Andrew Kantor's Place: I Think It’s Gonna Croak

I Think It’s Gonna Croak

Published 11/17/03

Couldn’t resist a bad and overused pun.

Comes now FrogPad, a Houston-based company that’s now selling a 20-key keyboard. The idea is that users of PDAs and other small devices will find this a lot easier to use than thumb keyboards, handwriting “recognition,” or on-screen keyboards.

Uh-huh.

According to the company, “The key layout is optimized both around the most frequently used keys and around the strongest fingers of the hand.”

In other words, it’s an entirely different keyboard layout you have to learn. But it’s optimized! Feh. So’s the Dvorak keyboard, but you don’t see people flocking to them. (Yes, yes, there are dozens of happy Dvorak users out there.)

The FrogPad folks are falling into a tired old trap: The idea that something “better” will attract users from something familiar. It won’t, and this little product won’t go anywhere. Watch.

The Fray

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