Author: Hannah Gilchrist
Date: 16/05/2008
I'm afraid that I'm going to have to take issue with my colleague: the day of the physical QWERTY keyboard on a phone is over, and web-centric phones like the iPhone are the future.
Now I'm not knocking the BlackBerry or its keyboard-equipped ilk. Far from it - in fact, I owned a BlackBerry before I owned my iPhone, and if you're the kind of person who gets a lot of email and must respond to it via text, then it's for you. Or, if you're one of those strange under-18's who have incredibly well-developed thumb muscles from high-speed texting, then a BlackBerry is a great option.
But for the rest of us, the people who spend more time browsing that typing, having all that space devoted to a keyboard that we hardly ever use is wasted space. It's far more useful for me to have that space given over to a big screen that I can browse on than having tiny little buttons to press.
So, I'm afraid, you won't prise my iPhone out of my hands - unless you're Steve Jobs and you want to give me a new, upgraded model!