When I looked over at the two gentlemen sitting next to me at the Smartphone Summit, a conference just before the CTIA Wireless 2007 fall show, I could tell exactly what they were doing by the way they were moving their hands. They each had small, polished looking devices, a sort of cross between a PDA and a handheld video game unit, and they were tilting the device right and left, up and down. On screen, I could see cursors moving, icons being selected. On stage, there were no surprises, and little innovation. I slipped one of the gents my card and asked to meet him later. The device they showed me was amazing, a little unpolished, but packed to the gills with innovation
What is Keynetik?
Keynetik is a user interface. It is also a device, and the name of the company that invented both. The user interface relies on the motion input, two joysticks and four buttons of the prototype device. It couldn't be more intuitive. To move the cursor up, tilt the device back. To move to the left, tilt the device left. The main menu screen is three columns and four rows, and each row corresponds to a button. Tilt left, press the top button, and you've selected the upper-left hand icon. Or, you can use the joystick. Either joystick, in fact, because the device is ambidextrous.
The prototype device is pretty much a rebuilt Windows Mobile phone, and it might be easy to dismiss Keynetik's product as an overlay on top of Windows Mobile, much like HTC fitted their TouchFLO technology for the HTC Touch. Unlike the Touch, however, the Keynetik device works well, and feels brand new. Talking with Mark Shkolnikov, the company President, I realized just how much innovation had gone into the Keynetik device as he discussed the litany of problems they had already solved, problems that hadn't even occurred to me.
Problems like: what happens to a motion-sensitive device when you swing your arm around? or how does the device react when your hand is tilted at an unusual angle? The most amazing thing about Keynetik is the level of innovation going on. It's the sort of thing you read about in a Wired magazine retrospective of Apple, or Hewlett Packard, how they started with two guys in a garage. I'm not sure if Keynetik operates out of a garage, but it has that sort of feeling, of out-of-the-box thinking and solving problems that the rest of the world didn't realize were problems.
More than skin deep
The device goes well beyond a menu system, though most of what I saw was for demonstration purposes. The phone had a nice calling screen, making excellent use of the motion sensor and button layout. Scrolling through artists in a musical track list was similarly pleasant. In fact, there was plenty of fun to be had, and using the Keynetik prototype had the same sort of feeling that the iPhone gave me. It was fun. It was new, but very intuitive. It was also polished, and though many of the graphics on the prototype were liberally borrowed from other manufacturers, the layouts and structures of the menu system were very well designed.
The hardware could use some polishing, but there are real innovations there as well. The dual-joystick design isn't just to make the phone ambidextrous, it also means that games or other apps could be controlled with two sticks. Our biggest complaints about mobile gaming is the lack of an acceptable control scheme, but Keynetik has added dual sticks and shoulder buttons, and I like the potential.
I also like the one-handedness of the device. The buttons that correspond to your fingers were very easy to find and use without searching for them. It was a device you could easily grab without looking, and flip to a contact without having to take your attention off the road, for instance. Dialing a number, or typing a name for that matter, was more complicated, but Keynetik has interesting ideas in place, similar to their method for navigating the three by four grid on their menu.
Where can I buy one?
I don't think Keynetik should sell a device like their prototype. It's a bit unusual looking for the U.S. carriers, and perhaps even the U.S. market. But the device's shell is the least important aspect. Instead, I'd like to see Keynetik license their technology to a major manufacturer, because there are plenty of phones that could benefit. Most companies are looking at the iPhone and trying to compete by launching new touch screen devices. We like the Keynetik prototype because it innovates in an entirely new way. Motion tracking and sensitivity could be every bit as important to the mobile market in the future as touch sensitivity; perhaps more so, as motion tracking is easier to use one-handed, on the go.
In the end, Keynetik is a victim of what's wrong with the American phone market. The device is interesting and refreshing, but there is no way for Keynetik to bring it to market without help from a major manufacturer, who in turn would need approval from a major carrier. Between the motion sensors, the dual-joysticks, the intuitive new interface and the comfortable, ergonomic button design, there's a lot of innovation here, and Keynetik definitely deserves a chance. Hopefully, like I did, someone will take notice.
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