A Tale of Two Soft Keyboards: iPhone vs. Android

keytapKeyboards are intensely personal, whether real (physical) or soft (virtual) in nature. Give a keyboard to a group of people and there will be those who love it, no matter what it is, and those who hate it. There will rarely be those who fall in the middle. The personal nature of keyboards is even more pronounced with soft keyboards, due to the incomplete nature of them. They typically are used on small touch screens, which makes them very open to personal impressions of using them. It is rare that we get to see a detailed user comparison of two different soft keyboards, until now.

The iPhone has a soft keyboard that has been praised and condemned repeatedly. It was the first phone soft keyboard to attempt to make the experience easier than those that came before. The Android platform made a big deal of the physical keyboard on the original G1, only to find users later demand a soft version. The current version of the Android OS includes a soft keyboard, and just like the iPhone keyboard, there are lovers and haters.

Lukas Mathis of Ignore the Code did a thorough comparison using these two different soft keyboards. He analyzed many different attributes of the keyboards, from size to speed, and he’s captured the feel of them both admirably. Those who are curious about how the two compare need to take a look at his analysis. He does a great job breaking down what is important about each keyboard, and his size comparisons are eye-opening.

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