Touch-Screen Antagonists Hone Their Insults

Apple has claimed a number of innovations for the iPhone. Add this: the emergence of antagonists to the touch-screen display. At C.E.S., it was common to hear their refrain.

“I’m a power e-mail user,” goes the mantra. “I need a physical keyboard.”

In rough terms, these users are advocates of the BlackBerry and other devices that have a traditional Qwerty keypad. The “power user” mantra isn’t an overt attack, more of a passive-aggressive one with a slightly disparaging tone that tends to make it sound as though touch-screen users are lightweights who occasionally send an e-mail message or text to their mothers.

Now, it should be noted that this language appears to be promulgated by the makers of devices with Qwerty keyboards, who are trying to defend their use. (And to be sure, there are iPhone users out there who have their own view of the world that suggests that anyone using a device not made by Apple must have been dropped on the head as a child by Bill Gates.)

All that said, a spokeswoman for Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, did say to me without prompting at C.E.S. that the iPhone has been great for the overall market by propelling the idea that consumers — not just corporate users — want and need higher functioning devices.

One other note about emerging epithets. The mobile device industry has succeeded in popularizing the term “smartphone.” The spokeswoman for RIM noted also that the world is moving away from “dumbphones.” Expect to hear more of that one: the disparaging of phones that serve primarily as, well, phones. Oh, the shame.