iPhone keyboard; Smarter than the average bear

Now that reviews of the iPhone have begun to come out, the big picture of the iPhone is finally coming into focus. Most worries about the phone have either been confirmed, or shot down. All four human beings who have reviewed the phone, commented on the keyboard. Walt Mossberg found the omission of a physical keyboard to be a non-issue, despite what he originally thought.

After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.

Though the “smartness” of the iPhone’s keyboard doesn’t end there. One feature of the iPhone’s keyboard that I wasn’t aware of, was its shape-shifting ability. Thats right, the iPhone is up there with the Hobgoblin. The iPhone is able to re-map itself depending on what you are doing.

Mac site “Watching Apple” has screenshots of what the keyboard looks like when you are entering an email address, text in the Address Bar and in Web Search. Each different text field has it’s own keyboard mapped with the keys you are most likely to use when typing. This just goes to show that Apple is doing everything they can to make the keyboard as intuitive and as easy to use as possible.

Read [Watching Apple]

Update: Today Apple has released a video demoing all aspects of the keyboard, so you can see these principles in action.