Texting on the iPhone: Pros and Cons
The Apple iPhone has done a lot to pump up the 3g and 4g phone popularity. This cool looking device with its touchscreen commands, and the thousands of user apps have turned the smart phone market on its head. Every cell phone company has scrambled to compete, and in the meantime Apple brought out the newer iPhone models which had buyers waiting in line to buy one.
Most people use their smart phones almost obsessively, texting and messaging through social networking sites like Facebook. How does the iPhone rate in usability for this main function?
Unfortunately it does not rate very well. The original iPhone was tested for accuracy and speed while using the onscreen touch keyboard to send messages.
The iPhone was compared to a smartphone with a fold out or slide out QWERTY style button keyboard. Most of the testers were experienced text users, and were asked to compose preplanned messages using each phone. The difference in the speed and the accuracy was noticeably better for the QWERTY equipped phones, even in spite of the keyboard button being relatively small.
In fact it took these users twice the amount of time to compose the same message on the iPhone. The issue of accuracy was a fault of the iPhone, and the users had to back space a lot to re-input the correct letters. A group of users was also tested using the standard cell phone keyboard which is numeric. These users fared almost as well as the QWERTY users, still faster than on the iPhone.
Many users complained about the iPhone's lack of any touch response, and for women with longer nails the onscreen keyboard was very hard to use.
Help for Texters
There are now aftermarket overlays available that have an onscreen keyboard guide. These will offer some protection for the iPhone screen and help the user to more easily locate the keys to type on.
Apple has recently released the iPhone 4. There are two versions of this model, and depending on which cell provider you use determines which version you will have.
Subtle differences are found in the two, but one major block is that network provider Verizon limits your texting to 160 characters per message.
Tips for Texting on the iPhone
Turning off the autocorrect feature on the iPhone seems to be helpful when texting, as you can then use shortened words, phrases like LOL, and slang words without the machine trying to change these. Turning the phone on its side will make the keyboard longer and easier to navigate.
The iPhone is an "uber-popular" and slick device, and once you master the text messaging features it will be much loved.