Haptic 5

12-key cellphones (ie, flip phones) are rapidly fading into antiquity. They are being slowly phased out of production and quickly out of the public eye in favor of QWERTY and touchscreen devices. While I'm far more in favor of touchscreen over 12-key, I do miss the ability to pound out a text message in my pocket or under my desk by feel. See, most 12-key phones have a raised bump on the #5, to aid the visually impaired in finding the other, adjacent, keys. I used this feature to be really sneaky at work and at gatherings with relatives... heh heh heh. While some physical QWERTY keypads retained this infinitely useful feature, sadly, this kind of tactile feedback isn't available with touchscreen phones, even those with simulated 12-key dial pads. What I would like is the option to enable haptic feedback on just the central key on virtual 12-key keypads, and the "f" and "j" keys on virtual QWERTYs, to simulate the raised bumps on physical keypads. That is all.

With creative application of proximity sensor technology (such as that used to lock the touchscreen when it nears your face while on a call, and automatically light up the screen when you pull it away from your face) it should be possible to deliver a subtle vibration when your finger hovers over a certain part of the keyboard. So you wave your thumb or forefinger over the keyboard until the phone vibes gently, then you have your bearing and know where the other keys are.

(for those who don't know what haptic feedback is, I've provided a link to a Wikipedia article)