I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with my new iPhone over the last week. The overall user experience is great, making the device a joy to use.
Not sure if you heard or not, but Apple touted several aspects of the phone as revolutionary, and managed to generate a bit of hype about the iPhone before its launch.

Even the keyboard garnered some attention. In the official Apple video on the iPhone keyboard - which describes its intelligence and elegance - the company tells us that the keyboard adjusts itself for the task at hand. When you browse the web, for example, “the space bar…has been replaced by special keys relevant to a web-based application…because you don’t use spaces in a URL.”

Interesting…and smart. But what are the “special keys” that magically appear when you go web surfing? Sadly, there is nothing revolutionary here. The company threw in a “dot” key (a period by another name), a forward slash key, and a “dot com” key.

Ho hum. Not extremely innovative…and quite disappointing, in my opinion.

I honestly expected more from Apple. I had hoped that the new keyboard would open new doors to mobile users, but, alas…we got the lowly “dot com” key. The company really missed the boat here.

It’s not to late, though. Apple could make a couple of simple changes to the iPhone keyboard that truly change the mobile computing experience.

How?

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It’s simple, really. The company should focus on the root purpose of the device - mobile computing - and tweak the keyboard to facilitate access to web content that mobile users will find useful and interesting.

First up, add a “dot mobi” key to the keyboard that automatically enters “.mobi” when users are entering a URL. It’s a mobile device, after all, and it should enable easy access to content specifically targeted to mobile users. As a side benefit, Apple could go down as the company that launched a zillion .mobi sites if it made this simple addition to the keyboard. Not a bad plaque to hang on the wall.

Second…add a “dot info” key that automatically enters “.info” when users are entering a URL. Information-based domains that have been built-out with custom content or that have relevant, targeted paid search results stand to become the goto source for quick answers on the web…and Apple, again, could be the company that launches a zillion sites.

At first blush, these two tweaks appear very similar. But, when you think about the users and uses of the top level domains involved, a clear distinction appears. While .mobi sites will be useful to users that are “out and about” (e.g., driving around town while traveling), .info sites will likely be attractive to users looking for specific reference-type information - think of an executive sitting in a business meeting who needs a quick ‘refresher’ on the finer points of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act…and then think of that executive entering “sarbanesoxley” on his iPhone keyboard and pressing that magical “dot info” key. Viola!

With these two tweaks, Apple could use the iPhone keyboard to establish itself as leaders for both groups.

I’m still hopeful that we’ll see these (and other) tweaks in upgrades to the iPhone software….hopefully soon.