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| BRAINSTORM |
At last! A tiny keyboard that doesn't suck!
By David Kirkpatrick
FORTUNE.COM
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(FORTUNE.COM) -- I'd guess FORTUNE readers don't send many text messages on their cell phones.
It's not that we have a thing against typed communication -- we spend an inordinate portion of our day typing out e-mails, and some of us are addicted to expensive BlackBerrys. It's just that "texting," as it's known, is a hassle on a regular phone.
Unlike, say, your typical 14-year-old mall rat, who texts at every available opportunity, we simply don't have the time. Who wants to tap the "5" key three times whenever we want an "L"? If it weren't so hard, I'm sure we'd all be texting like teenagers.
When I heard that someone had found a way to add all the keys of a computer keyboard to a normal cell phone keypad without reducing the numbers to the size of poppy seeds, it didn't seem possible. But when I actually saw how it's done, I had the proverbial light-bulb experience. Like that guy in the AT&T Wireless commercial who texts to make up with his wife, I felt like keying "I am an idiot." Of course! This is how it should be.
The person who developed this solution -- called Fastap -- is David Levy, a serial inventor who spent five years doing ergonomic work at Apple. Levy is a legend in the world of computer design: He helped create the first laptop computer with the keyboard moved to the back and the first with a touchpad to control the cursor. I'm convinced that Fastap is his next hit.
His company, Digit Wireless, has been refining this cell phone keypad for four years and finally has it working in real phones. The design, protected by a raft of patents, essentially superimposes alphabet keys onto the numeric ones. Surrounding the number keys are little raised areas that represent letters.
It's surprisingly easy to type on such a keypad -- Levy claims users can reach 30 words per minute. And because it takes up roughly the same area as today's keypads, it wouldn't be difficult to incorporate into phone designs.
Despite the obvious appeal of an invention like Fastap, it hasn't been easy to get the cell industry's attention. Until now the position of the major carriers and cell phone makers has basically been, We're serving an industry that's exploding anyway, so why try something new? But that attitude is changing, and with good reason. One major carrier calculates it gets $138 more in annual revenue from a customer who uses data services like texting than from someone who only talks on the phone.
This year Panasonic built the world's first Fastap phone, enabling more than a dozen carriers worldwide to begin testing the keypad. John Windolf is in charge of evaluating new technologies for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association in Washington, D.C. He's a Fastap partisan: "It's a fabulous technology, elegantly simple and intuitive for users. It still looks like a phone when you're finished integrating it into the devices. As a consequence it should be picked up quite quickly by the manufacturers."
Daniel Meredith, a senior manager at Telephia, a cell phone-industry data and consulting firm, says he's also convinced that large carriers will soon start adopting Fastap. Canada's Telus Mobility, with more than three million customers, has already said it plans to offer phones with the new keypad.
Not surprisingly, some of Levy's best allies are the industry's newcomers. And luckily for him, it's an industry with a serious power struggle underway, led by some real heavies.
Intel, for example, is making a big play to move into cell phones and this year built its first Mobile Communicator -- a concept device to demonstrate how its chips can power next-generation phones. The device's keypad is Fastap. And Microsoft is interested in Fastap for its new Smartphones.
At the moment the cell phone networks remain underutilized. We've only untethered our conversations so we can walk and talk; we could be staying in touch in a far greater variety of ways.
Levy gives just one example: "Now mass transit is a pain because you have to wait for the bus to come. Imagine if you could just use your cell phone to say where you want to go -- then it can call you and say, 'Go to such-and-such corner for the bus in two minutes.'
Now we can give you the whole Internet but with location-based features -- it knows where you are and where you're heading."
The only problem with Fastap is that Digit Wireless is a tiny self-funded startup that has taken a while to build momentum. But I think it's really onto something big. If inexpensive phones with Fastap were widely adopted we could see lots of new businesses develop.
"One thing I learned at Apple," Levy says, "is that ease of use equals use. The Internet basically sat there unused for 20 years, and then somebody invented an easy interface -- Mosaic -- and e-mail went from hundreds of thousands a month to billions a month today. Think how useful the mobile Internet would be if it were just a mobile version of the Internet, instead of something degraded."
My ten fingers hope Fastap takes off soon.
