One More Thing

Posted on 15 Jun 2009 at 16:58

 

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Current netbook keyboards are cramped to say the least, so has Apple got something up its sleeve that will give our fingers a break?

I feel, I'm afraid, a compelling urge to tell you about my fingers. They're very dear to me, and in conjunction with my thumb - which was used regularly to mimic The Fonz in the good old days - they're one of the crucial components in me getting a stream of garbled consciousness from my brain to a computer screen. I doubt right now you're particularly savouring the fact that they exist, but I persist nonetheless.

They've been through a lot have me and my digits, and as such, I do like to give them reasonable tools with which to work. It might be wise to point out here that this isn't deliberately trying to sound as dodgy as it probably does, so I'd best start talking about my keyboard before anyone gets the wrong idea. Sorry about that.

Apple, for my money, has got distracted in the past by occasionally favouring design at the expense of purpose (although it usually gets the balance right), and the keyboard that comes alongside the current range of iMacs is surely the first witness for the prosecution.

I've sat and listened to people who insist to me that, in spite of its appearance, it's surprisingly fine to type on, and I can't help but think they must have magic hands or something. I tried using one for several days solid, and found it as conducive to getting a regular flow of commands and inputs onto the screen as threading rusty nails through my fingertips.

I accept here that my complaint is as close to the cutting edge of technological debate as the later works of the Brotherhood of Man (as opposed to their earlier works, clearly). And yet it still bothers me. A keyboard, as computer hacks have banged on about for decades, is one of the most important component parts of a computer setup. After all, it's not the Tardis USB hub that'll have you sobbing your eyes out in front of your GP when your wrists feel like falling off (although show me the keyboard that makes the dematerialising sound when you push a button on it and you'll make me a happy man). As such, my ideal keyboards tend to be breezeblocks, with the kind of styling that would simply reduce Gok Wan to tears.

Which brings me, clumsily, to those Apple netbook rumours. Because for me the fundamental problem with netbooks to date is that the keyboards sported by such machines simply don't favour users like me. Apple COO Tim Cook politely describes them as 'cramped', and he's spot on. At times, I'm left wondering if netbooks are just laptops for The Borrowers, rather than the compact boxes of wonder they're often touted as.

But I still have hope, as what Apple could bring to the netbook market is fascinating. It's here where I get the most excited about Steve Jobs' empire. Because Apple is at its best not when it's exerting control freakery over its media operations, nor when it's selling me a sock in which to put my iPod. It's when it's innovating. And it's when it then levers its market clout to bring said innovations quickly to the likes of you and I.

And sometimes it doesn't have to be complex, either. An iPod that talks to you? That's beautifully simple, and a welcome step in helping to make technology genuinely for all.

The one that's got me the most interested though is the possibility of a touchscreen netbook machine. Could Apple do it? That's what's being rumoured, and it's certainly what I'm hoping for. Could it work? I've no idea, but I'm very keen to find out.