Uncarved

John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes another great piece, this time about the Pre, in which he struck upon a compelling insight with respect to the new device’s hardware keyboard.

From his post:

[I]t is my theory that a hardware keyboard is a significant selling point for only one group of customers: those who already own a phone with a hardware keyboard…

[...] Most normal people have yet to buy their first smartphone…. Normal people aren’t planning to do much typing on their new smartphones, and they’re probably right. Any smartphone QWERTY keyboard, software or hardware, is going to be better than what most people are used to, which is pecking things out on a phone with a 0-9 numeric keypad.

I type far better on my iPhone than I expected I’d be able to, and that seems to be true for everyone I know who owns one. The only people who struggle with the iPhone keyboard are those who are already accustomed to a hardware smartphone keyboard.

[...]

For as good as the Pre is, and I’m convinced it is excellent, it just doesn’t have much to offer that would sway someone considering an iPhone. But for someone considering a BlackBerry, the Pre might look very sweet: a big bright screen, a beautiful modern user interface design, a kick-ass mobile web browser, and, yes, a hardware keyboard. The Pre is the BlackBerry Bold done right.

My experience has been the same. The people I know that have hated the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard are people that had already become accustomed to using a hardware keyboard.

That particular insight aside, it’s great to hear — from someone whose software design reflections I’ve long respected — that Palm did such a solid job with the overall design of the WebOS.