Ben and Mayor's "Apple Building the Blackberry Killer?" Blog entry

[chadaw]

Interesting blog entry. Of course with or without the qwerty the iPhone is hitting the Blackberry market hard.

I have owned a T-mobile Dash, MDA II and use a T-Mobile Wing now. I have to say I will miss the qwerty when I get the iPhone 3G. I know it doesn't seem to be sexy to have a keyboard on your phone, but come on, some people do have big hands.

I did test drive a iPhone a couple months ago, and most of my touches sparked a different key. However iPhone does have one mean word predictor.

[alex.stef]

If they go that way, with the slide out keyboard, there's a risk of losing some iPhone fans and I don't know if that will compensate with the BlackBerry users who could make the jump...

[Sam DaCool]

Wait is that an actual picture?

I think that would be pretty cool but i get the feeling that it wouldn't be so popular. Though it has much larger keys than regular phone keyboards which is a plus. I just think apple is getting a little ahead of themselves.

A cool idea would be to have a slide out, touch, QWERTY keyboard but thats asking for a little much.

[ipodtoucher]

No that wasn't an actual picture But i see both sides of the argument. the main thing for the iPhone was the touchscreen, and then to integrate a touch keyboard really made the product fly. But there is the occasional misspell because the keys are so small, or the Auto-Correct using the wrong word haha. I agree with chad, some people do need the extra space to type. But IMHO i think it's a bad idea. The iPhone is staying on top of the game by having a touchscreen keyboard. Every phone maker now is trying to integrate a physical QWERTY keyboard. Plus I don't think the "slide" is proper Apple design. I mean it doesn't fit with the simplicity of their other products...

[Benny and the Jets]

its going to make the iphone heaver tho.
i like how light the iphone is atm.

anything bigger or heavier is going to be too much. i think

[webwise]

I don't think any of us should assume that there's only going to be one version, i.e. virtual OR physical keyboard. I think they'll be one targeted to the personal user and this other targeted to business users..."iPhone PRO", if you will.

Apple's smart - they're going to leverage all this momentum from an incredible product that's gotten so much hype (and deservedly so). So they are doing what smart companies do, and that is to listen to existing and potential users, and meet the needs of those users while innovating. If they've really created a prototype to garner valuable input from companies - it will further ensure their success.

So, anyone else buy this? iPhone and iPhone Pro? We'll see...and I believe - based on historical data - we'll love it.

[chadaw]

Good discussion and thought going on here. Personally, I don't have a problem with bigger and heavier things so it doesn't phase me a bit if they added it. But it is true, a sliding keyboard could detract from the simplistic design as ipodtoucher said. I also agree with webwise that they may make a couple versions of the iPhone. If they done that I would definately want to get the max impact one.

[jassoalf]

i really dont know what to say about this.
blackberry have some very nice functions that the apple productos are not goin to have like share audio files and stuff so...

[webwise]

Apple has never been one to jump on the "be all things to all people" bandwagon. They create beautiful products that do KEY THINGS exceptionally well...(in this case, phone, internet, mail, & media player).

The fact is, there probably isn't anything that is not in the upcoming iPhone (factoring in the Apps in the App Store) that someone will consider a "must have" feature in order to consider the iPhone vastly more useful (even if there are some you can think of - any iPhone developer now has the infrastructure to create that feature and earn money doing it - how cool is that!).

Here's my commentary of some of those "necessary" features being talked about from time to time:

- Editing documents (i.e. word, excel, etc.)...does anyone really want to use a handheld device to edit these documents on a regular basis? There may be a few, but the majority wouldn't - and I'm with the majority. That's what notebooks are for.

- Better camera..."better" is so relative here - because the photographer has a different meaning of better versus the business person versus the technology geek. The iPhone has a decent phone camera. Do you really want a "better" camera that will add to the size and/or cost to the device? I probably would, but most won't. And video? I bet it'll be in the app store in no time.

- Copy/paste - I agree this is a "nice to have". But the lack thereof hasn't kept me from being unproductive...in fact, it would probably frustrate me to have to use it frequently on a mobile device (back to my "edit documents" point above)...

The tradeoff for Apple to be "all things to all people" is the device's usability. Think about WHY people love the device (or why YOU do). I bet your answer (and everyone you ask) will include the phrase "simple to use", or "best user experience", or "fun to use"...and it's all because Apple reinvented the mobile device that handles email/phone/internet/media player seamlessly and elegantly.[/b]

I do believe the physical keyboard is a strong argument, particularly for the business user - and I believe Apple is addressing this as we speak...

My 2 cents. OK, 13 cents.

[chadaw]

Originally Posted by webwise

Apple has never been one to jump on the "be all things to all people" bandwagon. They create beautiful products that do KEY THINGS exceptionally well...(in this case, phone, internet, mail, & media player).

The fact is, there probably isn't anything that is not in the upcoming iPhone (factoring in the Apps in the App Store) that someone will consider a "must have" feature in order to consider the iPhone vastly more useful (even if there are some you can think of - any iPhone developer now has the infrastructure to create that feature and earn money doing it - how cool is that!).

Here's my commentary of some of those "necessary" features being talked about from time to time:

- Editing documents (i.e. word, excel, etc.)...does anyone really want to use a handheld device to edit these documents on a regular basis? There may be a few, but the majority wouldn't - and I'm with the majority. That's what notebooks are for.

- Better camera..."better" is so relative here - because the photographer has a different meaning of better versus the business person versus the technology geek. The iPhone has a decent phone camera. Do you really want a "better" camera that will add to the size and/or cost to the device? I probably would, but most won't. And video? I bet it'll be in the app store in no time.

- Copy/paste - I agree this is a "nice to have". But the lack thereof hasn't kept me from being unproductive...in fact, it would probably frustrate me to have to use it frequently on a mobile device (back to my "edit documents" point above)...

The tradeoff for Apple to be "all things to all people" is the device's usability. Think about WHY people love the device (or why YOU do). I bet your answer (and everyone you ask) will include the phrase "simple to use", or "best user experience", or "fun to use"...and it's all because Apple reinvented the mobile device that handles email/phone/internet/media player seamlessly and elegantly.[/b]

I do believe the physical keyboard is a strong argument, particularly for the business user - and I believe Apple is addressing this as we speak...

My 2 cents. OK, 13 cents.

Yes I would love a better camera, even if that means more size and weight. I would love to edit office docs, but I am sure you can probably use google docs through internet on it to do that. And yeah I hope they are addressing the keyboard thing. Maybe a bluetooth mini keyboard, would kick ....