Submitted by Mike Grenville on Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:23

A trial has found that texting using Apple's new iPhone is two times slower than on QWERTY phones.

This may come as a shock to some Apple devotees, but using an iPhone may not always be as easy you think. Having already identified texting as potentially problematic for new iPhone customers, Chicago-based usability consultancy User Centric, tested the iPhone's touch keyboard compared with conventional QWERTY and numeric phone keyboards.

"While multi-touch technology has been around for over a decade, the unique form factor of the iPhone is very compelling as it opens the door to a whole new set of user experiences" said Gavin Lew, Managing Director of User Centric.

The goal of this study was to determine how easy it was for conventional mobile phone users to text using the iPhone.

QWERTY Users Needed Twice As Long

In the trial each participant typed six fixed-length text messages on their own phone and six on an iPhone. Each message was between 104-106 characters in length (including spaces). Six of the messages each contained 8-10 instances of proper capitalization and punctuation, while the remaining six messages contained no capitalization or punctuation but had some abbreviations.

It took QWERTY users almost twice as long to create the same message on the iPhone as it did on their QWERTY phone. While there was improvement over time, the difference persisted even after using the iPhone for 30 minutes.

"For QWERTY users, texting was fast and accurate. But when they switched to the iPhone, they were frustrated with the touch sensitive keyboard," said Jen Allen, Usability Specialist, User Centric.

Text Entry Took As Long As Multi-Tap

Although multitap is inherently inefficient, numeric phone users took nearly as long to create a message on the iPhone as they did on their numeric phones. There was no increase in efficiency despite the iPhone's corrective text approach.

High Keyboard Inaccuracy

When using the iPhone's touch keyboard, all participants frequently selected keys that they had not intended. Some mentioned that the feel of the key on conventional phones helps them locate the desired key without having to focus on the actual keypad. Some indicated that they could be more accurate with the stylus rather than their fingers due to the sensitivity of the screen.

Participants made an average of 11 errors per message on the iPhone compared to an average of 3 errors per text message on their own phone. In particular, participants struggled when they were trying to type using the Q & W keys or the O & P keys on the iPhone. Although the error rate was alleviated somewhat by the iPhone's self-correction feature, participants were still frustrated.

Participants usually corrected these errors by using the backspace key to erase one character at a time. Only 7 participants figured out how to use the corrective text feature on their own.

Participants in the previous study uniformly found text entry SMS and email to be difficult. They were frustrated by the forced use the vertical keyboard and the lack of visibility for editing the middle of a word or sentence. Rather scarily, participants did not think they could text message on the iPhone safely while driving.

Implications

"Our study indicates that both QWERTY and multi-tap users are likely to have some level of initial frustration with the iPhone's touch keyboard and corrective text features. Although our analysis suggests that both types will eventually adapt to the iPhone's features, the learning curve for texting on iPhones will be steeper for QWERTY phone users than multi-tappers" concluded Allen.

A Multimedia Phone Without Multimedia

"The reviews of the iPhone all agree that one thing is missing: where is MMS and 3G?" said van Zanen. "It could be argued that in the USA, Apple’s primary market for the iPhone and the launch country, MMS is not popular enough to justify providing this service. However, the latest figures from Informa’s World Cellular Data Metrics Report, published in March this year, reveal that of the top six operators with most MMS traffic, four are actually US-based (Sprint Nextel, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile). Traffic growth amongst these operators is truly impressive, varying between 30% and 40% growth quarter-on-quarter, which works out at between 185% and 285% growth per year."

"This far outstrips Western Europe where the highest MMS growth rates are 26% quarter on quarter by T-Mobile UK and Telefonica. Given that MMS traffic is such a source of potential revenue growth, launching an iPhone-without-MMS means that these operators will be limiting their ability to maximise this revenue stream, potentially damaging the bottom line" said van Zanen.

Apple Religion

"The fact that it is impossible to send an MMS from an iPhone is no secret" said Strand, "adding that "anyone who has held an iPhone knows how difficult it is to send an SMS." This will make the phone much less attractive to mobile operators to promote when they find that most of their users ARPU is less than the minimum consumption.

In a report that compares the iPhone to Paris Hilton, Strand points out that being a serious player in the mobile phone industry is demanding. It's not just a tricky industry to crack; it is monumentally difficult.

Europe iPhone Revenue Deals

The FT says that the operators will officially to announce the partnerships at the IFA trade fair in Berlin at the end of August. The European version may include 3G.