A study which claimed that it takes twice as long to send a text message on Apple's iPhone than on other handsets has been branded "ridiculous" and "rubbish" by iPhone users.

Chicago-based usability consultancy User Centric said that its research showed that iPhone users could only compose text messages at half the speed achieved on a conventional Qwerty or numeric phone keyboard.

The study sparked outrage, with an online message from vnunet.com reader 'Ron' claiming that the research is "bull****".

"I have been using both JiveTalk and Mundu for the iPhone and I can text faster than I ever did on any of my prior PDA phones - the Treo 650 and the Verizon XV6700 - with slide-out keyboard," he said.

"The auto-correction feature makes it amazingly accurate and faster than with any other portable keyboard."

Reader 'Rick' pointed out that a girl who sent 30,000 text messages in one month, as she found when her 300 page AT&T bill arrived in the post, did not seem to have had a problem texting with the iPhone.

Another vnunet.com reader, 'Amanda', said that the iPhone was so easy to text on that "even my clumsy oaf of a network admin can text faster on the iPhone" and that the research was "just anti-iPhone bias".

Meanwhile, opinion was split over Apple's iconic device in the results of vnunet.com's online poll.

While 41 per cent of voters indicated that they would buy the device, 37 per cent wrote it off as "an overpriced pile of junk".

However, the number buying the phone would be boosted by a further 11 per cent if Apple fixed its initial teething problems.