Let’s get one thing clear, the keyboard is not a good thing. It doesn’t matter if I can type at a million words per minute, which obviously I can, the bottom line is: it is not ‘natural’. Before you go all Darwin on me with this, what I mean by ‘natural’ is that the keyboard itself has no value – it is a separate piece of hardware that just ‘has’ to be present if you want to interact with your computer. Think about it, it was and is a necessary evil to communicate with a machine. The introduction of touch screens was a step closer to a natural way of doing things – it removed the clutter of input devices such as the mouse and the keyboard. If anything, Microsoft’s Courier is a very exciting product that is not a concept and is to hit the markets any time now. If the introductory videos of MS Courier is anything to go by, the new wave of technology will change the game itself. (Of course, Microsoft’s Windows 7 is geared for the touchscreen world, so this evolution of Human-Computer Interaction is no surprise).
The Blackberry-owners would disagree that keyboard is much faster than iPhone’s touchscreen. Well, I own a Blackberry. Say that to any hardcore iPhone user who will set you straight. And note, iPhone is the ‘first of its kind’ – give this touchscreen technology a few more evolutionary cycles, let Microsoft steal it properly (via the super-awesome MS Courier tablet) and then come back and tell me that keyboards are a good thing. Ha!
