Engadget has some new details about the iPhone and according to one of their insiders that has playing around with a pre-launch device and one of the tidbits most concerning to me was the experience with the touchscreen keyboard.

The keyboard was simply described as disappointing“. Keyboarding with two thumbs often registers multiple key presses (two or three at a time) resulting in a lot of mistakes. The best way to type is with a single finger (as shown in most of Apple’s demos), but two thumbs is supposedly very difficult. After trying it for a number of days our source gave up using their thumbs.

You can see from the picture to the right that iPhone users probably won’t suffer from BlackBerry thumb simply because the keys are too close together to effectively text anything out with your thumbs.


What if, however, the iPhone had a landscape mode keyboard like the one in the mockup below?

Their seems to be enough space between the keys that typing “BlackBerry Style” with both thumbs would be comfortable as well as cut down on the number of multiple keystrokes being registered.