Jul 27 2010

iPad Keyboard … Feature?

Categories: Rants Dave Rathbun @ 11:16 pm

I had to laugh today as I noticed a particular feature on my iPad. 😆 I was getting ready to log in to BOB. Here’s the screen shot. If you examine it closely you might see what amused me…

BOB Login Screen

I will give you a few moments to look over the screen shot. Pay careful attention to the keyboard… when you are ready for the answer, click ….

Did you get it? Here’s a closeup view of the area I noticed.

Closeup view of iPad keyboard

Get it yet?

If not, take a quick look at your own physical keyboard. If it’s like every keyboard I have used, you will see a tiny dot or raised ridge or marker of some kind on the “F” and “J” keys. I am a touch-typist, meaning I put my hands on the “home row” and go to town. I am a fairly quick typist because of years of piano lessons before I even started working on computers. The point of those two little marks is they denote where my index fingers rest on the keyboard if I am in the proper position for typing. Makes sense, right?

But not on an iPad. 😆 The keys are all virtual! There’s no way I am going to be able to “feel” on the keyboard and know that my fingers are in the proper location for touch typing… That remains, in fact, one of my biggest complaints about the iPad is the lack of a physical keyboard. I plan to get a bluetooth keyboard when it’s convenient to address this.

But for now, I will chuckle a little bit every time I pull up the virtual keyboard and see the home row clearly (and pointlessly) marked. There is another lesson to be shared here that will be addressed by a blog post from a friend of mine. Once it’s up, I will post a link. Until then, I think I’ll have to write Steve a quick note asking him why we have virtual bumps on a virtual keyboard. 😎

6 Responses to “iPad Keyboard … Feature?”

  1. Comment by Marek

    I had to close all windows and laughed VERY loudly ;-)))
    This is a good one.

    Did they “scanned” real keyboard and the picture is now used as a virtual keyboard?

  2. Comment by Joe

    I thought all Apple products had their nipples on the D and K keys!

  3. Comment by Dave Rathbun

    I don’t know, Joe, this is the first product I have purchased from Apple that has a keyboard, virtual or otherwise.

  4. Comment by Miss Universum

    it’s a shame the thing doesn’t distinguish between light touch and firm touch. If it did, you could place your fingers on the screen like on a real keyboard and the 2 marked keys could somehow feel “different” (vibrate?) making it possible to feel where you are. Guess they anticipated that development for the next release and that’s why they already implemented the ticks 😉
    So you’ll just have to wait for the Service Pack 😉

  5. Comment by Dave Rathbun

    I would rather see Apple implement something like my Blackberry, where if I press and hold a key it capitalizes the letter. Avoids the shift key altogether. I’m surprised that the iPad doesn’t already offer a shortcut for this. Or maybe they do, and I just don’t know it…

  6. Comment by JayDeeJaye

    I’m convinced that was on purpose. That is just too whimsical, makes me want one even more. Have you tried just holding your fingers on those two keys?

    Cheers Dave!