Messages from iPhones Have More Typos

Pete Mortensen ()


Despite videos that claim fast iPhone typing is easy, a recent study by a usability group concludes that iPhone users make lots of typos when writing on the device. According to User Centric, iPhone text messages average 5.1 errors, or more than twice the average of mistakes made by people using full keyboard or keypad phones.

Every bit as fast, but slightly more error-prone. It’s the iPhone way.

Via Slashdot

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About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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Posted in iPhone |

  • John

    Very dodgy study. Look at the details. Dismiss as FUD.

    I wonder who paid for it?

    My personal experience – as someone who can type pretty fast on a normal computer keyboard – is that the iPhone keypad is considerably faster and less error prone than my old RAZR predictive text keypad.

    And my sample size of 1 is almost as statistically significant as that used in the Centric study (20).

  • John

    User Centric’s clients include Verizon, LG, Motorola and Microsoft.

    But not Apple.

  • infoshaman

    My 15-year-old daughter owns an iPhone. Even before she owned it, she was a lousy speller. Her iPhone has become her excuse…or enabler.

  • Nick

    I do not understand how people can be lousy typers with the iPhone. I think i average one typo every few days just because I am in a rush. Other wise, the phone corrects your typing for you. I It really doesnt get any easier.

  • Thomas

    I can type at the speed displayed in the video with perfect accuracy, it’s when I try about double that I begin to see an occasional mistake. Big deal, if I’m in a rush, I don’t mind.

  • Steve

    I don’t bveilee any of tihs. I’m wintrig tihs cmmeont on my iPnhoe rhgit now, and I’m cdennofit I won’t mkae any tpyo.

  • Calvin Chestnut

    I have no problems spelling with my iPhone. The spell check corrects everything thrown at it. In fact, because using my iPhone will automatically produce all correct punctuation and capitalization, i prefer typing on my phone than my computer. When I see I have a new email on my desktop i unhook my iPhone, reply to the message, and plug it right back in. No problems at all

  • http://awarmgun.net/ Ian Adams

    It could also be that the participants in the study didn’t know how to touch-type on a normal QWERTY keyboard. I wrote a story treatment in Notes on my iPhone. Printed out, it was around 12 pages. Two-thumbed typing was really fast, and very few errors after it learned some of the foreign words I was using. So based on my own experience, I would say this story is bunk.

  • http://www.gearsandwidgets.com/ phoenix

    Ouch – John makes a compelling point. Be very careful whose money pays for that “market research.”