About PKP

Physical Keyboard Phones is deeply unfashionable. Touchscreens are in vogue - to be seen without one is to concede that practicality takes precedent over pulchritude. While touchscreens are an extremely impressive part of today's technological landscape, their dominance of the market is unhealthy and hopefully temporary.

Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, mobile technology has changed course significantly. In previous years, the main enemy of practicality was excessive miniaturization - the seemingly insatiable appetite for increasingly miniscule devices. Now, physical size is less of an issue (thinness counts for more than dimensions) but the emphasis is very much on the touchscreen, over and above other ergonomic considerations.

PKP is not stuck in the mud, nor does it advocate resistance to progress. PKP wants greater consumer choice and a broader spectrum of phone availability. Nearly everybody owns one, yet there are only a handful of models from half a dozen manufacturers on sale. And of those, only Research In Motion's Blackberry handsets offer a physical QWERTY keyboard.

Touchscreens suffice for most non-text applications. But the very existence of third-party physical keyboards for iPhone and excitement every time real keys get mentioned demonstrate that there is a growing backlash against the faddy, ineffective touchscreen. Maybe Tactus will get it right with their new invention, or maybe manufacturers will realize that professionals can seldom afford the inaccuracy of the touchscreen. Technology needs to adapt to the consumer, not the other way around.