(keitai-l) Re: Mobile Phones Must Die?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Renfield Kuroda" <Renfield.Kuroda@msdw.com>
To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:06 PM
Subject: (keitai-l) Re: Mobile Phones Must Die?


> Stephen Carter wrote:
> > As for an input device, that's a bit harder. After all, we're still
using
> > keyboards at the desk top. And even though a FEW Japanese teenagers, who
> > seem to have little else to do, have mastered input on a Keitai keypad
> > doesn't mean that it's a good or desirable input method,or that it will
> > become a long-term world standard.
>
>
> Not to belittle the point, but TENS OF MILLIONS of users across Japan
> and Europe who are phenomenally proficient at inputting on a 1-key is
> not an anomaly.

Do we really know how proficient they are? I suspect people don't input very
much with the 10-key. Perhaps if it does become the only way many people
input, then we'll develope some kind of short hand expression like the old
telegraph language.

True, it's also amazing that people can use a QWERTY keyboard--certainly
takes some training. And I'm always amazed at how many people type quite
well using only two fingers on the standard keyboard. I can't do it that way
at all, yet I wonder if the majority of people do in fact not touch type,
but look at the keyboard and use two fingers only.

> Agreed it's not THE solution, but so far it's no worse than a QWERTY
> keyboard (itself a reasonably contested input method) and it's certainly
> the most prolific; there are hundreds of millions of cell phones in the
> world with 10-keys, vastly outnumbering the number of qwerty keyboards
> in the world. That alone might mean that, even though 10-key input isn't
> the best, it is most certainly the most popular, and therefore a defacto
> standard...


It's the most popular method for things that have ONLY 10-key input. I don't
see people using it in situations where something else is available. Of
course if people who have never used a "better" method learn to use a 10-key
proficiently, then they might prefer that even at a desktop. I imagine
someone has done an analysis on how much more effort it takes to use a
10-key than a standard key board, or some other device. Or perhaps it takes
less effort, even though it takes more key strokes.



Steve Carter




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