Monday 17 February 2014

QWERTY Keyboards and Touchscreens

We all learned to type on a QWERTY keyboard and it has crept up into something so natural that our muscles have started to remember them. In this era of smartphones, the traditional physical QWERTY has now a touchscreen cousin. So which do you prefer- the QWERTY keyboard or the touchscreen?

Nowadays we see keyboards in a horde of avatars in desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. The era of the petite handheld devices has heralded a radical change in our conception of a keyboard- now they have a new touchscreen design.

Why is QWERTY 'QWERTY'?

The QWERTY keyboard that we see today has historical reasons to have the keys arranged the way it is. Frequently used pairs of letters were spaced out as much as possible because in the age of the typewriters, a fast typist can jam the print hammers of the keys with their typing speed!
Even though in modern computer there is no such limitation, the QWERTY has lived because of the typing standard that it had set which if removed would be so inconvenient. Keyboards will never stop being QWERTY!

Touchscreens to the Fore

The world peeked at wonder at PDAs when they came into the digital world. It was cool. But we really had a good look at the touchscreen keyboards only when the smartphones heaved into reckoning- a trend that evolved with the coming of the first Apple iPhone in 2007. The keyboard in a touchscreen was an instant hit and it became that touchscreens could be much easier to use.

Touchscreens or QWERTY?

Some people still clung to the traditional physical keyboard and this brought the classic conflict among pundits on the better of the two- QWERTY and modern touchscreen keyboards. The simplicity and sleekness of the touchscreen design is not something that you can write off. Once you get accustomed to its ways, a traditional QWERTY keyboard will seem avoidable.
But QWERTYs have their own place- when it comes to act as something that helps you to input data QWERTY keyboards is more useful. When it comes to consuming information and for day-to-day tasks a touchscreen device will suffice. However traditionalists claim that touchscreens are clumsy- they are inaccurate and slows down input.

What to Choose?

If you are asking what to choose- a touchscreen keyboard or a QWERTY, the answer is that it depends on what you want to do with your gadget. If you use for business purposes and have to edit documents and write a lot of emails, then you can consider a physical QWERTY keyboard. A problem with QWERTY keyboards is that they mess up with the smartphone form factor- it almost doubles the phone thickness. QWERTY keyboards don't have much commercial appeal too. For all other purposes, coming to terms with touchscreen keyboard is the best bet.

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