The Problem With QWERTY Keyboards

QWERTY keyboards are great. The first time I got a phone with a QWERTY keyboard, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how fast I could type with just two thumbs. But here's the problem: Have you ever tried to dial a vanity phone # with it? If not, I challenge you to try it now. Go ahead. Dial 1-800-USA-RAIL or 1-800-JETBLUE.

Aha! There's no number over the letters! Go to push down the U and guess what happens - you get a U! And who in their right mind is going to sit there and count out which three letters go with each number? And what if it's an emergency? You're SOL!

So what's going to happen to vanity phone numbers going forward? Companies that spent so much money and effort on getting easily recognizable vanity phone numbers will now have to heavily advertise the numeric equivalent or they're going to have a lot of complaints from customers and a lot of missed calls.

In addition, I recently tried to access my office voicemail from my BlackBerry. The prompt first asked me to enter the pound or hash symbol and then input my 10-digit #. On the QWERTY keyboard, the # is the very first key, directly above the Q. I clicked on the shift button and hit the #, but it didn't work. The system kept telling me "5 is incorrect". So I am unable to access my office phone mail from outside the office. That is not cool.

I went to BlackBerry.com to try to find a phone number for customer service to get their thoughts on the subject, but I couldn't find one. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If anyone has any suggestions for how to handle these issues, please let me know.

Thanks.

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