Is the iPhone stunting mobile phone R & D?

A few weeks ago, a colleague and I were talking about the iPhone and postulating about the catalyst to its touch-based approach.  For starters,  I think the company was considering adding phone functionality to to the iPod.  With that in mind, I imagine that one day, Steve Jobs was browsing the web on his phone and became frustrated with the experience: small screens, super slow load times, improper page rendering (if pages even load at all), and painful navigation.  He challenged a design team to improve the experience, and the first piece of the puzzle was to somehow increase the screen size without significantly increasing the phone size.  With a bigger screen, more of a web page obviously would fit on the screen.  But, what about scrolling and clicking on links and buttons?  Those tasks can be awkward or inefficient when using a directional pad or some other type of control.  But what if the screen became the input device?  Well, the rest is history…

On the other hand, my colleague believes that Apple intentionally set out to design a device based around a touch screen because, unlike a fixed keypad, a touch screen’s controls can morph based on the application.  If you’re using a phone, the screen displays a number pad.  If you’re messaging, the screen displays a keypad.  If you’re browsing the web, the screen displays browser controls.  If you’re playing a game, the screen displays controls customized for the game.  The phone’s screen is a shape-shifter, allowing the device to morph into a phone, an internet browser, a gaming device, etc.

I found that theory pretty interesting.  My colleague’s a hardcore Apple fan, so might he be giving Apple a little too much credit?  After all, before the iPhone, Apple didn’t show much commitment to touch screens.  Apple remains one of the only major notebook manufacturers without a tablet model.  And wouldn’t the iPod, a device that could benefit from touch-based controls, have been an obvious candidate for a touch screen makeover long before the iPhone came around? 

Who knows.  I suppose I could do some digging to see if I can find out the history of iPhone’s design.  But, I’m not really concerned about that.  I’m more interested in how the iPhone has been a disruptive technology causing a flood of touch-based phones to hit the scene.  Every touch-based smart phone is inevitably compared to the iPhone, and analysts began writing off stalwarts like RIM and Palm with every month that went by in which they didn’t have a serious competitor.  Same goes for Microsoft and the delays around the more touch-friendly Windows Mobile 7.  And we all saw the hype around Google’s entrance into the market, though that seems to have died down given that apparently no manufacturers displayed Android-based phones at the Mobile World Congress (guess the analysts were wrong). 

What I worry about, though, is whether touch screens are unintentionally stunting further innovation in mobile input technology.  Don’t get me wrong, touch-based phones certainly are innovative and have a lot of benefits.  But while the technology lends itself to improved web browsing and multimedia functions, it’s not as adept at core phone functions like calling and messaging.  Because the interface isn’t designed around a particular function, it ends up having a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-nothing effect.  I don’t think touch screens are a fad, but I’m not the only one who questions whether they are the be-all-end-all input method (see here and here).  There are interesting alternatives.  But as manufacturers continue chasing after Apple and the iPhone, I worry that R & D around other input technologies will move at a molasses-like speed until touch screen hype fades and touch-based devices become status quo.

In a follow-up article, I challenge whether touch screen technology really is a step forward based on observations as well as my own experiences with a touch screen phone, an HTC Touch Diamond that I’ve been using for several months.  In the meantime, what do you think about touch screen phones?

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