Of course you can do that. In a quiet room with no distractions with unlimited time. But what if you are in a hurry, you get interrupted, or the WPA key is very long?

I swear there was this one WPA key that was many digits long and I literally tried entering it (unsuccessfully) on three separate occasions, and only got it to work on the fourth day. Admittedly, each day I tried it was only because I was stopping by the office for a minute to pick someone up. I had the key and wanted to check my email real quick while I waited for the passenger to get their stuff together. But each time, I had at least a few minutes, which should have been plenty to punch in a WPA key, even a long one.

For the laptop? Check the "show characters" box. Paste the key from the file I had, or type it in from a piece of paper. Done in seconds. iPhone? A few minutes' attempt each on four different days, and only on the fourth day was I successful.

You guys all talk like it's easy. Fine, you try it. Generate a random hexadecimal number that is 26 ascii characters long. Make sure all of the letters in it are upper case. Make that your router's WPA key. Write it down on a piece of paper. Now try punching that into an iPhone's WPA key field without making a mistake. Remember, the letters are case sensitive.

Sure you can do it, but after you're successful, note just how long it took you, how many attempts you made, and how much concentration it took to accomplish. Did you have to be in a quiet room with no one bothering you? Did you get distracted by anything? Did you ever have to stop and then count how many dots were on the screen and then count the letters on your piece of paper?

Now, try entering that same number into the iPhone's "notepad" applet, where you can see what you're typing as you do it. Sure, it's a pain, but not nearly as much of a pain as it was when the characters were hidden.