Sneak peek at Android’s upcoming on-screen keyboard
Android G1 users rejoice as an on-screen keyboard is coming your way in January 2009. The recent unveiling of the “cupcake” branch of Android development has revealed that Google has been working on lots of goodies for Android, one of them being an on-screen keyboard. A YouTube video gives us a quick look at the on-screen portrait keyboard which pops up quite nicely when a text box is selected. Sure it looks a bit familiar, but useful just the same.
Would come in handy once touch screen only Android phones come out.
@jdslim or when you don’t feel like sliding the phone open and going landscape mode to type a short message. When I had a qwerty slider I used the on screen keyboard a decent bit, even though it was the of the awful windows mobile onscreen keyboard variety.
With this onscreen keyboard and new, not prototype looking hardware, I could totally be sold on the Android platform. The iPhone annoys me too much in daily use, I need something more open
Sure, an on-screen keyboard can come in handy on occasion, but I really prefer the hardware keyboard – I can see other Android devices needing it due to their design profile, but for the G1 – Its good – looking forward to Cupcake tho!
As long as it has an POP3/IMAP email client that works, most definitely FTW for me!
Already looks better than the iStorm.
does it work in landscape mode?
why would you need the virtual keyboard in landscape mode?
“i need something more open”
throw your iphone on the floor so that it cracks open DA.
or just jailbreak it. if you dont like your iphone jailbroken, what else do you need other then a keyboard and trackball.
The same reason the iPhone needs a touch screen keyboard in landscape mode!!!
is it really that hard to push the screen up on the G1 and type away? i’m still trying to figure this out.
I can see why people would want this, the only thing I’m still trying to figure out, is why didn’t this phone already have that?
The argument as to whether or not this is needed really has nothing to do with the G1. The G1 is nothing in the Android product planning universe. Personally, I hope to see a much slimmer, much sexier Android phone in the near future – and I wouldn’t mind a touchscreen-only device. I doubt its effectiveness in terms of fast typing if the screen isn’t multi-touch, though. . . so I’m hoping for that in an upcoming device.
And of course the keyboard needs to have a landscape option. Bring it on.