17 ms·

Wow, I came to say the same thing; surprised to see this as the first comment! As far as I know, this keyboard was pioneered by Apple; I wonder if they were in

Wow, I came to say the same thing; surprised to see this as the first comment! As far as I know, this keyboard was pioneered by Apple; I wonder if they were inspired by or reused the “blob” experiment? It’s not necessarily that novel though; seems to a a natural evolution of the Japanese syllabary and the old multi-tap physical “10-key” keyboards.

Tijdreiziger 4y ago
The physical ones (on flip phones) were also 12-key (0-9, *, and #), so I suppose it was just swiping on the keys that was novel. It definitely does leave one to wonder whether that innovation was inspired by this prototype. Since we’re on the topic of input methods: I’ve always found the 8pen [1] fascinating. I sadly never had the opportunity to try it for myself, since I was using an iPhone rather than Android at the time (and it’s since been delisted). [1] https://youtu.be/q3OuCR0EpGo https://youtu.be/q3OuCR0EpGo
- aikinai 4y ago
  I can't believe you also mentioned 8pen! I almost made a comment about that as well, but had to run earlier. I was also fascinated by the idea when that launched and really wanted it to be successful. I also had an iPhone, but I convinced my Android friend to buy it and try it out. He gave it a good shot, but it's just so hard to build fluency with, it never really stood a chance. I still wonder if the idea is sound if it were possible for people to learn more fluently in a reasonable timeframe.
- vageli 4y ago
  There seems to be an alternative in 8vim keyboard (haven't used it though): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inc.flide.vi8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inc.flide.vi8 with the code available at https://github.com/flide/8VIM https://github.com/flide/8VIM
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    Wow, that’s interesting. Looks like the links on their GitHub page are dead, though, but I’ll give it a try anyway.

Tijdreiziger 4y ago

The physical ones (on flip phones) were also 12-key (0-9, *, and #), so I suppose it was just swiping on the keys that was novel. It definitely does leave one to wonder whether that innovation was inspired by this prototype. Since we’re on the topic of input methods: I’ve always found the 8pen [1] fascinating. I sadly never had the opportunity to try it for myself, since I was using an iPhone rather than Android at the time (and it’s since been delisted). [1] https://youtu.be/q3OuCR0EpGo https://youtu.be/q3OuCR0EpGo

aikinai 4y ago
I can't believe you also mentioned 8pen! I almost made a comment about that as well, but had to run earlier. I was also fascinated by the idea when that launched and really wanted it to be successful. I also had an iPhone, but I convinced my Android friend to buy it and try it out. He gave it a good shot, but it's just so hard to build fluency with, it never really stood a chance. I still wonder if the idea is sound if it were possible for people to learn more fluently in a reasonable timeframe.
vageli 4y ago
There seems to be an alternative in 8vim keyboard (haven't used it though): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inc.flide.vi8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inc.flide.vi8 with the code available at https://github.com/flide/8VIM https://github.com/flide/8VIM
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  Wow, that’s interesting. Looks like the links on their GitHub page are dead, though, but I’ll give it a try anyway.