Before it launched, the iPhone’s virtual keyboard was one of the most speculated-about features in Apple’s handset. Could a touchscreen keyboard possibly be as easy to use as a physical keypad, whether for writing quick texts, longer emails, or entering web URLs?
In short, the answer is ‘yes’. Although by no means perfect, the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard works well, and while you wouldn’t want to write long documents on it, for all the functions described above it’s fine. Which is a surprise, since the keys look small compared to the average big man-thumb. Yet an efficient auto-correct feature ensures you don’t type gibberish.
It is possible to type one-handed on the iPhone, but I found the quickest and most comfortable position to be gripping the handset two-handed, and using both thumbs to jab at the screen. For my first hour using the device, I was regularly hitting one key to the left of the one I wanted, but I broke through some invisible barrier after that, and it’s been fine since.
The basic keyboard is stripped down, with just the letter keys, a shift key on the left hand side, delete on the right, and three contextual keys in the bottom row - they’re a ‘.’ a ‘/’ and a ‘.com’ when you’re entering URLs, but a ’space’ an ‘@’ and a ‘.’ when emailing. There’s also a soft key to switch to numbers and symbols (including the Euro, which is nice).
The auto-correct function replaces your typos, which is useful 98% of the time, but irritating if you’re trying to type a specific word or piece of slang, which it believes is something else. I haven’t figured out how to override it yet (remember, this review is from the perspective of a user, not an expert journalist), but on the whole find it much more useful when typing. Overall, the virtual keyboard is much better than expected, and while it doesn’t rival a physical QWERTY keyboard of the kind that slides out from a number of smartphones nowadays, it’s fine for iPhone users’ purposes.
Of course, the key use for it is email, which I’ve found seamless. It helps if you’re a user of Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL or Apple’s own .Mac, since all you need to do is enter your login details to set it up. It’s not much harder for accounts on other service providers though. Once set up, you’re presented with an inbox of your latest 50 messages, with each showing the sender, subject, time received and the first two lines of text. Jabbing a mail with your thumb takes you through to the full email (which is also a cue to download the full text and attachments).
I’m on Gmail, and it’s been invaluable for quickly checking my inbox on the move, or even in front of the TV in the evenings, and firing off quick replies when necessary - it automatically appends a slightly smug ’sent from my iPhone’ signature, which sharp-eyed recipients have picked up on. Like most of iPhone’s apps, Mail benefits from being able to swish your way up and down using your thumb, presenting a tactile interface.
I should say, I’ve been using POPmail, so am suffering from Gmail’s habit of every email you send coming back into your inbox. Once IMAP support appears on UK Gmail, that should improve things. Meanwhile, I can’t really say how good iPhone’s Mail app would be if you were a heavy corporate user, but for personal use it’s excellent.
Previous Parts
Part 1: First impressions
what do you think about so-called gPhone?
Ah, the semi-mystical creature that was supposed to signal Google’s attempts at mobile domination? Not going to happen. With Android being Google’s big announcement and HTC already saying it’ll launch Android handsets, the chances of a ‘Gphone’ are well, slim to none. What we might see is re-badged HTCs and so on released as ‘Google phones’, but that’ll be it.