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As I loudly and frequently observe, Graffiti still beats the pants off of modern touchscreen keyboards, especially if you want to type anything with punctuation

As I loudly and frequently observe, Graffiti still beats the pants off of modern touchscreen keyboards, especially if you want to type anything with punctuation. (Like code, for example.) PalmOS also doesn't get enough credit for an amazingly "discoverable" UI. I've used an iPod Touch and an iPhone for over a year, and learning to do things like organizing app folders, deleting apps and how to show play time indicators in iTunes took a ton of frustrating trial and error. I still have no idea how to select text reliably, let alone copy and paste. Most of the time, I have no idea in advance if tapping on something will show more information, move to a different screen or start dialing a number. On a Palm, every dialog has a help icon that provides detailed explanations. UI widgets are simple, consistently applied and convey exactly one meaning. The menu is always a tap away. PalmOS doesn't look flashy, but it's tasteful. If you ask me, new devices have become much prettier, gained better battery life and obtained faster CPUs, but we've slid backwards substantially in usability.

Osiris 15y ago
There is a Graffiti keyboard available on Android.
- moylan 15y ago
  but the stylus available for android and iphones are horrible (at least the 2-3 i've tried). my sharp zaurus had a neat learning mode which allowed me to teach it graffiti. one of the main reasons i gave up palm (had a iiix, iiic, visor neo, m125 and palm e) was when they moved to graffiti 2 due to the lawsuit as it's accuracy was less no matter how much time i spent with it.
gryph0n 15y ago
Yes, the PalmOS UI was very good. I think the Palm team really asked themselves 'What would be a good interface for a handheld device?' In contrast, their competition at that time was Microsoft PocketPC. MS just had a terrible UI. It looked like they had shoe-horned the desktop UI onto a tiny device. I mean, 'Start' button on a handheld device ?? It might have been comforting to 'enterprise' customers to have a familiar interface, but it just sucked compared to the elegant PalmOS UI which looked like it had been designed for a tiny screen.

Osiris 15y ago

There is a Graffiti keyboard available on Android.

moylan 15y ago
but the stylus available for android and iphones are horrible (at least the 2-3 i've tried). my sharp zaurus had a neat learning mode which allowed me to teach it graffiti. one of the main reasons i gave up palm (had a iiix, iiic, visor neo, m125 and palm e) was when they moved to graffiti 2 due to the lawsuit as it's accuracy was less no matter how much time i spent with it.

gryph0n 15y ago

Yes, the PalmOS UI was very good. I think the Palm team really asked themselves 'What would be a good interface for a handheld device?' In contrast, their competition at that time was Microsoft PocketPC. MS just had a terrible UI. It looked like they had shoe-horned the desktop UI onto a tiny device. I mean, 'Start' button on a handheld device ?? It might have been comforting to 'enterprise' customers to have a familiar interface, but it just sucked compared to the elegant PalmOS UI which looked like it had been designed for a tiny screen.