Why files need to die: Clinging to outdated concepts stifles innovation. Consider the QWERTY keyboard. It was designed 133 years ago to slow down typists who were causing typewriter hammers to jam. The last typewriter factory in the world closed last month, and yet even the shiny new iPad 2 still uses the same layout. Creative alternatives like Dvorak and more recently Swype still struggle to compete with this deeply ingrained idea of how a keyboard should look.