Well

I know this may sound a little harsh but ... that's specifically why my talk at last summit was "We are not the users".

If Maemo4 devices, only tablets, attracted a fair amount of non-technical, already non-power users, now Maemo5 with phone features will attract massive amounts of users ( And I truly believe that, as well I believe that's Nokia's main target right).

So, While it's ok to share and gather data from the community, specially such a high standards one like Maemo, it's really risky to justify / lock features based on that.

For those who have used fully virtual keyboards (with fingers) and are fine with that (Millions of users) Specially because of the opposite pointed here (It uses screen space, but saves physical dimensions) It's simply one of the most annoying things to have to rotate the Device to perform a type.

Android phone 01 was an example of that. No surprise how much people cried over the virtual keyboard. It was really plain boring to be using the home screen, clicking on the Google search widget and nothing happened... you need to slide up, go from 1 hand to 2 hands and then type.

While most of guys here will think this is a small detail, dumb perception or whatever, This really gets annoying with the use, and special data will always have it's "optimus" orientation:

Browsing through list of contents (Contacts, Music, etc) will always be more effective in portrait, While (like Quim Gil pointed out) Browsing will be more effective on landscape. What is clear is that Nokia made a design decision : Landscape. Specially because of the input. To Hack now portrait mode, will immediately call for the portrait virtual keyboard, so this decision not only saves time, but also simplify a lot of stuff (who used Android, nows about dialogs being crippled when not designed for both resolutions, widgets running wild)

Well we can go all night, so I will resume :

don't simply justify by using

"What's the problem of turning the phone to type"

Because this is and will be proven by the real END users out there, REALLY annoying.


Once the device is out, this will be one (if not THE) loudest cries ever. Be prepared.

my 2 (or 200?) cents

*hoping to replace this N97 for the N900 soon, and get pissed of with the need to rotate and use to hands to type But as a linux device would ask for it... I will probably get a friend here in the office to do a virtual keyboard on portrait, to increase my love for my future favorite device