On a side note. I have tried typing on an tablet well after learning touch typing on a normal keyboard. I remembered Jobs' presentation and back then I believed him how easy and wonderful it is to type on a pad. It is practically impossible, even typing something as simple as an url is a pain.

Maybe you're doing it wrong? I've typed lots of posts and articles on a pad. And of course people type tons of text (messages, etc) on their iPhones and Android phones every day...

Touchscreen keyboards are a massive backward step in terms of usability.

According to this game I have an average speed of 157 WPM on an iPhone 4s.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/typingclass/id588121234?mt=8

http://imgur.com/TyEQ3nN

I really freaking hate typing on an iPhone 4s. I frequently hit space instead of a or backspace instead of l or m.

The keyboard isn't always the same and so sometimes I hit . instead of space.

The cheap bluetooth keyboard I bought makes typing very much nicer. That bluetooth keyboard is almost a toy, which is some indication of how terrible iPhone typing experience is.

(On a tangent: a version of that game using the hundred most commonly misspelled English words, or a simple / plain English vocabulary list would be useful. Especially if they software could speak the words at you.)

That game is horribly inaccurate. I downloaded it just now and on my first run it said I typed 185 words per minute average. That is over three words per second and I was typing nowhere close to that. More like 30 WPM while on a real keyboard I max out at 160 WPM with an average of 142.

Oh no!

Still, that means I would be even more likely to pay for a spelling / typing game that had more accurate speed tests. I'm not particularly keen on the weapons theme, so some cutesy forrest animals throwing snowballs might work.

How the duck can an application miscalculate something as basic as how WPM one gets?!

>According to this game I have an average speed of 157 WPM on an iPhone 4s

Sorry, but how does that counter what I said? Parent said that typing on a touchscreen "It is practically impossible".

If you have 157 WPM on iPhone 4s then it's a counter-proof that as I said, it's anything but "practically impossible".

That you "hate it" is another thing, which I can understand. It's not the best experience in the world and obviously sub par to a full keyboard. But it's clearly not "impossible".

And your 157 WPM are for 4s as you said.

iPhone 6, with the larger target area and auto-prediction, makes it even easier, at least for me. And if the new model brings some tactile (force) feedback, that would be even better.

Jobs would be proud...

Regardless of whether Jobs would be proud or not, for both iOS AND Android AND Windows Phone, touch screen keyboards are the #1 most popular type, and for good reason. The people have spoken.

If they were such a hidrance people could always still buy the keyboard models they abandonded en masse starting 2007.

Not really. Phones and tablets are mainly used for consuming data, not creating it. Text messages / whatsapp are usually short. Do you actually know anyone that writes more than a normal letter page on a touchscreen? (I am sure they are out there, but in a minority).

> If they were such a hidrance people could always still buy the keyboard models they abandonded en masse starting 2007.

You mean the ones I keep on seeing on trains and planes?

Yeah, I mean the statistical noise you see on trains and planes.

These were pretty neat, and very nearly Apple's best keyboard. But I went through several of them; the keys would wear out after about six months of use (not sure what failed, my guess was keyboard contacts).

The Fujitsu KBPC E is a similar USB keyboard. Quality is adequate -- no mechanical keys etc -- but it's pretty flexible and you can sometimes get new ones for low prices on eBay.

Since the split is adjustable, you can experiment with the separation. That should help you decide whether you want to go for a more dramatic ergonomic model.

http://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/computing/peripheral/acc...

What— you don't approve of the sleek aluminium unergonomic mushroom-key:d Apple Keyboards?

Heretic!

I had to use one during the time we did an iOS project.

Never understood how people find those keyboards usable at all.