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> Webserver. I found a built-in webserver, so I can pull photos/etc. off my phone even if I don't have my USB. There are other ways to do this, but it suits me

by adbge 16y ago

> Webserver. I found a built-in webserver, so I can pull photos/etc. off my phone even if I don't have my USB. There are other ways to do this, but it suits me particularly well. I had no idea this kind of functionality existed. As an iPhone owner, I'm envious. I'm curious about your experience with Swype. I've read a little about it and I'm wondering: do you think Swype obsoletes the traditional advantage hardware keyboards have over software ones?

trjordan 16y ago
I love Swype. It's unclear to me that I'm actually faster at this point, but I downloaded a speed test app -- I clocked myself at 47 wpm in one run, 100% accuracy. Cherry-picking the best number, to be sure, but still. More importantly, it felt like the switch from button-mashing to T9. Swype is the way typing on a touchscreen should work: gestures that know what you want. So many of the brilliant idioms popularized by the iPhone (pinch zoom, left/right swipe to get between screens) are, in my opinion, why touch screens work at all for a phone. Buttons are unsatisfying due to the lack of tactile feedback; gestures feel natural and expressive. Given all that, making gestures the way you enter text makes me that much happier using the phone for typing at all. To answer your question: Swype is in no way a replacement for a traditional keyboard. It's a language entry tool, and it's as useless as the stock iPhone/Android keyboard for things like keyboard shortcuts and arbitrary strings. As far as I can tell, I'll never move to a touchscreen keyboard for regular work because it's such an efficient interaction tool (if you live in tools like emacs/vim/command line like me). Swype actually limits the overall universe of your input[1], but it makes the common mode of language very easy. Short answer: no, Swype doesn't try or succeed in replacing hardware keyboards. Now that you've got me thinking about it, though, a full-sized Swype keyboard set up with better modified key support and a dictionary that included keyboard shortcuts in the app you were working in would be pretty great. Take vim: all those 2-4 letter combinations you type all the time would be available to you, and you could apply heuristics based on your document to help fill in more free-form keys like find-replace strings. You could even find ways to structure the shortcuts around easy directions, essentially re-inventing keyboard shortcuts as well-placed single swipes of a finger. Somebody with more time than I have now could work that into a neat proof of concept. [1]I mean, you can still use it like the stock keyboard, but that's not the kind of interaction I'm talking about.
- Qupolle 16y ago
  Also thought I would mention SlideIT, which is a replacement keyboard similar to Swype and is available already for Windows Mobile Symbian and Android as a free trial and a paid app. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkRaoIw8Io http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkRaoIw8Io

by adbge 16y ago

trjordan 16y ago

I love Swype. It's unclear to me that I'm actually faster at this point, but I downloaded a speed test app -- I clocked myself at 47 wpm in one run, 100% accuracy. Cherry-picking the best number, to be sure, but still. More importantly, it felt like the switch from button-mashing to T9. Swype is the way typing on a touchscreen should work: gestures that know what you want. So many of the brilliant idioms popularized by the iPhone (pinch zoom, left/right swipe to get between screens) are, in my opinion, why touch screens work at all for a phone. Buttons are unsatisfying due to the lack of tactile feedback; gestures feel natural and expressive. Given all that, making gestures the way you enter text makes me that much happier using the phone for typing at all. To answer your question: Swype is in no way a replacement for a traditional keyboard. It's a language entry tool, and it's as useless as the stock iPhone/Android keyboard for things like keyboard shortcuts and arbitrary strings. As far as I can tell, I'll never move to a touchscreen keyboard for regular work because it's such an efficient interaction tool (if you live in tools like emacs/vim/command line like me). Swype actually limits the overall universe of your input[1], but it makes the common mode of language very easy. Short answer: no, Swype doesn't try or succeed in replacing hardware keyboards. Now that you've got me thinking about it, though, a full-sized Swype keyboard set up with better modified key support and a dictionary that included keyboard shortcuts in the app you were working in would be pretty great. Take vim: all those 2-4 letter combinations you type all the time would be available to you, and you could apply heuristics based on your document to help fill in more free-form keys like find-replace strings. You could even find ways to structure the shortcuts around easy directions, essentially re-inventing keyboard shortcuts as well-placed single swipes of a finger. Somebody with more time than I have now could work that into a neat proof of concept. [1]I mean, you can still use it like the stock keyboard, but that's not the kind of interaction I'm talking about.

Qupolle 16y ago
Also thought I would mention SlideIT, which is a replacement keyboard similar to Swype and is available already for Windows Mobile Symbian and Android as a free trial and a paid app. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkRaoIw8Io http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkRaoIw8Io