In August of 2006 the iPhone was still a formless, shapeless phantom to those of us outside 1 Infinite Loop. Signal vs. Noise bemoaned the pathetic state of mobile phone technology, pointing out that most users simply didn’t use the extra capabilities of their phones because of “software/interface failures” and general incompetence from the market leaders.
The blog post elicited 71 comments. I threw my hat into the ring with this wish:
When we can get past the numeric keypad as the primary interface, we’ll be in business. Cellphones are not phones any more than cars are horseless carriages. The company that can build a completely new interface from the ground up could make life a whole lot easier for all of us.
My point was that the numeric keypad is a terrible interface for entering text and selecting functions. Hitting the “4″ button five times in order to text “hi” is proof that piggybacking text entry functions onto a numeric keypad creates inherently awkward interactions. I did not mean that numeric entry was unnecessary, but apparently that’s how it registered to one reader, who thought I was a dolt and made no pains to hide his impression of me:
This is an extraordinarily dumb statement. Not only are phone addresses the world over numeric, there are zillions of automated systems with primarily numeric commands. This statement demonstrates zero understanding of everything phone-related.
The commenter seems to have conflated the entry of numerals with the dominant fixed numeric keypad entry mechanism. I used the term “interface” twice in my brief post, but it still seems I didn’t make it clear enough that I wasn’t seeking to eliminate the numbers altogether. Then again, I’m not sure how I could have made it any more clear.
Perhaps the commenter simply couldn’t imagine a contextual touch screen interface. The function of sending numbers over a mobile phone had been handled by numeric keypads for decades, so how could one remove the keypad and not remove number capabilities?
I certainly didn’t know how it would be done. My guess was that Apple would use a scroll wheel to handle both text and numbers. I was, however, just smart enough to realize that while I couldn’t figure out a solution, someone else might. Apple succeeded by throwing out the old playbook and rethinking the mobile phone from the ground up. No wonder so many people were startled by the iPhone.
There are some excellent comments in the Signal vs. Noise thread, from people who underestimated what Apple would do and from people who appear to have been looking for exactly what Apple delivered.
Image Credit
Keypad Closeup by Bill Bradford - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/149716493/ - Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
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