The keyboard on the iPhone and the iPod Touch is simply too small and a little too imperfect for people, like me, with stumpy, clumsy fingers. Happily, there is a remedy--as Dan Frakes discovered in his look at , a number of third-party developers have created e-mail add-ons that provide a landscape keyboard for typing out messages.
This week's initial review of a half-dozen of these wide-format e-mail apps was certainly comprehensive, but it didn't address every option. We're continuing to look at these kinds of apps to assess which ones deserve your attention. I'd like to weigh in with my favorite--Firemail, a free app that's particularly useful for those of us with ham-hands, butterfingers or both.
Firemail has three key features. To compose a new e-mail, simply launch the app and start typing. When you're ready to send, tap the action button on the left side of the screen. A window will pop up giving you the choice to send the note to Mail or save it as a bookmark. Sending to Mail will automatically launch the main e-mail app, where you can then add recipients and fire the message away.
To reply to an e-mail, hit reply in Mail and then launch Firemail, which helpfully saves your e-mail text if you need to hit the Home button or take a phone call.
Firemail's interface is clean, and its keyboard comfortable. I make mercifully fewer mistakes with it, and I do tap out my e-mails much faster now.