
Palm Saturday - nickb
http://daringfireball.net/2009/06/palm_saturday
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Tichy
I agree one the keyboard issue. Even the Palm Pre does not have a full
keyboard (I assume those keys are tiny, too), so not having experienced that
kind of keyboard before, I wonder how much easier to use than the iPhone
keyboard it would really be. I am willing to believe that it is a little bit
easier, but neither solution would be convenient for writing a novel or
something.

The price for the keyboard is high, though: extreme ugliness! The sliding
parts thing alone is awful. Even without that, I would expect a keyboard to be
prone to getting dirty, and being more brittle than just a flat, solid,
iPhone-like brick.

~~~
rimantas
There is another point—international markets. I assume sooner or later Palm
will want to expand to overseas. iPhone has it easy—it is all just software.
How about Pre—will users be forced to memorize where the keys are, or will
Palm incur cost of manufacturing different keyboards?

~~~
halo
Palm will incur the cost of making a single part with different layouts for
each region, but the cost of this is negligible as to make it a complete non-
issue. Companies like Blackberry, and indeed Palm themselves, already do this
and laptop manufacturers have been dealing with major keyboard differences for
years, so I don't see why Palm will suddenly have any significant problems
associated with it.

