marco:

Dan Moren, nicely expressing my biggest concern with any Apple “Tablet” that even slightly resembles everyone’s guesses:

Wait, wait, wait. We’re talking about a revolutionary new device that will let you watch videos, play music, and probably even control your own squadron of death robots (not included), and I’m worried about something as mundane as text entry?

Well, yeah.

Text entry is the second-biggest limiting factor of the usefulness of different computing-device portability classes. (The biggest is size: how likely is it that you’ll have the device with you when you want to use it?)

This doesn’t apply to media players, so if that’s primarily what The Tablet is supposed to be (which would be disappointing, but not unlikely), they can get away with a low-usefulness, on-screen touch keyboard. But for The Tablet to be a useful general-computing device, text input needs to be faster and easier than what even the best on-screen keyboards have been able to offer so far.

I think a rather elegant solution to both sets of customers is to have an on-screen keyboard for those who want simplicity, and a USB port to add a low-profile keyboard for those looking to use it as a portable computer.

[edit] Bluetooth could work equally well for a keyboard.

Source: marco

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