14 DAY TRIAL // The touchscreen craze has hit Sony Ericsson too. The company has used this technology in some of its previous phone models before, but it looks like they are now looking deeper into its potential. A patent for a programmable touchscreen keypad has been filed and approved, although it's still nothingmore than a mere concept.
Sony Ericsson looks like a company full of ideas, if considering its large number of interesting concepts. Still, only few of them ever make it to the real world, often under a highly different form than that they had in the original patents. The new one, for a "programmable keypad", enables the user to reconfigure its touchscreen-based keypad.
The touchscreen changes on account of the current function that the mobile phone meets, whether it's about making a phone call, inputing text, editing contacts or connecting to an application. This makes the phone keep the classic design of older phone models, although it has a full touch sensitive screen that has become so popular now.
It looks like the handset producer sees the touchscreen's functionality a bit different than Apple, although it is drawn by its possibilities too. Sony Ericsson wants to turn the keypad into a supplemental display, rather than making the screen interact with the user as it does at this time.
This type of screens was not all that popular until the arrival of the iPhone. Since Apple's phone was announced, handset producers have crammed for bringing their own adaptation of the mobile phone that has appealed to so many people. It was just about time for Sony Ericsson to join the crowd, as all other leading producers already have big plans with this technology. The company has used touchscreens in its handsets before, but this patent is also innovative, although definitely not a sure thing to come.