Apple has a number of what some might think of as oddball design philosophies. One is their desire to rid the device world of all buttons. Their mouse started out with one button. Then, they hid that away in the nearly unusable (for me) Might Mouse. I tried it for a week since it came with my Mac and then put it away never to be seen again. They took the step of removing the keyboard entirely from the iPhone equation. And, this has been a major problem for people like me who would like to use a physical QWERTY keyboard to respond with email messages longer than a few finger pecked words or to write substantional notes.

Techweb reported that...

Apple Files Touchscreen-Related Patent Applications

This patent application has, among other things, feedback on screen keyboards in the form of vibration and audible noise. Personally, I don't want a noisy clicky iPhone. OK, sure this is probably adjustable and can be turned off. But, there goes that feedback if it is turned of. And, vibrations? Hmm. Although I'm guessing vibration will be dampened away from the screen itself, I can't help but wonder if this will also cause noise. And, it might be another source of draining the iPhone's battery.

It would be a lot easier if Apple would just add either a thumb keyboard model or the ability to use a Bluetooth keyboard. Even the Apple Newton has a physical keyboard accessory as an option.