AfterDawn: News

HTC says bye bye to QWERTY keypads on phones

HTC has announced this week that it has no more plans to create phones with QWERTY keypads.

While the company has been focusing on touchscreen designs for years now, there were the occasional devices with full keyboards for those who are fans of hitting actual buttons rather than simulated versions.



The company's last QWERTY-sporting design was the "Facebook phone," the ChaCha, which failed miserably despite its deep integration to the social network.

As a struggling smartphone maker, HTC recently released their quarterly earnings for the Q1 2012, and they were not pretty. For the quarter, revenues were NT$67,790 million (about $2.3 billion), a full 35 percent decrease year-over-year. Quarter-over-quarter, the company saw an equally bad fall, down from NT$101.42 billion ($3.43 billion) in the Q4 2011.

HTC recently launched their One line of smartphones, each of which has come with rock solid reviews. The new devices, along with the company's recent purchases of Beats Audio, SyncTV and MOG give hope the smartphone maker can regain some footing in the ever-competitive mobile phone market.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 21 Apr 2012 10:43

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• 9 comments

• Jeffrey_P

  I don't know why more consumer products manufacturers haven't dumped the QWERTY keyboard.
  
  QWERTY was developed for typewriters because ABC... caused the hammers to stick together. Abc and so on are the most common keys used.
  
  Jeff

  21.4.2012 19:08 #1

• A5J4DX

  finally moving on
  

  21.4.2012 21:52 #2

• Disgruntled (unverified)

  This is not moving on, this is chronological snobbery. The fact that the keyboard predates the touchscreen is not evidence that the keyboard is inferior. There's still no touchscreen that's even close to good enough for typing.

  22.4.2012 01:20 #3

• motormous

  working with computers for my job having to look for an alpha keyboard rather than a qwerty one means i never use an alpha. my fingers know where the keys are. prefer qwerty after 30 years using them
  

  23.4.2012 08:03 #4

• Jeffrey_P

  Back in the late '70's and early '80's I was supervisor of Tab products company data entry division. They missed the boat when the IBM i8088 PC was released trying to keep an 80 column 200 pound keypunch and key to disk which sported an 8" floppy disk alive. The 8" floppy was a Seagate which weighed a hefty 20 or so pounds.
  
  Shipped machines thru out the US and EU. QWERTY and EBCDIC keyboards were the norm. However even way back when I questioned the usefulness of such dated keyboard standards.
  
  Jeff
  

  Cars, Guitars & Radiation.

  23.4.2012 10:14 #5

• ddp

  because qwerty is still taught in schools which is why it is still being used.
  

  23.4.2012 11:48 #6

• andypryce

  Qwerty keyboards were developed with letters that commonly go together close to each other. Once you learn where the keys are it is much faster typing than with an abc keyboard.

  7.5.2012 20:26 #7

• ddp

  wrong, qwerty keyboards were designed to slow a a typist down on the old manual typewriters as a person can type faster then the mechanical linkages can & the keys get jammed up. ever hear of a dorvak keyboard as laid out differently from a qwerty keyboard?
  

  7.5.2012 23:13 #8

• BobShaft

  I prefer phones with the physical keyboard. Makes it easier to type without looking directly at the phone constantly.
  
  According to Wikipedia "A popular myth is that QWERTY was designed to "slow down" typists though this is incorrect – it was designed to prevent jams while typing at speed, allowing typists to type faster"
  
  I think the idea is that they placed the most used keys away from each other to keep them from jamming together when typing fast.
  

  14.5.2012 09:28 #9