RIM's patent application for reconfigurable keypad

The beauty of the messaging beast known as the BlackBerry, is, of course, the lovely QWERTY pad layout and giant luscious screen. We have seen a goodly pile of patent applications from RIM in an effort to preserve said keyboard while potentially supplying a new twist on a fairly utilitarian (and a bit long in the tooth) design. This latest application sees your favorite handset fitted with keys in a "garage door" type layout, so if you only need a few keys for watching a video or wandering the interwebs, the extra keys just roll back into the handset's body. Apparently RIM may already know what Apple could discover next week: on screen keyboards can be pretty weak affairs, albeit much easier to keep clean.

[Via Unwired View]

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 21st 2007 1:36PM]

What a great idea. It may not be the most practical or durable approach, but its good to see people trying new ideas.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 21st 2007 7:26PM]

This is intriguing. I only hope that kb is not spring loaded and can be locked in place. Sounds like it would be cool feature.