For years I looked at the US mobile phone industry and wondered about it's fascination with having QWERTY keyboards on mobile phones. I thought that because the US was behind Europe in regards to mobile technology, I'm talking 5 years ago here, that maybe US mobile users just didn't yet understand the benefits of the 12 key input paradigm that was/is dominant in Europe. How wrong I was!

I have had a QWERTY keyboard on my G1 for almost a year now and I won't ever go back to the 12 key input paradigm. It's pretty much dead to me. As phones have become more powerful, better connected and we need to input more data more often the 12 key input paradigm becomes a disadvantage as it's just not conducive to this type of usage. Future mobile devices must take this into account if they are too succeed. Last week I went and had a look at the Motorola DEXT/CLIQ and although it has a full QWERTY hardware keyboard I didn't like the keypad ergonomics and rejected the device immediately. Data input has become that important to me!

And I'm still not sure about whether I want to own a device that has only got a software keyboard. I get along just fine with my iPod Touch software keyboard (especially when using my thumbs in landscape mode) but ultimately I'm quicker and feel more comfortable with a hardware keypad. Either way the current 12 key input paradigm is dead because future mobile devices will need to allow users to input data as efficiently as possible.