Standard dozen may become mobile past
A new keypad for cell phones ...
"One of the most familiar technologies we use today may be on the verge of being replaced. The twelve-button design common on most mobile phones the world over and the standard for over 50 years, may finally disappear as new technologies like 3G require easier data usage from our handsets.
Or so says David Levy, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Digit Wireless, creators and patent holder for the new "Fastap" keypad. He believes that in the light of 3G advances and ever-greater access to data-sending technology, the time is right for a new design for our outmoded keypad. "It's one of the oldest pieces of technology that we still use," explains Levy. "We don't consider how it has aged because it is so pervasive. But from a technology standpoint the inside of the phone has advanced tremendously and the outside of the phone, the interface, has not."
The design itself, based on the old twelve-pad keypad but with letters on their own buttons interspaced between the number keys ("a traditional keypad on steroids"), is both faster to use and easier to understand for consumers, says Levy. Furthermore, if the current standard twelve-button keypad were to be launched on the market today it would be rejected, he says. "If you told people that you had to press this one key over and over again just to get the letter 'b', people would reject that idea completely. It's just a bad interface."
Levy should know a thing or two about ergonomics and user-friendliness within the electronics sector. It was when he was head of Portable Device Ergonomics at Apple Computer for five years that Apple introduced its first laptop with the keyboard "moved to the rear" and the first with a touch pad - both having since become industry standards for portable computers. "The whole focus of this technology is to be 'Apple-like'," Levy goes on to say. "It has to be extremely simple so that any individual is able to pick it up and use it and I believe it meets that criteria. There are a lot of different approaches that significantly change the design of the phone or change the way you input text. But this is an amplification of what we already have. That simple change seems to be dramatically increasing the data usage and messaging usage of people who would otherwise not do it." continued ... (Via China Daily)
"One of the most familiar technologies we use today may be on the verge of being replaced. The twelve-button design common on most mobile phones the world over and the standard for over 50 years, may finally disappear as new technologies like 3G require easier data usage from our handsets.
Or so says David Levy, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Digit Wireless, creators and patent holder for the new "Fastap" keypad. He believes that in the light of 3G advances and ever-greater access to data-sending technology, the time is right for a new design for our outmoded keypad. "It's one of the oldest pieces of technology that we still use," explains Levy. "We don't consider how it has aged because it is so pervasive. But from a technology standpoint the inside of the phone has advanced tremendously and the outside of the phone, the interface, has not."
The design itself, based on the old twelve-pad keypad but with letters on their own buttons interspaced between the number keys ("a traditional keypad on steroids"), is both faster to use and easier to understand for consumers, says Levy. Furthermore, if the current standard twelve-button keypad were to be launched on the market today it would be rejected, he says. "If you told people that you had to press this one key over and over again just to get the letter 'b', people would reject that idea completely. It's just a bad interface."
Levy should know a thing or two about ergonomics and user-friendliness within the electronics sector. It was when he was head of Portable Device Ergonomics at Apple Computer for five years that Apple introduced its first laptop with the keyboard "moved to the rear" and the first with a touch pad - both having since become industry standards for portable computers. "The whole focus of this technology is to be 'Apple-like'," Levy goes on to say. "It has to be extremely simple so that any individual is able to pick it up and use it and I believe it meets that criteria. There are a lot of different approaches that significantly change the design of the phone or change the way you input text. But this is an amplification of what we already have. That simple change seems to be dramatically increasing the data usage and messaging usage of people who would otherwise not do it." continued ... (Via China Daily)
The Fastap Keypad.
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