoyment out of a game when you had to wait 15 minutes for the damn thing to load. And then sometimes, it would get to the end of the loading process, and... crash! Maybe a drop-out on the tape, and 1 byte didn't make it through correctly. So you had to start over.
Programmers came up with compression fairly soon however, reducing the load times off cassette to around 3-8 minutes, all the while flicking the background colour of the screen different colours, presumably in synch with the different byte values read off the cassette.
Those were the days...
Oh and copy-protection for cassette was kind of built-in.... you could dub a tape to a blank one, but it would lose fidelity during the analogue transfer, and the copy's signal would be too weak to load without being riddled with errors.
Comments
There will never be an iPhone with a physical keyboard. Perhaps a larger or smaller screen but never a physical keyboard.
Well the advantage of a foldout keyboard would give Apple the ability to reduce the size of the screen and with that, smaller battery, thinner, lighter. If the new phone is supposed to be inexpensive then we ought to look at the ipod lineup to understand what Apple may do. The iPod Nano would definitely be the analogous to a new category of iphone in that Apple created a premium line and a less expensive line. They're probably ready to that with the iPhone now.
What will it look like, who knows? We're just speculating on the rumor that the new phone might have a keyboard. If this were the case, why? There are reasons why this might happen and reducing component costs is one reason. The presence of a keyboard could imply a smaller screen that couldn't accommodate the virtual keyboard. Other rumors had us talking about a simpler interface akin to the ipod nano UI, which makes sense since we're talking about a less expensive iPhone.
With the nano, the screen is smaller, the apps are simpler, the function is simplified. There may still be a dev kit for simpler apps (streaming media, Nike apps etc) but it won't be an Iphone any more than the nano is a IPT.
Which features would you strip away from the iphone if you had to create one a different group of people would want? Seems like there are allot of people that want something simpler, less expensive, less cumbersome (physically and in usability) than an iphone. I would say that it's just as critical that Apple capture that audience as it did with the Ipod.
Best thread this month!
Heh. Apple will follow this up by releasing an iPad with a full-sized keyboard... it will fold over and cover the screen when not in use. And they will call it... NetPad Air
My understanding is that Apple may actually go through dozens of prototypes and design iterations to come up with the final product. That really shouldn't be a surprise either. The assumption here though is that these are further along than normal lab prototypes, more like production tests units. Or maybe the translation is messing with my mind.
What doesn't mess with my mind is this idea of an iPhone with a keyboard. I think it is a very real possibility. Why? It is pretty simple really, such a keyboard provides for a larger screen or view port while entering text. Such a device makes for far easier text entry and more importantly far better editing. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing those little auto correct errors after you send out a message.
More importantly the slide out keyboard doesn't have to be the fixed function device we have seen on other phones. Instead it could be a slide out LCD touch screen of sorts. This would allow Apple to continue to have one device for world wide distribution due to the nature of a soft keyboard. It would be well worth a few bucks extra at the check out counter, especially for people using their iPhones a lot for text entry. In effect you get a much larger screen in the same form factor. The issue then becomes how do you do such a keyboard without making the iPhone FAT.
Why waste a keyboard when they can just expand the screen size it will solve two purposes have larger screen estate plus more room for the keyboard & content to co-exist without cluttering.
I agree completely, anyone who has followed Apple for any length of time knows they would not consider a slide-out keyboard. They made that prototype to expose a leak (or else it is just chaff).
or a false start to their competitors, I am guessing the competitors might have bought themselves to the 7" inch ipad (ignoring the display pricing). And there is one more thing that such leaks does is that the some competition may actually buy into one of these as their future product and start working in the wrong direction.
Sorry, That's just wrong - It will _play_ cassettes.
You sure you're not confused with Sony's Walkphone?
Instead of a slide out keyboard why not a slide out gamepad?
I think you're thinking about he next PSP Sony is working on.
I don't care what you say, you can't type as fast on an iPhone as with a 5 row keyboard!
the moment apple release and iPhone w/ a HW keyboard, I'll can my awful android phone.
I don't care what you say, you can't type as fast on an iPhone as with a 5 row keyboard!
And I don't care what you say; I can't type as fast on a physical phone keyboard as I can on an iPhone's keyboard.
To. Each. Their. Own.
the moment apple release and iPhone w/ a HW keyboard, I'll can my awful android phone.
I don't care what you say, you can't type as fast on an iPhone as with a 5 row keyboard!.
Nobody who can touch type ( or any fast type) can. I bet all the long posts here promoting the iPhones screen were on a laptop. Its fine for text, twitter and messages. Not for real work.
I just read on macrumors theres an ninth prototype that boots off cassette.
You do know that back in the Apple II days (over 30 years ago), while the machine booted from ROM, you loaded programs from cassette (before Wozniak developed the floppy drive controller). Computers like the Apple II and the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I (lovingly known as the "trash-80") used to come with portable Panasonic cassette recorders with piano-type control keys.
I think it worked on the Apple pretty smoothly (but obviously slowly), but on the Radio Shack, you'd see two asterisks on the upper right hand corner of the screen. You'd adjust the volume control so that one asterisk was solid and the other blinked. Then you'd rewind the tape and start the "real" load of the program.
When Apple, Commodore and Radio Shack came out with the first floppy drives (all of about 130K each), it seemed miraculous. Accessory manufacturers used to sell punches so you could notch a write hole and use both sides of the floppy, even though the back side would not have been certified.
I saw a report on Fox that the 12th iPhone prototype has a slide-out muslim from kenya. And it's all an Egyptian/AOL conspiracy to restore the caliphate. Or something like that, I was just flipping channels waiting for American Idol to come back on.
+1!
That made me spit out my coffee.
You do know that back in the Apple II days...
Ahh, brings back memories! I started out on a C64 in the early 80's. It would really make a player wrestle every last ounce of enjoyment out of a game when you had to wait 15 minutes for the damn thing to load. And then sometimes, it would get to the end of the loading process, and... crash! Maybe a drop-out on the tape, and 1 byte didn't make it through correctly. So you had to start over.
Programmers came up with compression fairly soon however, reducing the load times off cassette to around 3-8 minutes, all the while flicking the background colour of the screen different colours, presumably in synch with the different byte values read off the cassette.
Those were the days...
Oh and copy-protection for cassette was kind of built-in.... you could dub a tape to a blank one, but it would lose fidelity during the analogue transfer, and the copy's signal would be too weak to load without being riddled with errors.